ZBrushCentral

ZBrush freezes on *second* attempt to run (and every attempt after until reboot)

PARENT-SUPPORT CHILD-Startup And Compatibility Troubleshooting
#1

Hello!

I’m having an odd problem with ZBrush 4R6: The first time I run it, it starts and runs fine. Then after I close it (or if it crashes), when I next try to run it, it gets as far as a white screen with the Windows 7 blue spinning circle cursor, and… Stays there, pretty much indefinitely. Then after forcing it to shut down, every attempt to run ZBrush has the same result. It never opens again, until after I reboot.

So basically, I get one chance to run ZBrush per Windows startup.

Earlier versions from 4R3 onward worked OK.

I submitted a service ticket, but got busy and took a while to get back to tech support with some info; having done so a couple days ago, I still haven’t heard back. So I’m not sure if my support ticket has been lost; but I’m meaning to check again soon.

One thing support asked for was if I had modified or customized ZBrush, and I had not. I’m trying to upload a screen capture of my desktop, but the upload software is saying the file format (a PNG from Photoshop) is invalid. I think the layout is pretty straightforward and standard, but there might be a few buttons I moved around in 4R5 that remain in their custom locations.

If there’s something to try that invoives resetting ZBrush back to its defaults, I’m fine with that.

Here are my specs:

Windows 7 64-bit
Intel Core i5 CPU [email protected] (4CPUs), ~2.7GHz
8192MB RAM
ZBrush 4R6 p2

Not sure if it’s worth mentioning, but I have a Wacom Cintiq 12", and extend my desktop onto it. It’s always seemed to work fine, but I also have a Wacom Bamboo, the pressure sensitivity of which is for some reason not being picked up in ZBrush (but it does work in Photoshop). I’ve reinstalled those Wacom drivers at least once, could they cause problems?

And I saw a notice somewhere that a lot of problems are caused by anti-virus software (though perhaps that’s only installation), so I turned off Avast before attempting to run ZBrush, just to be sure. Made no difference; ZBrush still crashed on startup – on the second try, that is.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Spencer

#2

From what you say here, it’s likely that your ticket had to be referred to the development team. It can therefore take a couple extra days to receive a response.

You can always view the status of your ticket by logging into the Support system. From there you can view your tickets. That way you’ll know if it’s waiting for reply or if a reply was sent and you just didn’t receive it in your mailbox.

#3

By the way, how did you install 4R6? Did you update from 4R5 or did you use the stand-alone installer? One thing you could try would be to uninstall 4R6 and delete its folder. Also delete the C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\ZBrushData folder. Then download the full installer from https://pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/instructions/full-installer.php

#4

Thanks for the tips! I couldn’t quite remember how I installed 4R6 (I just chose whatever seemed like the suggested route) but I went ahead and took your advice and reinstalled anyway. And the problem remained.

However! As I was looking at the Task Manager trying to figure out how much ZBrush was making it into memory before freezing (320,000 K FYI), I noticed all the Wacom processes I had running, and it reminded me of how I had fairly recently been trying to get both my Cintiq 12WX and my Bamboo Capture to work well with ZBrush, because in ZBrush pressure applied to the Bamboo wasn’t affecting the stroke (despite it working fine in Photoshop). I had updated those Wacom drivers, though with no success.

So I went through the Task Manager, shutting down every process that looked like it had anything to do with Wacom. And it worked. After I did that, 4R6 opened repeatedly and quickly.

Then I rebooted to get all the Wacom processes running again, and shut down only the wacom_tablet.exe. That alone allowed ZBrush to open repeatedly again.

But it breaks the input from my Cintiq.

Not sure if shutting down just the Bamboo process would work the same way; I haven’t had the Bamboo connected for a while, so its process seems not to start.

But bottom line, the problem seems to have something to do with Wacom drivers.

Thanks again for the suggestion, aurick!

#5

Just an update, that seemed to have been the problem. I have both a Wacom Cintiq and a Wacom Bamboo Capture. At Wacom tech support’s suggestion I reinstalled drivers for both – but without reloading my saved Wacom preferences, since if I remember correctly reinstalling with the preferences restored seemed not to work – and was able to run ZBrush normally again.