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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: FlynnAD on August 14, 2017, 09:43:56 PM

Title: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on August 14, 2017, 09:43:56 PM
I just upgraded TG 4.0.0.4 (I think) to 4.1.11. The program opens fine and everything looks good.

When a specific file from v4.0 is opened, the camera preview screen does not ever completely load (it does not show anything at all), and the application is basically hanging with a spinning cursor wheel. Up top, next to the Pause/ Reset/ RTP and subsequent icons, is the text "Aborting threads..."

The only thing that I can think of is that there are two large DEM heightfields that are loaded that are conflicting with version 4.1.11.

I've opened other v4.0.0.4 files without these DEM heightfields and they're fine. I've opened up other earlier saved versions of the offending file, still with the two DEM heightfields, and those earlier version files also hang.

The only other thing I can think of is a potential graphics card issue, as I upgraded the graphics card driver at the same time as installing the TG4.1.11 update, and without ever trying to open the file in question between the two upgrades. I'm using an nVidia Geforce GTX 1070 with the latest driver 384.94.

Any idea what is going on?

Thanks,
Matt
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on August 15, 2017, 04:19:41 AM
Hi Matt,

Can you try a couple things. 1: open a new, blank TG4 scene and load the same DEMs that are giving you trouble. Does the same issue occur? 2: start TG and then close the 3D preview window (x on the window upper-right) and then load your project again and see if it still occurs.

There were no DEM loading changes in 4.1 as far as I'm aware but there were changes to the previews (none of which I would think would cause such issues, but you never know). How large are the DEMs? What else is in the scene you are loading and what are the detail and quality/sample settings for any cloud layers, atmosphere, etc?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on August 15, 2017, 01:13:17 PM
Hi Oshyan,

Troubleshooting results:

First off, for #2, the only way to get the file to open was to close the preview window while the DEMs were loading, or cancel the DEMs loading themselves. After that, playing with the file and opening the preview window went fine and yielded no errors, until that file was saved and re-opened. Then, again, it did not open.

So, trying #1, I put each of the heightfield and heightfield loaders into TG clips and loaded them individually into a fresh file. The end result is that they can both be inserted into the file, they can both be turned on, they can each themself be plugged into the Compute Terrain node, but when one heightfield is plugged into the second heightfield (in either order), and then into the Compute Terrain, while the result will properly show and work in the preview window, upon saving, closing, and re-opening the file, it will crash.

So somehow, having both heightfields plugged into each other is causing the issue in TG4.1.11. Occasionally, TG will simply give the preview window message "Aborting threads" and hang. At other failed attempts, TG gave the error message "An unknown error occurred in trBucketRender::RenderMore() rasterized pass      floatn3" without completing the preview window (it remained gray).

Does that help figure out what it is?

Thanks,
Matt

ADDITIONALLY: The two DEMs are 450 MB each, but this made no impact on TG4.0.0.4, and I had been using the same file in TG3.
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on August 20, 2017, 02:25:58 PM
Thanks much for those details! And apologies for the delayed reply. Could you send us a TGD and, if possible, either 7-zip archive the DEMs, or point us to where they might be downloaded to duplicate this issue? support AT planetside.co.uk

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on October 02, 2017, 04:56:09 PM
Hi Oshyan,

Has Planetside had an opportunity to look into this bug/ hiccup? I sent support@ an email with the DEM file download links on August 24.

Thanks,
Matt
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on October 08, 2017, 01:57:39 AM
Not yet, but I see we received the files. Thank you, we'll take a look as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on November 20, 2017, 11:08:28 AM
QuoteWhen a specific file from v4.0 is opened, the camera preview screen does not ever completely load (it does not show anything at all), and the application is basically hanging with a spinning cursor wheel. Up top, next to the Pause/ Reset/ RTP and subsequent icons, is the text "Aborting threads..."

I came across this thread while troubleshooting this error. This has been happening with one of my files, too.

QuoteSo somehow, having both heightfields plugged into each other is causing the issue in TG4.1.11. Occasionally, TG will simply give the preview window message "Aborting threads" and hang. At other failed attempts, TG gave the error message "An unknown error occurred in trBucketRender::RenderMore() rasterized pass      floatn3" without completing the preview window (it remained gray).

Exactly. My file also contains two heightfield nodes. Each holds a 50MB .ter file. The file hangs roughly 9 out of 10 load attempts. When it does load the file, TG throws the "trBucketRender" error message, but I can work with it.

