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I found that aborting a populator that starts as a consequence of rendering consistently crashes TG3. It pretty much happens every time. I have to let the populator finished first, then I can safely stop the render.

I had that too. Turn off textured preview might help.

Ahh yes, I learned to populate before rendering. I have had crashes from populating by hitting the render button even without trying to abort.

Dont know about your situation, but on my end it seems to be memory based problem of some kind.

I'll check that out, thanks.

Regards,

Jo

Hi ,

My TG3 Pro edition has the same problem. To me it appears that objects handling, in general, causes TG3 to be unstable.
With over 30 objects in the library even the library window doesn't scroll correctly (running on macbook pro).

best regards
Sirio

Hi, yes^^. I think so too.
Although a crash is not always what happens. Sometimes, probably more often the software holds on, but something happens that I don't know the word for. I did catch a screen capture of the event though and posted it here below.

This event happens to me more often than a complete crash. And strangly, I just discoverd a "sort of" fix.
When the event occurs, I found that by initiating the screen saver, and letting the screen saver run for a min or 2, Terragen can stabilize.
Handdy if you just started a render.

As you will see in the image, the more common event requiring a complete system restart, the screen goes bonkers and everything slows system wide. I am still on TG2. But the problem was much worse prior to my most recent update version.

Hope this helps some.

---

I can confirm that happens for me too.

Hi everyone,

The crash when aborting population as rendering begins is fixed for the next release.

Regards,

Jo

Great, Jo. The more complex TG gets, the more difficult it will be to fix stuff, I guess. I'm still awed by your software, every day!

Quote from: jo on January 03, 2014, 04:33:33 AMThe crash when aborting population as rendering begins is fixed for the next release.

Great. Thanks for the fast turn around.

Hi, Jo. Not sure if this goes here or my thread about the graphics. I know you said this is fixed, but...

When I simply change the size of a simple shape, (where there are two simple shapes forming an inner and outer, and where the two are used to mask a fake rocks population), Terragen crashes 2-3 out of 5 times.

I think it belongs in this thread because of the relationship with the populations. And again, I know you said this is fixed. (thats good!)
But I can't get much done right now. And in combination with that other thread report (which may be related or not). I would just like to humbly ask if this fix needs to wait for the other stuff you guys are working on before publishing the update?

I mean, I am really having a hard time getting anything done. NO PRESSURE! YOu know far better than me whats best for all TG (by  many orders of magnitude!). But perhaps bug fixes could be released before feature and other improvements? THat is unless they are somehow tied together.

Again I defer to you matt and oshyan on all this without much question. Im just getting a little frustrated with my/this, specific problem. None of my other requests/issues/reports/, prevent me from working. But this one is. Really is, (in relation to the other thread). The two together are just killing me over here

I guess I lied above when I said no pressure. Maybe I mean to pressure a bit. But just a tiny tiny bit!

Thanks for reading.

:)

Hi Michael,

Your problem sounds like it's completely unrelated to the one in this thread. This thread is about crashes when you abort a population when a render is starting. That is the problem which is fixed. Yours is something different.

If you're getting crashes which are repeatable then the very best thing to do is to either post here or post to support@planetside.co.uk. Attach a project file showing the problem and steps to reproduce the problem. We like repeatable problems a lot because it usually means we can understand and fix the problem much more quickly.

You can send me a project file at jomeder@planetside.co.uk if you like. I will look into it and try to get it fixed for the next release.

Regards,

Jo

I should also mention that we do release smaller updates with few or no new features, particularly when there are urgent issues that have been resolved. In this case, although there are several bugs that have been fixed internally, none of them are very urgent (as far as I can recall). There are crash bugs, but they are easily avoidable (like the one that started this thread). If there was an important fix that affected key functionality, if there was a frequent and unavoidable crash or a problem with a fundamental feature, we would release an intermediate update.

- Oshyan

Thanks guys. Sorry for putting it in the wrong thread. I thought it was related because it happens when I populate, or change a setting that has something to do with the population. But thats not all.

I will pack up a file to send you tonight. I will reproduce the crash several times and take notes so I can write you a detailed description of what I was doing.

OR if it would be easier for you (it propbably would for me) I can try to use this screen recorder thing and just send you a short video of what Im doing as it happens with the .tgd... I could have the activity monitor on the screen too, if that would help at all?

I'm curious why you'd think this would be a population problem and not a Simple Shape problem. Just because the Simple Shape is linked to a population doesn't mean that suddenly any problems that happen are due to the population. I think with time this stuff can become intuitive, but for now you seem to assume a lot more "inherited properties" and linkage than actually exists.

A change in a node that causes a result is very often *to do with that node* (i.e. the crash is likely to be related to the Simple Shape since it's a setting in that node that you're changing). Unless there is some automatic down-stream process that happens as a result of an up-stream (in the network) action, in which case sometimes the node that owns the setting you're changing may not be *directly* responsible for the issue. In the case of a Population, I don't think it actually does anything with incoming data until you Populate/Repopulate. So *unless* your crash is happening after first changing the Simple Shape and *then* repopulating, then as I said it's likely to be an issue in the Simple Shape. This just reinforces the importance of describing exactly and specifically what steps you're following to get a crash, not leaving anything out, and not going on assumptions about what might be happening.

