Dragging stuff from Content Browser to viewport freezes UE4

[SentinelSigma]

A problem which didn't occur before is really making working with UE4 very difficult. Dragging models or materials from the content browser into viewport for the first time causes UE4 to freeze for long periods of time before I can use it again. This only happens the first time I drag that specific mesh/material in, but it is still very annoying. Anyone else experiencing this and have a solution for this problem?

[Steve_T]

I've never had this happen before. Has it only started on a recent update or all the time. Is it 4.7?

[BhaaL]

I noticed this too while looking at the Kite Demo assets; but only grew suspicious when it happened on a blank 3rd person template with starter content aswell. Seems to be since the 4.7.4 update?

[SentinelSigma]

Well it started with 4.7 update and although it only happens the first time I place that specific asset into the editor, the wait is extremely annoying . I can't do amything for minutes.

[BhaaL]

I think it has something to do with shaders requiring to be compiled; as soon as I used the asset, material or whatever at least once, its fine. Interrestingly, right-clicking a Material that hasn't been used before also causes this hang.
Did you report this on AnswerHub yet?

[SentinelSigma]

Yeah I have, the only answer is to increase pagefile size but I'm not sure what to increase it to plus when I do in fact drag in an asset, not a lot of memory is being used (700MB). So I guess that isn't really a problem.

https://answers.unrealengine.com/que...ewport-fr.html

[Michael Noland]

Assets shown in the content browser aren't necessarily loaded yet. Right-clicking on them or dragging them into the viewport forces them to be loaded, which takes some small amount of time the first time you load it each time you run the editor, but can take a lot longer the very first time you've ever used that asset on your machine (as it may need new shaders to be compiled or textures to be compressed, which are cached into the DDC for subsequent runs).

Cheers,
Michael Noland

[SentinelSigma]

Assets shown in the content browser aren't necessarily loaded yet. Right-clicking on them or dragging them into the viewport forces them to be loaded, which takes some small amount of time the first time you load it each time you run the editor, but can take a lot longer the very first time you've ever used that asset on your machine (as it may need new shaders to be compiled or textures to be compressed, which are cached into the DDC for subsequent runs).

Cheers,
Michael Noland

I understand that and this was something that occurred before but it didn't freeze the editor while the asset was loading. Pre-4.7, we only got the "Loading Shaders" bar on the bottom right and the model with a default grey material while the shaders loaded. This allowed us to freely place the model anywhere while the shaders were loading and use the editor without hitches. Now with 4.7, the editor completely freezes and we must wait usually around 3-5 minutes for it to start responding again, even then sometimes after the editor starts responding, we STILL get the "Loading Shaders" bar on the bottom right.

[SentinelSigma]

Will this be fixed in later versions of the Engine or we will have to deal with the engine freezing?

[BhaaL]

I'm somewhat certain that with 4.7.3 to 4.7.4, this went from "barely noticable" to "editor hangs for a few seconds" - so something must have changed to cause this to happen. It's not the 3-5 minutes from SentinelSigma for me (unless I really go overboard with the Kite Demo pack), but other than that the same behavior.

[SentinelSigma]

I'm somewhat certain that with 4.7.3 to 4.7.4, this went from "barely noticable" to "editor hangs for a few seconds" - so something must have changed to cause this to happen. It's not the 3-5 minutes from SentinelSigma for me (unless I really go overboard with the Kite Demo pack), but other than that the same behavior.

Well I guess 3-5 minutes is an exaggeration, it certainly comes close to it when using Kite Demo pack assets, but the editor freezing is something that shouldn't really happen. I was perfectly fine with dragging the asset in and having it with a default texture until the shaders are loaded, in older versions of the engine. Now having to wait a minute or two for the engine to respond again every time I want to place an asset into the game becomes aggravating if you're constantly moving assets in.

Again, it's not that big of a deal to wait, but I certainly think it's an actual problem that needs to be fixed because it didn't occur in older versions of the engine.

[CreatorofWorlds]

No 3-5 minutes is not an exaggeration. I see this every time I go to add content to a scene and it's absurd. The reply above from Michael Noland is insulting. "which takes some small amount of time the first time you load it"....come on that's not an answer. It's not a small amount of time it's a significant amount of time that goes into multiple minutes and adds up over the course of the day. Not to mention it isn't a realistic way to build a game. If Epic can't design the engine to load meshes and compile shaders any better than this then it doesn't matter if the engine is free, it's unusable. I don't have the same issue when using CryEngine or Unity so why should this type of productivity barrier be ok with Unreal? Don't get me wrong, I love Unreal Engine and have worked with it since the UDK days but this sadly makes you question the viability of continuing to use it. Even in the UDK Content Browser we had the option to force to load an entire package at once so all the waiting was out of the way. Why not have something similar in UE. When hardware specs are not the issue here then something is up with the engine and since this wasn't occurring before 4.7 why isn't Epic looking into it? Even just some suggestions on something to improve the situation while the engine is being worked on would be a be improvement.

[cec4]

I'm having the same problem. are you loading the assests from another drive or running crossfire?

[s.aitken88]

Well it's only been 4 and a half years... and I'm getting this issue too.

Instantiating any new texture from the content browser results in a very long freeze. For larger objects it can take several minutes. On some occasions it seems to genuinely freeze; I just give up and force close UE from my Task Manager.

This is not workable, and I'm amazed the issue still exists so many years later.

[lukajzer]

I have the same issue. Anyone has any fix for that?