Maya 2014 File Browser extremely slow?

Brygelsmack

Hi there. I'm having a weird problem in Maya 2014. Whenever I click to open a file browser it takes forever until it finally opens up. I made a video here showcasing the problem in 2014 compared to 2012. I want to use 2014 over 2012 simply because it's more stable and crash less often, but this is driving me nuts since I often export and load texture files.

And yes I have tried restoring to default settings and changed the dialog style to OS native. Doesn't work.

Thanks in advance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAi3oZcQb-s

passerby

thats pretty bad, it's a little slower than 2012 on my system but not that bad.

Do you got any external drives or anything that takes a second t spin up, i noticed even if maya isnt browsing to my external drive, it lags a little till the drive wakes up.

Brygelsmack

I have one yeah, but it's rarely on. Especially when I use Maya.

Any other ideas? It's weird how 2014 is affected and 2012 is not.

TeZzy

I had this problem with Maya 2011 and switching to OS native solved the problem. But as you say you already tried this.

Apparently, if you have a floppy disk drive enabled (even if you don't have one) it could slow down the file dialog. Not sure if that is true for Maya 2014. But worth seeing if that is the case.

Brygelsmack

Yes, I read about that yesterday but I don't have a floppy in My computer or in the device manager either. I removed a virtual disk created by PowerISO but the problem remains.

Do you know if the Service Packs are available for Maya's student version?

Evohc

I've seen this with the last couple of Maya releases. I just ignored it best as possible thinking it was a bug that would get fixed... Yah if you figure something out, that'll make both of us happier.

unit187

I don't remember how it was with earlier versions of Maya, but in 2013 and 2014 this was always the case - slow loading (I tried it on multiple machines - it is the same everywhere). I don't know how to fix it. Sometimes when you have to import or export a number of assets, this extremely slow loading may become real pain. So, I had to write a bunch of scripts to speed up the process of export.

Brygelsmack

unit187 wrote: »

I don't remember how it was with earlier versions of Maya, but in 2013 and 2014 this was always the case - slow loading (I tried it on multiple machines - it is the same everywhere). I don't know how to fix it. Sometimes when you have to import or export a number of assets, this extremely slow loading may become real pain. So, I had to write a bunch of scripts to speed up the process of export.

Any chance of sharing them?

unit187

Brygelsmack wrote: »

Any chance of sharing them?

Yes, sure. Those scripts are very crude, but I'd be happy if you find them useful. In order to use them, go to script editor, then in "command" menu, and then "create new tab". Create one Python and one MEL.

This one goes into MEL tab.

//Exports single selected item and hierarchy underneath as a FBX file.
select -hi;
string $items[] = `ls -os -tr`;
//In the next line write your destination path. Then change all "\" to "/".
//And also important: the path MUST end with an "/".
string $longPath = "D:/folder/";
string $postFix = ".fbx";
string $together = $longPath + $items[0] + $postFix;
print $together;

file -force -options "v=0;" -typ "FBX export" -pr -es $together;

And this into Python.

# This script exports selected objects as separate OBJ files.
import maya.cmds as cmds

selectionList = cmds.ls(sl=True, tr=True)

for item in selectionList:
	cmds.select (item)
	nameString = str(item)
	#In the next line write your destination path. Then change all "\" to "/".
	#And also important: the path MUST end with an "/".
	path = 'D:/folder/'
	path = path + nameString + '.obj'
	cmds.file (path, type='OBJexport', es=True)

Bartalon

I recall this happening on my friend's machine but not mine. Leads me to believe there is some hardware issue at play perhaps.

Have you tried deleting userPrefs.mel? Probably won't work, but it does sort out a number of interface issues if they arise.

St.Sabath

One thing i noticed is on Maya 2014,when you save your files on desktop(folder with scenes and subfolders for Exports/Textures etc etc),it speeds up enormously..

Brygelsmack

unit187 wrote: »

Yes, sure. Those scripts are very crude, but I'd be happy if you find them useful. In order to use them, go to script editor, then in "command" menu, and then "create new tab". Create one Python and one MEL.

Cool, thank you!

Bartalon wrote: »

I recall this happening on my friend's machine but not mine. Leads me to believe there is some hardware issue at play perhaps.

It's so weird, why would Maya 2012 be faster than 2014?

Bartalon wrote: »

Have you tried deleting userPrefs.mel? Probably won't work, but it does sort out a number of interface issues if they arise.

Didn't work.

St.Sabath wrote: »

One thing i noticed is on Maya 2014,when you save your files on desktop(folder with scenes and subfolders for Exports/Textures etc etc),it speeds up enormously..

Really? When you say your files, do you mean Maya scenes?

Brygelsmack

Bump, just in case someone have a solution...

kodde

I also always use OS Native file dialogue instead. Much faster and has native windows functionality such as copy/pase, etc. directly in the dialogue window.

There's no mapped network drives or anything similar which it might be querying?

monster

Brygelsmack wrote: »

Do you know if the Service Packs are available for Maya's student version?

Yeah just download and install the service pack. You'll need to enter your serial number and product key again.

Brygelsmack

kodde wrote: »

There's no mapped network drives or anything similar which it might be querying?

All I have is an external drive but it's turned off most of the time.

Is there a way to limit where Maya is querying?

monster wrote: »

Yeah just download and install the service pack. You'll need to enter your serial number and product key again.