The two Heightfield shaders were connected in series, output to input, with the second connected to the Compute Terrain node. The problem disappeared when I connected both loaders to a Heightfield Merge, then to one Heightfield shader. File loads fine now.

The merge node is probably better in this case, but shouldn't either approach work?

The strange thing is, the first arrangement worked fine for a couple days. The file started hanging after I starting building out the shading network.

Running Terragen 4.1.14 on a Mac Pro, OS 10.11.6, 16GB with an ATI Radeon HD graphics card.
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on November 28, 2017, 12:50:43 AM
Hi Steve,

Thanks for the response and your solution. I tried the heighfield merge node per your suggestion, but for some reason, I cannot get it to work.

My file does open with both heighfield loaders plugged into the heightfield merge; that's good. But the 3d preview does not show both heightfields displacing the planet surface. Only the primary heightfield - the one plugged into the merge node's Input slot - shows up. The heightfield plugged into slot A does not show up on the 3d preview, nor on renderings. I tried changing the Mix/ Add/ Subtract... of the merge node to no avail. Then I double-checked that both heightfields were working by plugging one into the other, then into the Compute Terrain (the same old way that was causing the file open failures before). Yep, that made both heightfields show up on the 3d preview. Just don't save the file at this point...

Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Matt
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on November 28, 2017, 12:06:54 PM
Hi Matt,

First, thanks for your detailed descriptions of the problem. That helped me find your post and confirm that I've run into the same thing. I don't have a lot of experience with heightfield shaders, so I made two very simple files to see if I could duplicate the problem.

QuoteOnly the primary heightfield - the one plugged into the merge node's Input slot - shows up. The heightfield plugged into slot A does not show up on the 3d preview, nor on renderings. I tried changing the Mix/ Add/ Subtract... of the merge node to no avail.

Can't explain this. The Mix slider must be greater than 0 for the node to have any effect, but it sounds like you've looked at that. To match the results you would get by connecting the shaders in series, set the mode to Add and Mix to 1.0. Take a look at the attached heightfieldMerge.tgd file and see if it works for you.

[attach=1]

The results of the two node networks are the same. However, the Merge file opens fine while the other one, heightfieldSeries.tgd, hangs Terragen, throws the tBucketRender error, or crashes it outright on file load.

Files attached.

[attachurl=2]
[attachurl=3]

Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on November 28, 2017, 07:27:13 PM
Are you guys both on Macs?

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: jaf on November 28, 2017, 09:54:37 PM
I'm on a Windows system and the heightfieldSeries.tgd provided above seems to cause random problems.  The first time I tried it with a file!open, the preview window did not initialize and when I clicked on it I got an "aborting threads" message where the "Finished rendering" message normally appears. Clicking anywhere then results in the "not responding crash.

So I restarted Terragen and used the open recent and selected heightfieldSeries.tgd, and it loaded and initialized fine!  I closed Terragen and then restarted and tried the open file and got an error message "An unknown error occurred in  trBuckedRender. RenderMore() rasterised pass" showed up, but the file would render and didn't notice any other problems.  So I did a file|save, closed Terragen and the restarted and used the open recent and it did not error????  But if I do a file|open I get the trBucket error.

Really weird !

Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on November 28, 2017, 11:53:15 PM
Hi Oshyan – I'm on a Mac (system info posted above) and am experiencing exactly the same symptoms reported by Matt. Sometimes the file opens and displays the trBucketRender error message. On a couple of occasions it has crashed Terragen before loading. But usually it just hangs before displaying the 3d view with the "Aborting threads" message. It's really random.

I've saved a hang report and can send it if that would be helpful.

Steve
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on November 29, 2017, 12:15:04 AM
Just fyi I tested the file on a second system – Macbook Pro – in case there was a bad memory chip or background process that was interfering on my main workstation. Unfortunately the results are about the same.
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on November 29, 2017, 01:13:20 PM
Hi Oshyan,

I'm on a PC, running TG 4.1.11, Win 10 Pro version 1607, with an Intel i7 x990 (3.47GHz) processor, 24 GB memory, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card.

Matt
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on November 29, 2017, 09:02:24 PM
Strange, I still can't reproduce this with the file provided. A couple of questions.

1: have any of you tried upgrading to 4.1.18? Should now be available to all Windows users (Mac version coming very soon). I'm on .18 and it's not happening as far as I've seen. I don't know of any specific fixes that I would expect to address this, but it's possible.

2: In the heightfieldMerge.tgd test file, does the weirdness still occur if you disable the auto-generate for the heightfields or if you generate them, save them to .ter, and replace the generators with Heightfield Load nodes?

