SICK AND TIRED OF PREVIEW LOCK UPS!
dijitul
Posts: 146
Hello DAZ Studio Users,
This has been an ONGOING problem for several versions and updates of DAZ Studio with iray rendering.
I have reported this issue via the bug reporting, but it seems nothing is being addressed. I would like to find out if anyone else is having this issue.
THE PROBLEM:
When working in DAZ Studio, I frequently switch between preview modes. I work primarily in Smooth or Texture Shaded mode, and often switch to NVIDIA Iray mode. I will do this several times during edits to my scene, and often work in the iray mode to while making changes.
What is VERY frustrating is that, without warning and at random times, DAZ Studio will "lock up" when switching to NVIDIA Iray preview. What I really think is happening is that the render engine starts running, but DAZ Studio doesn't preview it or respond anymore. I cannot click ANYTHING, the window freezes up and turns white, but I can see the CPU and GPU ramp up in Task Manager (similar like it does when doing a full render).
If I wasn't staying alert and making sure I save before previewing in Iray, and it freezes, I've just lost all my edits. I have to End Task. THIS SUCKS. Big time. It's especially made worse there's no "recovery" or "auto-save" options in DAZ Studio (you'd think these would be useful options after all these years for such a quirky application that depends on a lot of third-party applications like NVIDIA iray or Intel OpenCL).
Is anyone else having problems with this? As I said, I've already reported this bug, but no results thus far. One response from the DAZ Tech Support suggested it was mixing different shaders in the same scene, but this makes no sense at all to me because there's no rhyme or reason to the failure and I can render mixed shaders any other time.
If you've experienced this, please reply to this thread and let's bring attention to the problem.
Thank you.
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Comments
Turning Iray previw mode on does cause a delay, using Smooth Shaded view, while the scene is transferred to Iray - but that doesn't usually lock the application. I can't say I've ever seen the issue you describe, if the same is true of support (and you can't give steps to reproduce) then it's going to be very hard to address. It's also, of course, possible that it's some conflict with another application or utility on your system, or something to do with the driver version installed.
It's not a delay. I have three NVIDIA 1080s in my system. The delay to preview is very brief. I can tell the other issue immediately because mousing over any part of a model no longer highlights the group/surface. Then, clicking on anything results in a ghosted window -- an obvious indication of a lock up. However, watching the application in Task Manager shows similar traits of it running the render in the background, just not showing it in the preview.
Unfotunately, it's random, and once it happens, I have no recoures to "capture" any data from the application. Would creating a dump file help at all? Tech Support never asked for one.
Due to it being random and difficult to reproduce, as with any crash or lock up from any application, it would seem prudent for DAZ Studio to, after all these years, implement an auto-save or recovery feature by now. I'm sure lots of hours of work have been lost due to unexpected crashes by all artists for various reasons. Even if the lock-up issue is impossible to fix, saving/recovery should be a feature in any reputable application. At the very least, it should auto-save before switching to Iray Preview -- and not over my project file but with a temporary file. Hitting Ctrl-S means I need to make multiple save files manually so I can revert changes if the application fails (no more undo available).
Here's a couple suggestions on the save issue.
Pontari plugs recent files: https://www.pontari.com/Products/DazStudio/RecentFiles/default.htm
it's pretty old, but still works with 4.10.
Switch the defaust Ctrl+s over to the smart save increment and each time you save it will simply add 1 to the end of the file.
Super save: https://www.daz3d.com/super-save
its a script based option so you'll have to add it to the scripts menu prior to setting a shortcut.
Viewport slowdowns or even lockups may happen when using the iray preview on heavy scenes. This is because windows polls the driver and if it doesn't reply fast enough then it is restarted. So if the gtx are rendering they may not reply fast enough.
Unfortunately there's not much you can do about this. Of course it helps reducing the complexity of the scene but working with small scenes is not always possible. Also it helps assigning one card to the viewport, so if you have three cards you can plug the monitor to one card and leave it out of iray rendering. So you have one card for the viewport and two for rendering.
This is an issue with windows though, not daz studio or nvidia.
On my older computer, I used to get this issue too. It Happened sometimes whenever I switched back from iray to texture shaded too quickly, not allowing the screen to load into the render. For me, It only happens with more massive scenes.
It hasn't mattered about the size of the scene. I generally only have one character and some props. The best I can guess is maybe the application sits idle when I walk away and when I return and switch to iray after some edits, it then locks up. Nevertheless, these are the kinds of reasons we need auto-save and recovery methods. This is regardless of what kind of issue an artist is having.
