In 4.27, I was having some problems with packaging, then the editor started crashing, so I decided to delete the DDC folder. Now the project crashes every time I attempt to open it and I can’t find any specific errors in the crash logs to trace down. Any help is appreciated!
Hey there @SVR33! Welcome back to the community! Taking a look at the log there’s no direct error we can work off of. The hints we have on hand are that this started occurring after the DDC was deleted. In a functioning environment, this should not cause anything but a rebuild of it next launch. Coincidentally, the crash seems to occur during a rebuild of the DDC itself. This could point to something that was corrupted before that had a functional instance saved in the cache, is now unable to be cached due to the corruption. Other alternative possibilities could be that you’re maxing out your resources and the utility fails, but that’s somewhat unlikely considering your specs are quite good.
This is quite the tricky problem, and there aren’t too many good ways to debug corrupted mesh or shader data since you can’t get the editor open to assess what could be corrupted. Often the best case is to revert back to a functioning branch in your source control, but if that’s not an option we may need to prod a bit to find out what exactly is failing and when.
If possible, can you install the editor symbols? Since it’s pointing to a memory address it may not provide any extra insight, but slightly more info in the chain. I see the top level in the chain is “embree_2_14_0” which I believe to be referencing the CPU based raytracing library, this is a hunch, but do you have raytracing enabled on the project?
Hi SupportiveEntity, I really appreciate the help!
That makes a lot of sense and tracks with some of what I was thinking, as well. My CPU temps have been getting pretty high during load (175-215 F) so I’ve got a new CPU cooler being delivered today, which I will install as soon as it arrives and retry. That’s definitely quite hot and could explain the crashing. I limited my CPU to 75% in windows power settings, yesterday, to try and offset that a bit. I did also verify engine installation, too. I’m not having any issues opening other projects.
Per your instruction, I installed the editor symbols and just attempted to open the project… surprisingly, it ran for about 5 minutes and made it all the way to 95% before crashing. I thought it was going to make it, for a moment. Yesterday, the crashes (about 20 or so attempts) were all happening at around 75% and just ~30 seconds after starting the load. The only change was installing editor symbols… does that makes sense?
Here’s the new crash log… appreciate your insight!
Fatal error: [File:D:/Build/++UE4/Sync/Engine/Source/Runtime/Engine/Private/Materials/MaterialShared.cpp] [Line: 2457] Fatal Error Material not found
It seems to still be failing entirely based on being unable to finish shader compilation and caching, so if it’s not resource maxing, it will likely be tied to some assets you’d added/worked on last before the crash. Do you remember what you were working with when the errors started occurring? You may be able to remove some of the assets from the folder structure (Obviously be sure to back the whole project up before you start chopping) from the project folders themselves starting with any third party meshes/materials. Remember to delete the cache again (if it’s ever regenerated anything) before launching. This is an inefficient way to go about this, but specifically it’s struggling with caching Mesh Distance Fields and Shaders, so we can’t rule the possibility of corruption.
Another thing to do would be trying to change your DefauledEngine.ini to open to another map when the project opens if you have one of the template maps still available, otherwise Minimal_Default should be accessible in the starter content files.
@SupportiveEntity I’m happy to report that the issue was a failing CPU cooling pump!
I believe the demand of rebuilding the DDC in combination with a failing cooler was causing the CPU to hit critical temperatures and crash the project at different stages of the load with no clear error. Once I installed the new pump [and a new motherboard since I broke it in the process ] the project opened perfectly.
Thank you so much for your help… this one had me pulling my hair out for a few days.
Thanks for the update! I’m glad everything worked out. It’s rare that the issue is hardware related, but when it is, the signs are always a mess. Logs not finishing, memory errors when in fact the memory location is correct and fine, functions failing silently, etc. The age old trick of monitoring your resources frequently wins again!
] the project opened perfectly.