Can't edit populations

[sboerner]

So all of a sudden I'm unable to edit populations. It's a large scene with many populations but I keep everything hidden unless I'm working on it. Hovering or clicking with the mouse does not highlight or select instances with "Start editing" clicked. This was going to be a quick fix – just need to move a couple of trees – but I've been messing with it for over an hour, on two different computers. Just have to regenerate the populations instead. Too bad because yesterday I *could* edit the pops and now I'll lose those edits. 

Anyone ever run into this? Tried a new scene with a fresh population and that worked fine.

[Oshyan]

Are you using population caches? Have you tried it in both standard preview and RTP? What version are you running, 4.4.45?

- Oshyan

[sboerner]

Thanks Oshyan. I do use caches and may have stumbled on the answer. I couldn't edit any populations loaded from a cache. But after resaving the cache, I could. 

Makes sense because yesterday I was editing freshly generated populations, not loaded ones.

But maybe a bug?

Good news is previous edits were maintained (should have realized that before – those seem to be stored separately).

[Oshyan]

Glad you were able to resolve it. I'm not sure if that would be considered a bug, although at the least if population editing doesn't work with caches, there should be a warning. I'll talk to Matt about it.

- Oshyan

[sboerner]

I just tested it on a new scene with two populations, one generated on the fly and the second loaded from a cache, and that does seem to be the case. I couldn't edit the second pop until it was repopulated or resaved.

Thanks for following up. I might suggest disabling the "Start Editing" button for loaded populations. A warning might be better though.

[N-drju]

Any chance you try to edit one population when a population editing is already enabled in another? That would effectively make all objects (except for the "edited" pop) unselectable.

[sboerner]

Any chance you try to edit one population when a population editing is already enabled in another? That would effectively make all objects (except for the "edited" pop) unselectable.

I was careful to check that. But who knows, I may have missed one. (But the small test scene had just two populations.)

[Oshyan]

Hmm, I wasn't able to replicate this issue in simple tests. @sboerner can you perhaps provide more detailed instructions or a full project, including objects and cache file?

- Oshyan

[sboerner]

Here is a test project with two populations. The population on the left does not use a cache, and the one on the right does. 

When I open this, I can populate the population on the left and edit it. But I cannot edit the loaded population on the right. However, if I repopulate it or resave the cache, I can edit it.

The issue appears when a file with existing cached populations is opened. The cached populations can't be edited until they are repopulated.

I'm using 4.4.45 but it also occurred with 4.4.44. Not sure about earlier versions.

[Oshyan]

Thanks, I think this is the missing piece: the project has to be closed then loaded. I didn't test this previously. I'll file an issue report for it.

- Oshyan

[sboerner]

Yeah, that's what puzzled me at first, too, since I could edit the populations one day (because they were newly placed) but not the next (because they loaded with the scene).

Thanks for following up. In the meantime just knowing that they need to be repopulated before editing is an acceptable workaround.