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These are more dynamic and have more control for certain types of cloth control. Cloth sim has it's functionality but it's different then what these provide. Did you get a chance to look at them?
Hey Joe. That link had some good stuff in it, but didn't go anywhere near the problem I'm having. I'm not having a random blue-screen as described at that URL. I have a crash of the app, and it's not random. It happens every time I launch it. The /-D switch shows "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION". No additional detail about "which" exception, or "which" access violation. That's a useless message to anybody who hasn't read the code. I need more detail so that I can dig deeper.
A reinstall is out of the question right now; I'd be here for a month reinstalling software and there would be no guarantee that it would fix this.
Besides, everything else is working correctly, so I don't have confidence in reinstalling.
What is unique about Blender that makes Blender the only thing that doesn't work correctly?
Is there any way I can put a trace on it to actually get useful diagnostic information at crash time?
Is there another site I can consult...that other one was about BSODs, which I don't have.
I can't look at displacement stuff for wrinkles. I just can't. It's against every fiber of my being
I'm so spoiled with VWD, where you can insert a force field or wind and in real time adjust how the clothing hangs and the wrinkles and stuff. It's just too easy and natural.
And the day they put real-time, GPU cloth sims into D|S so we never again need conforming clothing I'll be in heaven
First guess would be some sort of video card beta drivers or experimental Blender addons or extensions after than.
I would look but my pC won't do DirectX 11.
No Blender add-ons, and I'm using the most current Nvidia driver from 6/30. The funny thing is, I'm using the same on a 6 year old laptop and that works. I have tried completely removing Blender and reinstalling, also installing several different versions (most recently 2.76b), all to no avail.
I've also investigated my setup, and right now I'm considering removal of most of my startup tasks. But on a system that has been in service for nearly 10 years (since Windows 7), this is a tedious process and so far fruitless as well. This is why I'm looking for a way to run a trace, or run Blender with some form of verbose logging. I'm not a Java or Python expert, but I can read strategic displays and take direction from those. If only I could see the calls and functions that Blender is making during startup, right up until it crashes. I'll bet it's something in the last 2 instructions executed.
That's very odd. Blender is the one program that's never given me trouble. The closest I've gotten to trouble with Blender is trying out the nightly build to try Blender 2.8 Alpha and it refuses to run because my GPU does not support at least openGL 3.3 (which is pretty old now in computer terms).
My desktop has a couple of GTX 980s. The laptop is using an old GTX 460 mobile.
Looking at GPU config now....
crosspost, forum didn't update properly on my end
These types of errors aren't just system wide or random blue screen errors. I realize that's what the article is addressing, but they can also get triggered by a specific program since an issue like the ones described here might not show up until a particular function in the code is called for instance, which might only be called by a given program, or even a given program running under a particular configuration. So, basically what I'm saying is that all of the information it's giving you is still applicable to your particular problem. As to a trace, that is quite low level. One would pretty much have to run the startup in debug mode if trying to trace at the application level.
There are some tools that might give you insight however, such as Process Explorer and other tools by sysinternals.
[edit] Windows also has a tool called Event Viewer which might help you troubleshoot the issue but you might have to do a bit of research and playing around to figure out how to set up monitoring for your particular situation and getting back useful information. (Specifically, check Windows Logs\application.)
Finally, Windows incorporated the Bash shell supposedly in the previous summer upgrade. I haven't played with it but, calling Blender through that might give some options for monitor & control.
Multiple GPUs are definately a potential area of trouble. Check Event Viewer hardware section along with the software area.
Actually, you can go to task manager/startup and simply disable anything that might be suspect and reboot. If there's no change, you can set those items back to their previous setting. It should be a relatively quick check. You might want to document any changes you make however just to make sure you set it back to the same as it was. Personally, I preferred the look of the old msconfig version.
The only time I've had similar problem was when SW was trying to access hardware without the appropriate permissions. In my case it was actually the touch screen control driver permsions had changed between Windows 7 and Windows 8 and Asus dropped support for their EP121 Tablet meaning they left me high & dry. In short Windows 8 apps wanted and expected Windows 8 permissions for my HW but the driver was Windows 7 driver and had Windows 7 permissions instead.
Hi again and thanks for all the ideas.
