3DxMaya driver makes Maya 2009 suicidal!

[Windy]

I'm a bit sad to confess that I've found a rather serious and (in my case) easily reproducible bug. The problem is independent of the device itself. That is to say, it doesn't matter if my SpaceNavigator is plugged in or not. The problem seems to reside within the 3DxMaya-plugin. I've been able to isolate the problem by having the plugin loaded, and then try it again with the plugin unloaded. Let me explain what happens:

After starting Maya, I create a polygon cube. I select the rotate tool. After rotating the cube for a few seconds, the application quits. I say "quit" instead of "crash" since it doesn't give me any error messages, creates no logs, and OSX doesn't ask me if I want to relaunch the program. Everything acts as if it was a user-imposed quit, with the unfortunate exception of not asking whether I want to save my work or not. I tried repeating this, but with the driver unloaded. It did not crash at all.

As you can imagine, not being able to rotate objects is a rather fundamental handicap when it comes to anything 3D. Seeing as it is the software rather than the hardware that is at fault, I would love to see this problem getting solved. And seeing as you have a good reputation when it comes to customer relations, I really hope we can somehow work this out.

Here are a few computer specifications for my workspace, in case it helps:
Macbook Air
1.6GHz processor
2GB RAM
Intel GMA X3100
OSX Leopard 10.5.5
Maya 2009 Unlimited
(Yes, I know it's not the powerhouse that you are all used to, but it manages my needs fine, except for when this problem came up...)

Here is a movie I recorded. It takes you along on my crash-filled journey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCm_PRdJQU

[rstadie]

Hi Windy,

Does this also occur with the latest available driver which is available here? Which 3Dconnexion driver version do you have installed?

[Windy]

Yes, the preference pane reports me as using 1.5.6 and the update wizard tells me that there are no newer versions available.

[Windy]

I just checked within the Maya Plug-in manager, which says the following

Name: 3DxMaya
Path: /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/2009/plug-ins/3DxMaya.bundle
Vendor: 3Dconnexion
Plug-in version: 1.1
For API version: 200900

I thought it maybe might help = )

[mnolin]

I'm having this same issue, if I continue to rotate an object for any period of time, Maya will "quit" with no warning or notice.

However, I don't know anything about the 3DxMaya-plugin you're talking about. I just have Maya 2009 Unlimited (I've only been using Maya for a couple of weeks so forgive me if the plugin is automatically included in the Unlimited version)

I have the following:
Macbook
2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB RAM
Intel GMA X3100
OSX Leopard 10.5.5
Maya 2009 Unlimited

[flomotan]

We've tried to reproduce this problem with no luck. I think the issue might be with the graphics chip or driver. Here's another post that describes a similar problem however it's on Windows.

http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/foru ... 302/#94757

mnolin, are you using one of our 3d mice? Both you and Windy have Intel GMA X3100 based graphics subsystems.

[vladimirgeller]

i'm using maya 2009 on a macbook pro, 8600 gt, with a SN and the latest driver and ha no issues. I doubt it has something to do with the driver. Do consider that Maya is not certified for your notebook.

[vladimirgeller]

I think that the graphics card(lack of it) is the reason maya quits. Make a test on some friends Mac that have a separate video card, professional or not

[Antscape]

I get this error. I had it in 2008 and i was hoping they would fix it in 2009, but they didn't. I don't know what "3DxMaya.bundle" is, and I don't think I even have it. I don't have a special mouse or a SpaceNavigator, whatever that is. I use a trackpad. It happens when I rotate in shaded mode. I've tried removing all plugins and it still crashes.

My info:
Mac OS X
10.5.5
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM


Intel GMA X3100:

Chipset Model: GMA X3100
Type: Display
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 144 MB
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x2a02
Revision ID: 0x0003


This might help.

when it crashes like this, it does save it with the rotation you did:
in "var/folders/qm/qmrAAAAAAAAAAAA+++AA/-Tmp-/Username.20081111.1637.ma" and then it quits.

So just go to that wierd folder by typing in the following 2 commands into terminal:

cd /var/folders/*/*/-Tmp-/
open .

Is that an autosave? I can't find a way to disable autosave.
i tried running maya through terminal so i could see the output, and at the very end it outputed "Bus error".
what is a bus error?
hope this helps.
If anyone finds out how to fix it can they please post it so i can rotate.

[vladimirgeller]

why do you actually expect maya to run well if you don't have a graphics card? They won't support your application either until you run it on a certified
platform. It's like you would drive a Ferrari a an off-road track.