We'll keep trying to track this one through. Your help is appreciated!

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on November 29, 2017, 11:39:18 PM
1. Looking forward to it!  ;)

2. The file seems to work fine when auto-generate is disabled. I tried it a few times and manually generated the heightfields and had no problems. But it hangs with heightfield loaders, whether they're linked to .ter files or DEMs.

I tested the file with other versions of Terragen: Versions 4.1.14 and 4.1.11 don't work. Version 4.0.04 seems to work fine. So for now I'll downgrade to 4.0.04, at least for early work on scenes that involve heightfield loaders or generators.

Appreciate your patience with this, Oshyan. It's a weird one.
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on November 29, 2017, 11:45:47 PM
QuoteMy file does open with both heighfield loaders plugged into the heightfield merge; that's good. But the 3d preview does not show both heightfields displacing the planet surface. Only the primary heightfield - the one plugged into the merge node's Input slot - shows up. The heightfield plugged into slot A does not show up on the 3d preview, nor on renderings.

I may have stumbled into an answer to this, Matt. Are your heightfields DEM files? It seems that Merge works only when the heightfields occupy the same area (one heightfield displacing another). Should have realized that.
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on November 30, 2017, 02:24:24 PM
Quote from: sboerner on November 29, 2017, 11:45:47 PM
I may have stumbled into an answer to this, Matt. Are your heightfields DEM files? It seems that Merge works only when the heightfields occupy the same area (one heightfield displacing another). Should have realized that.

Steve, you guessed right. I have two DEMS adjacent to one another. However, I had thought the merge would still work (if you add a heightfield to an area with no heightfield, that would be 1+0=1). I had thought the key was the joint between the two DEMS over-adding and creating a spiked line. But as you noted, it didn't work to begin with.

I'll try the auto-generate function, leaving one DEM on auto and one on manual. I had forgotten about this option. If it works, I'll just leave the less important DEM on manual while working on the shaders and such, only turning it on for rendering.

Matt
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on December 07, 2017, 05:59:47 PM
Status update:

The file worked fine for quite a long time with only one DEM active (the second DEM was still in the file, plugged upstream in series, but its heightfield shader was deactivated). However, upon closing Windows at lunch, then re-opening TG, the file crashes again, giving the same error: "An unknown error occurred in trBucketRender::RenderMore() rasterized pass     ht load", and the 3d preview window is completely gray, noting "Aborting Threads". The only thing I can do is end the entire TG application.

During lunch, when I closed down Windows, Windows automatically installed 2017-11 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 (KB4048953). After all the crashes this afternoon, I uninstalled that update, to no further success in TG. Then I tried upgrading to TG 4.1.1.18 but had the same error and crash.

When I used this file two days ago (and even this morning), I added a number of OBJs and population nodes. However, all of them are deactivated and the file still crashes.

I also tried loading .adf heightfields instead of the .flt heightfields (as I had both versions of the same landscape) and TG still crashes.

If I close the 3D preview window while the file is loading the DEMs, TG will load, and then I can manually open the 3D preview window. But if the 3D preview window is open when the DEMs are loading, the file will crash.

Any ideas?
Matt
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on December 07, 2017, 07:16:15 PM
Ahhh, ok, so it seems to be down to the 3D Preview! Which is so often the culprit I'm afraid. And the thing about it is it's usually down to the graphics card drivers (or settings). Are you running the latest drivers? If so perhaps you can try customizing the graphics settings for the Terragen application (if your drivers support that) and try disabling acceleration functions.

By the way I'm still unable to reproduce it even with the correct files. Frustrating indeed.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on December 07, 2017, 09:53:20 PM
I can confirm that closing the 3D preview during file load works (avoiding both the tBucketRender error and hangs). At least after a quick test, loading the file a couple dozen times. I'll try it with other files and will let you know otherwise. Thanks, Matt, for the tip!

I'm not sure but I don't think it's possible to customize or upgrade video drivers on a Mac; it's part of the OS installation.

I've tried the file on two systems (Mac Pro and MacBook Pro) with different video cards and operating systems, with three versions of Terragen (4.0.04, 4.1.11, and 4.1.14), and the results are the same.

Wracking my brain trying to think of how my setup might be unusual. On a whim, I did go through all the Adobe apps and disabled GPU acceleration, thinking there might be a residual effect when the apps were closed. But no dice, the problem persists.

The only other thing that might be worth mentioning is that the desktop setup is a dual-monitor system. But that wouldn't explain the hangs on the laptop.