Cool, thanks.

Froyok

On the current laptop that I'm working on, I got this problem too. However it's only when I had dropbox running in the background, it was slowing down the Maya window a lot. If I killed the dropbox process I got instantaneously the open/save window.

It seems I was having this behavior with the SP1, now that I'm under SP3 I don't get it anymore. Not sure if it's really related.

Brygelsmack

Dropbox is not running so I don't think that's the issue unfortunately.

Interesting about the Service Pack, I checked and I'm still on Service Pack 1. Is this the download for SP3 (Student version)?

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/downloads/caas/downloads/content/autodesk-maya-2014-service-pack-3.html

Isn't it weird that they don't require you to login to download? Especially since it's the full "product installation"? Oh, well. I'll try downloading that and see if it works.

monster

Brygelsmack wrote: »

Isn't it weird that they don't require you to login to download? Especially since it's the full "product installation"? Oh, well. I'll try downloading that and see if it works.

Maya 2014 is up to service pack 4, so make sure you get that one.

The Student Version is technically the full version, but when certain serial numbers are used it goes into student mode. 3ds Max operates the same way. When you don't have a serial number it goes into trial mode.

Brygelsmack

monster wrote: »

Maya 2014 is up to service pack 4, so make sure you get that one.

The Student Version is technically the full version, but when certain serial numbers are used it goes into student mode. 3ds Max operates the same way. When you don't have a serial number it goes into trial mode.

Ok, thanks. Installed SP3 before I saw this and it didn't work either. I guess SP4 is my final hope.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Edit: Well, shit. Trying to unpack SP4...



Edit2: Re-downloaded and it worked now. Weeeird. Let's hope the file browsers are faster in SP4...

Edit3: No luck. It's still slow as shit. Whyyy.

monster

Can I see a screenshot of your device manager? And a screenshot of diskmgmt.msc?

Could you try changing the project to a different directory than one shared with 2012 and then restart Maya, then test again.

MM

Brygelsmack wrote: »

Edit3: No luck. It's still slow as shit. Whyyy.

have you ever installed any custom maya cry tools, if so check your output window and see if you get this on the top

Fatal Error: Failed creating shelf directory: //fs1/TECHART/Tools/CryMayaTools/shelves

search for a similar environment variable in the registry and remove it. that should fix the delay.

Brygelsmack

monster wrote: »

Can I see a screenshot of your device manager? And a screenshot of diskmgmt.msc?

Could you try changing the project to a different directory than one shared with 2012 and then restart Maya, then test again.

› Device manager.

› Disk manager.

And I'm not sure what you mean with changing the project to a different directory than one shared with 2012? How do I do that?

MM wrote: »

have you ever installed any custom maya cry tools, if so check your output window and see if you get this on the top

Fatal Error: Failed creating shelf directory: //fs1/TECHART/Tools/CryMayaTools/shelves

search for a similar environment variable in the registry and remove it. that should fix the delay.

I don't have any cry tools installed on 2014 (and I've never installed anything else than the official tools by Crytek), but I'm still getting this error. Do you know why? I'm not too familiar with the registry, so I'll get back to you in a bit!

Thanks for the advice!

Edit: Is this the one you mean?

MM

yea, if you have any cry tools installed at all then 90% chance is that this is the issue.

open the registry editor:

if you are on windows 7, go to start menu and type "regedit" in the search
select regedit.exe

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/registry/ht/open-registry-editor.htm

then in the regedit.exe go to edit-find and search for this "//fs1/TECHART/Tools/CryMayaTools/shelves"

you should find an environment variable with that value.

select the environment variable and delete.

as far as i know you dont really need this since it is mainly a custom shelf path not something critical like RC build path.
you can create your own shelves later.

EDIT

just saw your image, yes that is the one. delete it.
restart your PC and try Maya again.

Brygelsmack

YES! It works!

Thank you soo much MM! How did you figure this out??

And one more question, what does this mean in terms of using the Cry Tools? Can I install them as usual or do I need to work around this problem?

MM

good to hear it worked.

error message in the output window was the first clue. i am sure i read somewhere in crydev forums regarding removal of the environment variable.

so far i think the only way is to work around this to avoid the slow down. may be someone else will find a better solution later.

Brygelsmack

Ok, since it's related to Cry Tools I can pretty easily forward it to Crytek, hopefully they can do something about it.

Thanks again!!!

Alan_Partridge

Hi there,
So just for reference, getting rid of my floppy drive in Device manager, makes the browser instant on restart of Maya....

Had an issue like this in Softimage years ago, it was slow access to a network drive, nothing to do with Soft, it was a network issue. Browser just couldn't build itself quickly.

Cheers.
A

Baron Christophilies

Alan_Partridge wrote: »

Hi there,
So just for reference, getting rid of my floppy drive in Device manager, makes the browser instant on restart of Maya....

Had an issue like this in Softimage years ago, it was slow access to a network drive, nothing to do with Soft, it was a network issue. Browser just couldn't build itself quickly.

Hi Guys,

I'd like to back this up, I have 2 machines that I work on and they are linked across the network with mapped drives to specific areas etc.

Whenever one machine is off the browser is painfully slow.

Does anybody know of a way to stop Maya automatically trying to fire up network links?

Cheers.