Now, after all that, it'll probably turn out to be a populator issue just to spite me. ;) You *are* doing some rather unusual things with both the Simple Shape and the Populator, so it really could be either. I just notice a tendency you've had lately to jump to conclusions that don't follow logically to my mind and I'm hoping to help point you in the right direction. :)

- Oshyan

Hi Michael,

Quote from: TheBadger on January 14, 2014, 12:05:32 AM
OR if it would be easier for you (it propbably would for me) I can try to use this screen recorder thing and just send you a short video of what Im doing as it happens with the .tgd... I could have the activity monitor on the screen too, if that would help at all?

It would be easier for us to have the project and steps to reproduce, because it means we can look at what's happening using the debugger. The project is most useful because although you can generally describe what you're doing sometimes it all hinges on one particular thing which doesn't seem worth mentioning :-). If we have trouble reproducing it then the movie could be handy to see what you're doing more exactly, but we'll ask if we need it. The Activity Monitor probably wouldn't help in this case I'm guessing.

Regards,

Jo

Jo,
Ok, jo! I just wanted an excuse to finally use that thing. Ill do it as soon as I finish this tasty pizza.


Oshyan,

QuoteI'm curious why you'd think this would be a population problem and not a Simple Shape problem.

Because without doing one other thing, TG crashes when I hit populate... JUst not every time, but like I said, 2-3 out of 5. It will crash at other times for apparently other reasons too.

I don't doubt that it may be something else. IM just not qualified to say. And yet when I post I have to explain my self somehow. So I gotta make a guess based on what I learn from other peoples posts. Im not even trying to become an expert on this. I have enough trouble making art.

But even so, I do enjoy reading proper explanations. And I try to retain and adapt what I can. So don't stop trying.

Lastly, I don't really understand why you say, "You *are* doing some rather unusual things with both the Simple Shape and the Populator". Fundementally, Im doing exactly what they are for, that is, creating a shape and mask, and populating. What does TG care that my scales are so big, or that its happing in outer space?  ;D. 

I understood even before I started that TG can do this. I just needed a good bit of help to get there. But the reason I knew that it could do it, is because its basic. I can see in any number of posts everything I have done working for other people. I just used the nodes for a different purpose. Ok, maybe I stretch things a little bit beyond their intended use. But its not like Im trying to get a cloud node to look like a stone or something. I haven't tried to use the nodes for anything other than what they do, fundamentally.

Maybe Im wrong completely.  But Im not going to know just because you do. I need my hand held with this stuff, because it is so completely outside of my education and experience. Frankly though, based on what I saw happening to me, and what I read in this thread, I thought the problem was related. Why wouldn't I think that a thread about a poplator bug was related to a crash that happend to me when I hit populate? Maybe the bug just works better and I don't have to hit cancel first.  ;) ;D :P

sent

One small additional thing, which I might have mentioned before. Sometimes a 0 (zero) gets accidentally in a textfield (mainly because my Dutch version of windows remembers a ' every time I start TG, and e.g. '350 will be translated into 0 ), and if a zero gets in the textfield for population spacing, an immediate crash occurs. Perhaps a warning popup would help, stating the error, and just an end to populating the particular pop.

Hehe, ok. Well a couple of things.

First, this thread is about a very specific issue with the populator, a crash when you hit abort. Other issues to do with the populator really deserve their own thread for discussion. Otherwise it just gets confusing. If every issue having to do with the populator was in a single thread, it'd be 20 pages or something. ;)

Now, I didn't know that it crashed *when you hit populate*, if that was in your original description I must have missed it; my impression was it crashed *when you changed a value in Simple Shape*, suggesting that it was a problem with Simple Shape and not necessarily the populator. Now that you've added that critical piece of info, that it happened *when you pressed populate*, then absolutely it could be a problem with the populator; it really could be a problem with either one at this point, but it was much more likely to have been a Simple Shape issue before I knew that it occurred when you populated. Which just reinforces the importance of laying out every single step you take to reach an issue, because the specific steps are usually critical.

- Oshyan

I think in this case, its both, Oshyan.

I think I was reporting a crash, but really I was seeing several different problems with this file at once. I will be surprised if all I brought up and sent to jo is just one issue effecting in 3 different ways. Although that would probably be good news?

I'll understand everything better when you guys figure out everything and tell us what is really happening. THen next time Ill know better how to report.

Excluding just learning how to use Terragen, this is the most complex series of problems I have run into my self. Until now no other problem actually stopped me from working altogether.

Any news on this?

Well, to be clear, one crash is not the same as another crash. A crash in the populator that has to do with changing e.g. spacing is not the same as a crash that happens when you abort the population phase. They should be discussed separately, plain and simple, because they are not necessarily related (they have to do with 2 different functions, even though they're the same node).

Did you send your file direct to Jo or were you intending me to forward it?

- Oshyan

I sent it to him like he asked.

But I was hoping you had some info.  ;D YOur a small company, but your all thousands of miles apart. YOu may as well be a gigantic company then.

cheers