My experience is the same as MaxHancock's. Switching too quick and trying to preview too much. Both avoidable. [edit: 4.11]
Prior to resolving my machine's memory stability issues it was more as you describe - random. [edit this was both 4.10 and early 4.11]
I've reduced the issue to either a disconnected between DAZ and the renderer or likely a memory leak.
If the application sits too long idle, like if I leave it running a few hours without using it or if I leave a render going overnight and it finishes before I wake up, then when I return, make an edit, and switch to iray preview, it locks up. I've never once experienced this issue by switching "too quickly" between preview modes and the size of the scene never mattered as my scenes aren't complex and I have 8 GB of video RAM.
So, there you have it DAZ. Please try to address this problem. I just experienced it again with only one model in my scene with a hair prop and three primitives.
Whatever is happening between when I walk away and come back, something "breaks." Fortunately, I developed a habit of hitting save often but it's still irritating.
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In the gigabyte guide for mining rigs they say to disable sleep. I guess this makes sense anyway for overnight rendering. I also suspect the other rules for mining rigs may be useful as well.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Microsite/462/mining.html
I don't believe this is relevant. First, I'm not using any Gigabyte hardware -- especially the motherboards which that page is hawking. Secondly, I use three GPUs (NVIDIA 1080s) to render with and not my CPU. Third, I am using Windows 10 and it's set to never sleep already (the PC anyway, the monitor sleeps after just 10 minutes and doesn't appear to be the cause).
Nevertheless, DAZ should address this if they can reproduce it because if it is a graphics hardware issue, DAZ is in direct contact with NVidia anyway, more so than I could ever be.
If anyone out there wishes to help, please try to reproduce the issue. I am using nvidia 1080 cards with driver version 23.21.13.9124 (package 391.24) on Windows 10. Load a scene, preview in iray, then back to smooth. Let is sit an hour or so, then try setting iray preview again -- all without exiting the application. Ahh -- one other important point is that I'm now using DAZ 4.11.0.236 which I think is a still BETA, yes?
I was considering upgrading the nvidia driver but heard about stability issues with the latest version so I haven't pulled that trigger yet.
Since I just built a new rig specifically for rendering, I tested the iray preview too, but I'm not able to reproduce your issue. I even put the pc to sleep in an attempt to cause troubles but everything seems to work fine here. In my rig I use a vega 8 for the viewport and a 1060 for iray rendering and preview.
But I tested on DS 4.10 so may be that's the difference.
I can confirm the memory leak behaviour you describe. From what I've seen on other threads I think they know about it already. Its certainly not new. I had it in 4.10 at least too.
Well, I don't know if this will help. If you change the Draw Settings/General/Manipulation/Manipulation Drawstyle, to either [Switch to Wire Bounding Box] or [Switch to Solid Bounding Box] it will turn on the bouning box when you move, zoom, add items, change textures, etc. It does have it's limits but it keeps me from changing the Drawstyle Settings too often. Also Thank You to whoever I learned that from! I can't remember if it was Akri, Jen Greenlees, SickleYield, or maybe somebody else. Good Luck. your mileage may vary!
Again. To me the key point is dedicating one card to the viewport only. And at least one card to iray only. This way windows will not poll the iray card(s) and you will not have lockups. I did this easily in my rig by using the vega for the viewport and the 1060 for iray. If you share one card between the viewport and iray you will always have slowdowns or lockups due to windows polling the card.
Last night it was not only locking up on me, but crashing DS altogether. That's a new one for me. I only really use nvidia preview toward the end, to finetune light directions/power and tonemapping ISO settings. I use a 1070 and 1060, not the bleeding edge latest driver, but not an old one either. 4.19.35 is the exact one, forgot where to look it up for a second lol.
Sorry to dig up an old thread, but just in case anybody else runs into this issue of iRay preview causing a viewport lock-up, I've seemed to workaround this issue by remembering to hit "save" before any render. Somehow, this refreshed or revivies whatever is causing the viewport lockup when switching between preview modes. Since getting in the habit of hitting Ctrl-S, 1) I no longer fear losing any changes to 2) the iRay preview always seems to engage properly.
Try that https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2665946/display-driver-stopped-responding-and-has-recovered-error-in-windows-7
I experience this issue a lot. It seems to be related to the lack of memory and especially annoying if you have swap wile on non SSD drive. (as I am now forced to use plain HDD for some time)
sometimes DAZ freezes for a few minutes and it also locks up my entire computer to the level where I can't move my mouse anymore and if it was playing some sound that also stops.
However, I typically do not lose my work, after all, that horribly long time it comes back to life and resumes normally. In some cases, sometimes I had to wait over 10 minutes to my computer to start responding again.
