Max Crashing???

[thomaspecht]

well, only feedback i can give is that you are not the only one who's constantly suffering from the software's instability.

i especially experience all kinds of crashes when trying to load scenes that were created with the aid of plugins. sometimes the software even seems to crash on loading (virgin) scenes that were saved in an earlier version of max. not to mention that some example scenes, which were supplied with plugins and are used during plugin tutorials - won't even load!

and all in all it's a real hassle to work with larger scenes, max needs a major update that fixes the worst bugs - just like maya had with their release 4.

(hey' i'm not using a cracked copy either ;) )

[Mr Fudge]

I have been using Maya since version 3.0 and I have to say personally I find it very rugged and sturdy. I never experienced any crashes in 4 either unless a file become corrupt. The only crit I would have is that if Maya runs out of Ram it tends to hang. Not crash but your machine can it be out of commission until it's finished doing whatever it is doing so sometimes it's better to force a crash.

I'm gald I'm not the only one. Can't wait for Brazil to be ported to Maya!!!!!

Then I can Goodbye Max, it's been fun but I gotta go...

- F

[erilaz]

All packages have instability. It just depends on what you're doing. I had a severe case of max instability a while back, but I discovered it was my hardware screwing my system up.

I'd check all avenues of your system and hardware before blaming max. Naturally, if you're not running a system optimised for the software, then you're going to run into problems.

[Mr Fudge]

No one is blaming any thing I'm just quoting from my experience.

I have used various versions of Max on a wide variety of systems and graphics cards. And it has always been very unstable for me. And especially on really complex scenes. It seems as though it buckles under the pressure.

- F

[Groovedog]

Sometimes when applications crash, depending on the application, they create a watson log or userdump file.

These can be reviewed by developers for fault.

If the dump wasn't created you can download windbg from microsoft's web site and attach to the max process and tell the debugger to watch for access violations.

You can probably send these dumps to discreet for review.

It would help improve the application if the code is really the fault or it should give the specific problem with the machine. (memory, video driver, whatever the problem is)

[Bluemilk]

My favourite max crash is what i like to call the "houdini" it just totally disapears, I use rhino too and granted that doesnt have anywhere near the features max does but is SO stable it has never crashed on me EVER.
Just make sure you have autobak cranked up and use the "+" button on the save as options every 5 mins.

[thomaspecht]

lol, you even invented a name for it :D

regarding the posts on hardware issues: i'd agree that the hardware/os might be faulty in some cases but i would not count the plugin-troubles into that.

a hardware-issue in my experience results in a total system crash when using max (i had it once - faulty memory) or the famous "houdini" (probably gfx-driver issues - had them too with an older system).

a plugin trouble like the one mr. fudge or myself are experiencing is likely to be caused by buggy plugins that are not really integrated in an overall unstable host-application.
i'm not saying "max sucks and maya rules" - after all there's a reason for me to use max instead of maya. but then discreet and formerly kinetix never seemed to care about filling the gaps in their software but prefer to constantly add new (can i say half-assed? ;) ) stuff that sounds fancy but doesn't work as you'd expect it to.

in my humble opinion max is like ms word. it's convenient and reliable for writing a two-sided letter. but better not try to write a book with that one ....

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