4.7 final - StarterContent materials/shaders freeze

Development Rendering
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1

Symptoms:

Editor and whole operating system freezes for 2 - 30 seconds. Mouse moves, but you can’t do nothing, not even switch to other programs. The editor doesn’t crash, it returns to normal when the freeze is over.

How to produce

  • Create new blueprint project in 4.7
    with StarterContent
  • Open Content Browser, then choose StarterContent → Materials and double click “m_ground_moss” (or any other bigger material)
  • Whole editor and system freezes (but doesn’t crash)… cursor moves, but you can’t even switch programs (no indicator texts or nothing is displayed)
  • 2 - 30 seconds and the “material editor” opens and everythings is back to normal.
  • Note! this only happens first time you open the material. If you save your project and open the material again, it opens normally.

Tested on:

  • PC intel i7-4770k 3.5gHz . Windows 7 64bit. 16mb ram, nVidia GTX770. Freezes take 1-3 seconds.
  • MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) 2,3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16gb, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M, 2048 Mt. On MacBook the freezes take 2 seconds to 30 seconds and fans are spinning like crazy.

Does this happen to everyone?

BTW. this problem doesn’t occur with 4.5 (the only other version I had installed at the moment)

2

The issue seems to be resolved in hotfix 4.7.1.

3

This issue is back in 4.7.4 and is a HUGE productivity issue. Was not happening in 4.7.3

Is there a way to roll back to 4.7.3?

4

Hey Janne404,

You can go on GitHub to download and build the specific engine version you would like. I would like to mention that the 1 to 3 second freeze on your PC is fairly normal when compiling shaders or initially opening a new material that is complex. When working on a Mac this can be increased since its performance is limited.

I could see this being an issue if, every time you opened a material it froze for an extended period of time, or did so and did not provide any indication of it compiling shaders or saving. There are options within the Material Editor that can help improve your performance when opening or working with materials.

Material Update Options

37567-materialshaderoptions.png
37567-materialshaderoptions.png817×92 36.2 KB

These settings can help improve your workflow when editing multiple or complex materials.

Regards,