I doubt if DAZ developers will even bother fixing it but it would be nice if they somehow managed to put Iray into the totally different process so that it would stop crashing everything and also allow you to continue working on your project while rendering the picture.
it's a know issue of a system who trying to fix something
most of the time hard disk failure, (bad block)
the windows freeze until after try to fix or pass the bad block for a minute or for hours!
possible the "bad block" where is located have no use, but can be in use by VMM memory of temp
I had freeze all system in a new PC (5 month) due to a defective new hard disk
work fine some day'sand freeze again for 2-3 day's in a row
i suggest you to use dos command "chkdsk" under boot and select full check feature
also memtest
note:
while the PC is freeze due to defective disk also the NETWORK is off
when in game you lost connection and kicked,
only the screen keep ON due to separate process GPU
could be annoying, but sometime the bad block is in hidden partition (with no use)
but windows system detect it!
Is the same result like in old years when you format a DOS disquette
your PC is not available until format end
Tips:
when PC freeze, cut all sound in the room and try to hear your PC harddisks to hear a low metalic tic,,, tic,,, tic"
if you hear the 'tic', the hard disk the problem
Good advice to check for other people who may have the same problem but my HDD is fine it is just memory issue because the system has to swap over 16-26 gigs or ram
Sometimes you may not even see bad blocks on HDD with chkdsk since they will be remapped, but remapped blocks are super slow.
lockups happen lots of different ways.. but one way to to move faster than daz...
Daz has major system interface problems where essentially it starts doing something and then doesn't interface with the system
system expects certain timing calls from the program and if it doesn't get them .. you get the white program is not responding message
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I had a couple CTDs while building a building mostly out of cubes .. select three items to make a group... whoops. I guess daz didn't like that
but then after the reload .. same selection doesn't do it.
My biggest stupid is when I choose to delete something moderately complex.. that will send daz into it's white screen funk...
and program not responding...
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I'm looking at a scene subset I added that took 20 seconds to load ... and the program can't delete it in 20 minutes.
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I had a friend who used to write windows.. this cartoon hung in the project managers office with each section marked 8-bit 16-bit 32-bit
I wonder if there's some really old code buried deep inside that was fine for xp and pentium 4s... that has issues in fastest machines...
which is when/why it doesn't respond within time frames the systems looking for?
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windows started way back as 8bit.(some may remember that 640k reserved memory) and had newer code patched over it.
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back then Mac took an advantage because they were able to start with 16 bit, but apparently they actually wrote it in 32 bit and put a patch on to hold it to 16 until better processors came out.
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I know when I want to delete one of my genesis characters who are heavily morphed and have clothes etc that I better delete the extra items one at a time as opposed to just pushing the delete button
Old thread, I know, but I thought I'd leave a note in case others come along later like me. I've experienced the same issue with two EVGA 1080's dedicated to rendering. I get lockups if I leave preview on for sustainted periods of time while making tweaks to the scene. Eventually, after one of the tweaks, it will lock up when my preview viewport is trying to re-render.
To mitigate, I've found that occasionally switching my preview from Iray to something else and back keeps it from happening, but like the author above, I grow tired of losing work because of this. If I remember, I'll create a bug report this weekend.
- Power & Sleep, make sure nothing is allowed to go to sleep or turn off.
- How much RAM do you have and how much does your scene consume?
there's probably more than one cause, PCs are wildly different.
For me, previewing with iRay Photoreal and Textured is 100% stable.
iRay Interactive and Filament previews cause hangs frequently. somtimes for 20 seconds, sometimes forever. I have now learned to save often, when using Filament...
In my case, the problem's existed on two different builds, with the graphics cards being the only common components (2 x EVGA 1080Ti SC2). I'm going to try to catch a gif of it happening before I submit the bug report.
I beleive I have traced this exact problem to running/mutlitasking with Google Chrome browser. When Chrome is not running, the iRay preview render works just fine and never causes Windows 10 to get stuck. I am using Intel i7-7700K and a single GeForce GTX 1070. I have the exact same issue. When I run Opera as browser, it does not happen.
March 2021, using a 3080 and I am getting this same issue lately. Using 4.15, no Chrome. I'll just be panning around in iray preview, or even just switching to it, or back to texture shaded, and bam. Nothing. Have to manually shut it down and restart.
Same thing happening to me now. Daz needs to stop trying to play catchup to other software that are light years ahead and just team up with blender to make a plug in that gives Daz functionality inside blender. Just imagine, the freedom and power of blender and the ease of navigation of Daz without all these ridiculous bugs that waste hours of time.