Material editor crashing my machine sometimes

Development Asset Creation
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1

Hi,

Since I’ve installed UE4 (4.10) some months ago, the material editor sometimes crashes, specially when I’m clicking Apply a lot of times (when tweaking parameters which need a visual cue, like a foliage material I was tweaking in a tree in placed in the level). It actually crashes, freezes my machine and I have to . The only other situation which a similar thing was happening was when I was exploring the Particle Effects demo project (I guess the name is this, that demo with a cave, drpping water etc). It took a really long time compiling shaders, then my machine crashed. Everytime I tried to run this demo, same thing happened.

Maybe is something to do with my pc specs here, who knows.

Main specs:
Intel i7-950 Quadcore
Motherboard Intel Smackover 2 DX58SO2
24 GB RAM - DDR 3
UE4 installed in C: (SSD)
UE4 projects installed in D: (HD)
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 960 (drivers updated some 2 months ago)
Windows 10

UE4 link textLog files of today attached.

Thanks in advance,

2

Hi ,

  • Does this occur in a clean, blank project with no additional content or is it limited to one project?
  • What steps can I take to reproduce this error on my end?
  • Have you tried uninstalling and re-installing the editor?
  • Do you have the editor and swarmagent set as allowed in your firewall permissions?
3

I’ll check these steps and post the results here as soon as possible.

4

Have you tried uninstalling and
re-installing the editor?

Not yet (I’ll update to 4.11 in the next few days), but this was happening also when I was using version 4.9 - I’m using 4.10 now.

5

Hi ,

Have you been able to check these steps to see if it fixes the error?

6

Does this occur in a clean, blank
project with no additional content or
is it limited to one project?

I was checking this step right now, in a clean blank project, as you recommended. It was going very well, but some 3 minutes ago it crashed my machine again. Now with that windows bluescreen saying “WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR”.

If I remember well, this was the message that appeared when I’d run the particles effects demo (cave with dripping water etc). I searched the web, by the time, to try to spot the cause for this error but was not able to find it. Because my machine don’t crash in any other situation, with any other software. Does it have something to do with the shader compiling process?

Do you have the editor and swarmagent
set as allowed in your firewall
permissions?

Yes, they’re allowed. I tried now modifying their permission setting from “public networks” to “private networks”. Does it make any difference?

7

What steps can I take to reproduce
this error on my end?

As I’ve said above, I was tweaking parameters in node networks in the material editor. I was playing with opacity, ways to boost the subsurface scattering effect etc in a tree’s leaves, which was using the foliage shader model.

Now, in a blank project I…

  • Created a material
  • Opened material editor
  • Loaded a perlin clouds texture (jpg)
    I’ve made here in a Texture Sample
    node
  • Then I plugged a Panner and a
    Rotator in it.
  • Then (as I didn’t learn yet how to
    use the Rotator properly) I plugged
    the output from the Panner to a
    BreakOutFloat2Components, trying to
    plug the Rotator only in the X
    coordinate output to see what would
    happen
  • Then a MakeFloat2, to plug it again
    in the input of the Texture Sample…
    While tweaking parameter values… it
    crashed

Well, randomly trying things which I think would press the shader compiling to crash.

Thanks in advance,

Edit: Just to help spot it, I have “Live Preview” and “Stats” enabled in the material editor’s top bar/shelf.

8

Have you tried uninstalling and
re-installing the editor?

No, but as I’ve said, it happened when I had version 4.9 installed. I guess when you install a new engine version it does a fresh install of the editor…? Or does it only replace some modules etc? Do you think it’s worth reinstalling it?

9

While I was browsing the AnswerHub, before posting the question here, I’ve seen some topics on material editor crashes with comments saying that maybe the antivirus software would be interfering with the shader compiling process. A guy (user, I guess) suggesting to put an exception in the antivirus for the shader compiler… Is it a possibility?

10

Yes, if swarmagent is not set as an exception with your firewall/antivirus it will not be able to run correctly.

11

Done. SwarmAgent.exe as an exception.
Is there any other .exe in 4.10\Engine\Binaries that I should set as an exception?
Gonna try again some tweaks in material editor and see if it crashes.

Thanks, .

12

Well, until now, no more crashes. I’ll keep testing it.

Thanks,

13

I’m happy to hear the crashes are no longer occurring. I will leave this post open for a few days just in case the crashes begin again. If I do not hear back by Friday, I’ll mark the post as answered for tracking purposes.