I've been using the Windows Event Viewer ever since I discovered this problem about a week ago. No suspicious events have shown up anywhere. I've even gone so far as to clear all of the logs and then invoke Blender and then review ALL event log entries. Everything stands out against a backdrop of nothing, and I figured then I might see any clues that were sort of nondescript or otherwise benign looking in the normal flow of events. But still nothing.
I can't imagine that dual graphic cards would be an issue with Blender. The Blender Foundation surely knows that there are MANY graphic artists who, as a matter of course for their business, employ mulitple cards for massively parallel renders. In fact, there are entire rendering houses that base their whole businesses on being able to do this. Maybe there's something wrong with my configuration, yes. But the presence of more than one card, all by itself, can't be the root cause here. Besides, I used to run Blender on this machine and it has ALWAYS had these two GTX 980s.
I went and got Process Explorer; thanks for that tip! Finally, now I have another clue; albiet a minor one. When trying to start Blender 2.76b, Blender.exe kicks off CONHOST (the Command Prompt window; aka "Console Host") and then Blender-app.exe tries to run. Both terminate. When trying to run Blender 2.78c, then only Blender.exe and Conhost try to run, then they terminate. Makes sense, Blender-app doesn't exist in the latest version. But even these clues aren't all that helpful. Of course Conhost runs and terminates; I can see that on the screen.
At this point, I think I need to find some code geeks who know what stuff happens (and what stuff is supposed to happen) when you start Blender in a Windows 10 system. Most of the sites out there seem to be "Blender skills" related, and not so much experts with the "operational nature" of the program. Again, I'm sure there's a diagnosable root cause here. I have to be willing to try, because wiping and reinstalling Windows for just this one single app is not justifiable for this machine, particularly since there's no guarantee that it will allow Blender to run. Any suggestions?
Oh, and I just thought of another possible testing option. Would it be feasible to set myself up with a "Windows to Go" installation and then try to see if Blender will launch? I'm thinking along the lines of setting up the equivalent of a "Live Disc", except that it would be for Windows 10 rather than Linux. Thoughts on that?
Beautiful shader; great video. Good PBR information in general.
Yes, and they have multiple full time (very qualified system/programming) engineers to keep thos render farms running. That's not really related to your situation. Not to be contrary but rather just trying to keep things in perspective.
The reason Apple is able to run more efficiently and troublefree is that they run in a tightly confined hardware environment. In the Windows (and Linux) environment, the huge variety of hardware and software configurations make keeping issues like this from creeping up a nightmare. It's surprising Windows, Linux, and Android are able to do it at all. (Not being an Apple fanboy here, I mostly run Windows/Linux/Android for various reasons, but for a given level of (higher priced) hardware this is true.)
Don't know if you forgot to mention this or I missed it. This is a key piece that would have reshaped some of this discussion. I appologize if I missed it.
When did you dl 2.78c? It was marked as unstable when it first came out. They had it as a daily build, telling people to dl 2.78a as the stable release. If it was a while ago, try downloading it again to see if that helps.
I used to troublehoot these exact types of problems years ago. It really can't be done remotely after a certain point. A given tech has to get his/her hands into it, as we can see things when personally working on something we can't notice remotely. But...
I can offer you a next step. Get a separate hard drive, Load a base version of Windows 10 (nothing else,) with one video card installed and your working drive on the shelf. Boot from this temp drive, install Blender, then install Windows updates, the second video card, and build out your system (step-by-step) from there to see where the problem starts. But before all of that, I would download 2.78c again if you haven't within the last few days and try that.
Good luck.
Kind of hard to understand the point if not even looking at it :p
But, you are in luck. Improvements in the Cloth Simulator expected during the 2.78 series will cover pretty much what these previously mentioned techniques and add-on did. They will still have function in some people's pipeline for reasons mentioned but perhaps a little less. The thing with the cloth simulator is that you still have to set settings, run the simulator and for a still shot, sort through the results for one that might work for your purposes, sometimes doing it multiple times for a particular result, whereas these previously mentioned techniques, while more limited in scope, allow more direct manipulation. Anyways, I think if you look at the 2.78 (coming soon) improvements you will be happy. :)
Take a look at videos 3-5 in the link above, they show some of the results the previously mentioned techniques help with that the Cloth Simulator has trouble with.
