Corona + Substance Crashes

[Dionysios.TS]

Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you all are fine and safe.

Some releases ago, Substance materials were producing crashes when Corona was in Interactive rendering mode.
Is this still the case? I started to using it in 3ds Max 2021 and I get crashes all the time. Corona is updated to the last build by the way.

Thanks in advance and take care these days!

Dionysios -

[maru]

Happy New Year to you too!

By "latest build" do you mean the latest daily build or latest release version?

Could you fill in the attached form and send it back, and also share an example crashing scene with us?

[Dionysios.TS]

Thanks for getting back Maru.

Tonight after work I'll prepare everything for you.
For your information the crashes are still produced on all following cases:

Both 3ds Max 2019 + 3ds Max 2021
Official Corona 6 latest build
Last Corona 7 Daily build

2 different workstations:

1. Dual Xeon Intel
2. AMD Ryzen 3950x

Win10 in all cases.

I'll send you the document compiled and a test scene with the crash dump files later tonight.

Thanks!

Dionysios -

[Dionysios.TS]

Happy New Year to you too!

By "latest build" do you mean the latest daily build or latest release version?

Could you fill in the attached form and send it back, and also share an example crashing scene with us?

Hi Maru,

I uploaded here the following material: https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArWIfyOfVovjgsgTJID6JMOBrgbhUw?e=haFly9

- A simple sample scene (3ds Max 2021)
- Filled form with explanation.
- DUMP files created by 3ds Max a while ago when I had a crash while I was testing the scene I am sending to you now.

To produce the crash open the scene, launch interactive render and start tweaking the Substance material randomly.
Yesterday I've noticed that once crashed the first time, was crashing every 5 minutes till after about an hour I decided to merge the scene objects to a new one and the crashes were reduced by 80%.

Let me know what you think...

Thanks and have a nice evening,

Dionysios -

[maru]

Thanks a lot! I am looking into it right now.

[maru]

It crashes for me in Corona 6 HF1, but it seems to be related to 2.5D displacement. Can you try disabling it in the Performance settings and see if it still crashes? (note the 2.5D checkbox is only in Corona 6 HF1, in V7 dailies the 2.5D is used by default and can't be disabled)

In V7 (DailyBuild Jan  4 2021) I did not manage to crash it at all. Can you confirm that it crashes for you in this version? If so, please provide more specific repro steps. I tried running IR and changing all possible values in the Map #9 and the material, connecting and disconnecting various nodes, and it never crashed.

[Dionysios.TS]

It crashes for me in Corona 6 HF1, but it seems to be related to 2.5D displacement. Can you try disabling it in the Performance settings and see if it still crashes? (note the 2.5D checkbox is only in Corona 6 HF1, in V7 dailies the 2.5D is used by default and can't be disabled)

In V7 (DailyBuild Jan  4 2021) I did not manage to crash it at all. Can you confirm that it crashes for you in this version? If so, please provide more specific repro steps. I tried running IR and changing all possible values in the Map #9 and the material, connecting and disconnecting various nodes, and it never crashed.

Thanks for testing Maru.

Here are my updates which confirm partially the crash:

- Office Workstation / Corona 6 HF1, I worked for all day with 2.5 Displacement turned off and I never got any crashes. I turned on the 2.5D mode and BOOM! Crash!
So for the release 6 and Displacement 2.5 turned on I confirm it crashed immediately once I hit render.

- At home I have my own license and I have installed the very last Corona Daily Build 7 so I'll give it a try in a while and I'll come back to you.

For now thanks!

Dionysios -

[Dionysios.TS]

It crashes for me in Corona 6 HF1, but it seems to be related to 2.5D displacement. Can you try disabling it in the Performance settings and see if it still crashes? (note the 2.5D checkbox is only in Corona 6 HF1, in V7 dailies the 2.5D is used by default and can't be disabled)

In V7 (DailyBuild Jan  4 2021) I did not manage to crash it at all. Can you confirm that it crashes for you in this version? If so, please provide more specific repro steps. I tried running IR and changing all possible values in the Map #9 and the material, connecting and disconnecting various nodes, and it never crashed.

Hi again,

I also confirm that in V7 Build Jan 4 2021 I have no crashes where the 2.5D is used by default.
So the fault seems to be the 2.5 displacement before this release.

Thanks for hunting and finding the reason of this issue.

I'll keep you updated in case something goes wrong again.

Dionysios -

[Dionysios.TS]

Small update:

With Corona 7 Daily Build it crashed right now!
I was using Interactive Render and I changed a Substance value (color).

If I stop the render, change the value and start again no issues.

Thanks,

Dionysios -

[maru]

I tried to crash it really hard but didn't manage to. Check out my video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/111f91lipqarmcv/substance-crash.mp4?dl=0
If you are able to consistently reproduce this, could you record a screen capture as well? Or explain which exact value should be changed to trigger the crash?

[Dionysios.TS]

I tried to crash it really hard but didn't manage to. Check out my video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/111f91lipqarmcv/substance-crash.mp4?dl=0
If you are able to consistently reproduce this, could you record a screen capture as well? Or explain which exact value should be changed to trigger the crash?

Good morning Maru and thanks for getting back.

Thanks for dedicating your time on this and I am sorry that with the scene I sent, you don't have any crash. A good thing from one side but bad from the other as me working on production assets once or twice a day it still crashes. With the simple test scene I've sent to you, me too I confirm as in your video, doing the same operations it doesn't crash.
Under real production stress the story changes a bit at the end.

Working on 3ds Max 2021 these days I confirm the following behavior:

- The crash is rare and it doesn't happen when I do normal or interactive rendering or other operations in the software which ARE NOT relative to substance.

- The only time I get a crash, once or twice a day, is when I change a substance value. Any value could produce randomly a crash I noticed. An hour ago I had one by changing the Glosiness value of a material.

- I confirm that is not something happening very frequently, 3ds Max 2019 crash continuously with 2.5 Displacement as you found out.

Probably I should send you a real production file at this point and not a simple test scene.

Let me know.

Thanks again,

Dionysios -

[maru]

Sure, if you have one or more scenes where this is happening, I will be happy to try reproducing it again.

[maru]

Reproduced with the help of Dionysios and logged for the devs to investigate.

(Report ID=CRMAX-185)

[Dionysios.TS]

Reproduced with the help of Dionysios and logged for the devs to investigate.

(Report ID=CRMAX-185)

Thanks Maru and your help was very useful as well!