Earlier I said that 4.0.04 seemed to work, but after trying it with a working file I ran into the same problem. However, Terragen 3 loads the test file just fine. (Aside from a slew of "unknown parameter" warnings because it's loading a later version file.) Over the past couple of years I've built many large scenes in TG3 using multiple DEMs and never had a problem. This seems to be a TG4 issue.

It's frustrating here, too, that you can't reproduce the error. As I mentioned earlier I'm happy to share hang logs – just let me know. Next time it crashes I'll save a crash log, too.

Steve
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: FlynnAD on December 08, 2017, 12:17:07 PM
Where can you find the hang/ crash/ dump logs in Windows? When TG crashes, I either have to go to the Windows Task Manager and end the application in one swift stroke, or continue clicking the close X icon in the upper right corner of the application, which again shuts the program down completely without any notifications. Windows does not go into the blue screen of death, so there's no crash log that's obvious to me.

Thanks,
Matt
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on December 09, 2017, 03:56:53 PM
On Windows you can right-click My Computer/Computer and go to Manage and them to system logs, Windows logs. You can also find this through Event Logs/View Event Logs in the Control Panel.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on December 06, 2018, 11:57:50 AM
I've been testing each new release of TG with the heightfieldSeries.tgd file posted earlier in this thread. Up until now there has been no change: The application consistently crashed or hanged on file load. But now, with 4.3.16, I'm seeing some improvement. Now TG consistently opens the file. Usually it reports the same old error ("An unknown error occurred in trBucketRender::RenderMore() rasterized pass") but opens the file anyway. Sometimes the error doesn't appear at all. And rarely (just once out of a couple of dozen tests this morning) it still hangs.

In the meantime I've upgraded to Mac OS 10.12.6 (Sierra), for what it's worth. I'll be upgrading soon to High Sierra and will see if that makes any difference. (I'm usually a version behind the current release.)

I know this isn't very scientific, and I haven't tested any more complex scenes. But maybe this is progress.
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: Oshyan on December 06, 2018, 03:52:08 PM
Thanks for the update Steve. Still a weird, mysterious issue, but glad to hear it seems to be getting better.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: terp on December 09, 2021, 07:12:48 PM
This is an old, but probably relevant thread to us right now.

I've heard Oshyan has moved on.  sboerner are you still here?
Anyone know if these issues were ever resolved?

I'm using multiple heightfields and running into the same types of errors/issues on an iMacPro(2017), TG4.5.56
More detail here -> https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,29699.0.html

Thanks,
Mike
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on December 09, 2021, 11:06:25 PM
It sounds like your issue is slightly different. Mine had to do with the 3D viewport renderer, and the error kept the file from loading. Once it loaded (if it did) I had no problems rendering it to a file.

I'm not sure whether the issue was ever resolved. Shortly after my last post here I converted from Mac to Windows. This seems to have been a Mac-specific problem.

Apologies for not being much help here . . .
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: terp on December 10, 2021, 01:22:42 AM
Quote from: sboerner on December 09, 2021, 11:06:25 PMIt sounds like your issue is slightly different. Mine had to do with the 3D viewport renderer, and the error kept the file from loading. Once it loaded (if it did) I had no problems rendering it to a file.

I'm not sure whether the issue was ever resolved. Shortly after my last post here I converted from Mac to Windows. This seems to have been a Mac-specific problem.

Apologies for not being much help here . . .
Hey!  Thanks for getting back to this!

The 3D viewport goes blank on us at times as well, causing us to have to quit and restart.  The file will always load for us, but the errors are always present.

You did so much work and testing with this, and years ago(!).  Seems it might not have been fully addressed or resolved.

We did render our file with no issues on a windows box, but the Macs are our primary working machines, so we are looking for a solution there...
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on December 10, 2021, 12:28:17 PM
For some reason, Planetside support was never able to replicate the problem. It happened to me on two different Mac systems, with different operating systems, with various versions of TG. A mystery.
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: terp on December 13, 2021, 11:51:43 AM
Quote from: sboerner on December 10, 2021, 12:28:17 PMFor some reason, Planetside support was never able to replicate the problem. It happened to me on two different Mac systems, with different operating systems, with various versions of TG. A mystery.
We're hoping to test on another Mac in-house this week to see what information can glean from that, as we're bound to Mac workstations currently.
I appreciate your thorough testing and posting about it!
Title: Re: TG 4.1.11 file open failing
Post by: sboerner on December 13, 2021, 01:27:03 PM
Good luck and looking forward to seeing updates here on the forum.