First step when you want to track that type of issue is to know what has been done before the problem.
If nothing has been done then you can begin to verify the disk with checkdisk and also check that you have correct permissions in all needed directory. Also check your system disk, since a needed dll may be corrupt. Also check all the temp directories and eventually empty them as well as any place the program may need to read or write (C:\temp; c:\windows\temp ; C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp )
Check your system files https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929833/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system
You can also capture blender startup by doing the following :
1°/ Open a command prompt
2°/ Navigate to your blender dir
3°/ type "blender.exe --debug > Startup.log" then press enter.
blender should start and write every events in the file Startup.log that you can later investigate
There are many debug command line options for startup https://docs.blender.org/manual/ja/dev/advanced/command_line/arguments.html
Other thing to try :
- Blender writes files in C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation. You may rename that folder to see if it starts with fresh settings
- Create a new user and try to open blender after logging with that user to see if your user profile is not corrupted
- just plug one output monitor https://developer.blender.org/T45763
- As you have Win 10, you may try to run it as a Docker app https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Jbakker/Blender_docker
That's some nice improvements to the Blender cloth sim. Usually I only use Blender cloth sim for making props/objects that I want to shape dynamically (ie, real life wrinkles under gravity like clothing and other cloth-based objects), and then export to D|S. Otherwise I much prefer to use VWD in D|S to drape directly on the character.
My biggest problem with the Blender cloth sim is it doesnt' have a Scale/Shrink Fit feature like VWD does. That allows you to scale a clothing object down during the sim so it realistically form fits the character. Blenders just does a "distance from surface", and pulls all the faces of the clothing a certain distance from the character. No natural stretching whatsoever.
@Takeo.Kensei ty. I had forgotten about the Blender Debug command and renaming the appdata\roaming folder. I have used both in the past and they were helpful. Like nonesuch00 said, I haven't had to troubleshoot Blender specific problems in a long time. :)
Interesting. I have no experience with VWD, and have so much on my plate that while interesting, don't have time to play with it. It does sound like something others might be interested in. :)
Hi again.
Here are a few things I'm going to try (in no particular order):
If I can get it to run on another OS image, that would be another clue that I could take to the Blender Stack Exchange people. Well, even if I can't, that would be another clue!
Thank you for your help. I think I'm reaching the limits of the help you folks can provide here, but it's not through lack of trying. I really appreciate this a lot.
I'll be very happy if I can get Blender working on this machine without rebuilding my main Windows 10 Pro partition. While it would be preferrable to be able to run it on my daily OS image, it would still be more agreeable to me to have it on a separate partition that has to be booted rather than trashing my current produciton machine. I'll do a rebuild someday, but not until I retire from my day job many years from now. Yes, it will be THAT painful.
Thanks again!
It will not require any payment to Microsoft. If the License is good for the current build, having an alternative boot on a separate drive/partition is fully within the license. I personally like to have a totally separate drive for this as it limits any chance of your current configuration getting some potential corruption/issue. Just to be safe I often remove it from the box. At this level of troubleshooting, it was often due to potential infection, not so much here in this case but it became habit for me. The nice thing is you don't need much of a drive for troubleshooting.
Running a dual boot with Linux is always an option if you are comfortable with Linux. The Blender Institute run an all Linux shop. Again, if in a desktop environment, while I've run pretty much every configuration possible, in the end I found separate drives for separate OS's to be the easiest and most stable, but that's just my own personal preference. I supported labs in multiple states so having the ability to have someone else in a remote location pull a drive and swap it with another prebuilt was a big asset.
Just a couple of side notes... If you were to peer in on me back when I did this regularly you would have seen me troublshooting this type of problem at this point with the case open, drive hooked up but not mounted so I could swap drives fast with a quick reboot. Also, this level of troubleshooting is costly manhour wise so it was always a case-by-case cost/benefit situation when it wasn't my own systems. If I was brought in soon enough on something where this could be a potential issue, such as being consulted about a hardware upgrade, I would always try to get some test build done with all relevant hardware/software within the return period of the hardware. Too often individuals and businesses upgrade hardware without testing it fully until after the return period only to find there is some conflict. It's not uncommon for particular video cards to not play well with particular system boards and it doesn't surface until some particular use/case scenario pops up too late to return the items. It's an intricate dance that hardware plays when combining processors, system boards, video cards, memory, etc.. all with multiple models, generations and manufacturers. Slight variations in timings, voltages, thermal characteristics, surface contacts, etc... can all add up to issues especially when one or another area gets pushed harder by simply using a feature that triggers some cascade of events inside the system. Many times I've found a system worked fine until some software feature was called to find that it ended up being seating of a memory module, the contacts needing cleaning... something seamingly totally unrelated but it was just the thing to push everything over the edge.
