ZBrushCentral

Corrupted Projects on 4R7

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Ever since I upgraded to 4R7 from 4R6, I am experiencing corrupt project files. This is extremely frustrating. While I’m working on a project I will save, no error is reported, all seems fine. (I save incrementally, sometimes with “save undos” checked, and sometimes without). Then later when I re-open certain projects, several of the tools are missing. Sometimes a project with 5-6 tools opens and there are only 2 tools in the tool palette - the rest are gone.
Once a project starts “failing” at save, every further incremental save will be corrupt also, including any “quicksaves” made of that folder.
Also, the projects that are corrupt sometimes load incorrectly: instead of opening the document how I last left it, it does not open a document at all - I have to “Draw” the active tool onto a blank document.
So clearly, some of the data is not being saved properly.
This does not seem related to a specific project filesize, as far as I can tell.
This happens both with and without “save undos” feature checked.
This happens on both 4R7 32bit and 64bit.

Is anyone else having this issue?

Please help resolve this asap - Zbrush has always been highly reliable and a joy to work in - nothing is worst than save corruption for peace of mind and concentration! This has never happened to me on 4R6 which I’ve been using for a year and a half. Working in zbrush now comes with the stress of not knowing whether a project has been saved correctly.

#2

I have not experienced this on Win 7. Let me ask you some questions just for the sake of clarification. Please don’t be offended if you think they’re overly obvious. I just have to get them out of the way.

  1. What OS is this on ? (Always state your OS)

  2. How precisely are you saving your project files? Via the File> “Save As” command, or are you saving in the tool or document menus? Or are you relying on Quicksave?

  3. Approximately how large are the files in question? You mentioned you sometimes save the Undo history along with the Project file. This can sometimes create files too large for Zbrush to work well with.

  4. Does the Zbrush application have administrator rights on your system, or is its write access restricted in some way?

#3

No offense taken at all - I should have stated my OS for sure.

  1. This is win7 x64.
  2. I normally save using “File->Save As”. Sometimes I save with the “UndoHistory” button pressed, sometimes not, when files get large. I don’t rely on quicksave. I never use “Document->Save As”. I sometimes save tools via the tool menu as a safety. But the corruption happens on project files (.zpr), not on tools (.ztl) - at least so far.
  3. My project file size varies, but yesterday this happened to me with a file that is 340MB. My projects are typically between 500MB and 2GB. When they reach 4GB I usually get a size warning from ZB that my file is getting large, so I turn off the “UndoHistory” button in the File menu, and save to a versionned up filename, to bring the file size back down.
  4. Write access is not restricted, I have administrator rights and am saving to a local volume.
    Thanks!
#4

Well, I’d strongly advise not saving Undo History as a matter of course unless you specifically need it, and even then, make sure to save your tools out separately as backup. It absolutely explodes file size, and people report problems trying to load files that large. You might try saving without it for a while and see if the problem persists.

Aside from that, however, if you’re having trouble saving and loading project files under 1 GB, that obviously shouldn’t be happening. There might be something wrong with your installation. You could try deactivating/uninstalling and deleting the zbrush version folder, and then reinstalling from an up to date standalone installer ( I dont recommend using the auto update feature.) If you do that, make sure to pay close attention to the installation instructions in regard to things like disabling any anti virus during the procedure.

If that doesn’t help, or if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, you’ll have to make a Support ticket and let them try to work through the issue with you.

#5

As I said this is happening with or without “undoHistory” ticked and with project files that are under 1GB. I also have never once seen it happen with 4R6 which I’ve used heavily for almost 2 years with projects >4GB, and now that I’m on 4R7 it has happened to me multiple times in the last month. So given all that, my kneejerk reaction was that it could be an issue in R7. Has anyone else run into this since they’ve upgraded? Otherwise, you might be right with your suggestion that something is wrong with my install. In any case I will try to uninstall and reinstall. Thanks for the suggestion.

#6

I am also on Windows 7 64 bit and haven’t had those issues. I second Scott’s suggestion of a fresh install of ZBrush. know it’s a hassle to do this, but if it fixes the problem then it will be worth it.

#7

this is the same issue, I have been experiencing, I posted about it a few days ago, I literaly have about 5 versions of the same file and multiple obj’s, because i’m so scared to rely on zbrush with this file corruption stuff. Some of my files load with no subttols at all, but i can tell there is information because the file size still shows there is, if I try to draw out on the cnvas, i just get the default squares in 2d, no subtools.

I think it may be an issue with my files and not zbrush, but I can’t work out what it is.

I’m on Mas OS, with the latest zbrush build, i done a reinstall of zbrush, and a reinstall of the OS, and i still see the issue.