Aaah, I follow you.
A number of years ago, I also used to periodically make a "copy" drive, and I would do a copy-and-swap thing, that way I could always fall back to the old copy if something happened. Nothing ever happened. Windows was okay with the constant swapping, but some of the music making software's licensing methodologies don't like that. This is one of the main reasons I don't want to deal with a rebuild.
And I switched to Macrium Reflect for making backups, which is pretty much the same thing as I was doing before but without having or keeping organized with duplicate drives; it just requires a restore before starting up. And with incrementals, my backups are up to date just about every 8 hours.
I figure that I'm probably going to have to do this one with a multi-boot configuration, rather than getting back into the hassle of pulling and replacing drives.
Looking at my drive partitions, I see that I have about 900 GB free on a spinning drive. I need to keep about 400 GB free over there, which means I could install a test OS over there or I could free up about 100 GB of SSD space by moving my MP3 library off my primary disk (an SSD) to that spinning drive. Your thoughts?
Edit: I just read your added thoughts and I have no arguments on any of it.
I forgot about this one also... did you try to add a Data Execution Prevention Exception for Blender? I'm guessing you saw this article but thought I should link it just in case.
and... the first question should have been... Did you try installing a previous version of Blender, such as 2.78a, 2.75, 2.68.... to isolate if it's with a particular version (and above) of Blender?
Windows has an unfortunate problem with bloat over time. It might start out around 40gb and if unmanaged I've seen it bloat over 100gb just for the OS. Doing a regular Disk Cleanup helps with that. It shouldn't get too high and 100gb should be fine but it could be tight depending on how tightly you run your configuration and watch the bloat. Swap files, temp files, etc.. all can contribute to that. Having it solely for Blender (and perhaps a few select other programs) should also help control bloat. Also, go into the advanced settings on Disk Cleanup when doing it and remove install file backups, patch backups, etc..
For Linux, I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu ever since the original Unity Desktop issue but it is the easiest to set up with multimedia support, drivers, etc so I would have to say, use Ubuntu, just don't use the Unity Desktop. Others might have different opinions and are free to chime in. There are many highly qualified Linux people here.
No, I hadn't thought of that one! I am following the article, but the "Add" button is greyed out. Will continue to investigate.
I did. I have parallel installs of 2.78c and 2.76b (the former was MSI installed, the latter was downloaded as a zip and manually installed). The latter was chosen because of an article/blurb I read about 2.76 having the ability to use/choose a particular GPU feature. Confidence level was around 40%, but still worth trying. But behavior is the same. Unfortunately, I can't test that GPU feature either, because I need to get the UI up in order to change options. I also tried 2.79 (the latest daily build). Same behavior.
Back to looking at DEP...
Update: "You can not set DEP attributes on 64 bit executables."
Which reminds me, I did also try 32 bit 2.78c. Same behavior as 64 bit, but I didn't try it with a DEP exception. Think I should?
Try everything, and going back to 2.76b isn't going back far enough... go all the way back to 2.68 if necessary just to see if it's a version issue (my recommendation at least.) It doesn't mean you would be stuck with 2.68, just that something in Blender that changed might be causing the issue. Also, if you can get an older version running you can play with setting 'safe' preferences then updating, which might give you a way into a newer version where you could possibly troubleshoot specific issues. You might find some safe parameters you can set in a startup file that isn't exposed in startup switches.
I did a search on OBCamera and Blender & it really is a driver problem causing an access violation it seems to me.
https://developer.blender.org/T37283
Since you already did no audio try:
-nojoystickDisable joystick support.
-noglslDisable GLSL shading.
I just started my Blender and looked at the start up log with --debug-all and what it does after OBCamera is start building the menus and loading plugins.
Something else I just remembered. You should be able to limit Blender to running on a single card. I would try that to see if it's having problems with the dual cards.