I’ve been getting crashes without exception when trying to render out any matinee sequence via “Create A Movie”. This has started in 4.6.1, and continues in 4.7.1, though I did not try it under the currentmost update yet. Before, I’ve recorded just fine in 4.3, which was the last version I used before migrating to 4.6.1 and newer.
I’ve tried it with a scene which has lots of high-poly / high texture resolution assets, and regardless of rendering to frames or avi, whichever FPS count or resolution, it always opens up the new window to record, goes black then white and crashes. The error messages haven’t been helpful either.
The same happens when I reopen a legacy map from 4.3 and even when creating a new 4.7.1 project on the FPS example map, with nothing added but a plain matinee sequence to test it. I’ve seen other users have the same issue, with no apparent answer to it. What could possibly be behind it? I’ll post a few error logs tomorrow, maybe something can be gotten out of them after all.
Thank you for your report, we are beginning to look into it immediately. Can you please also give us some more details about the Matinee Sequence you have set up? What type of Camera and camera movement are you using if any? What does your Director Group look like? Are you starting and stopping the Matinee playback in your Level Blueprint?
I’ll be back in the office tomorrow, but I can offer a bit more detail beforehand.
The Matinee sequences in question are all very barebones, 1 to 2 cameras created directly from within Matinee, otherwise unchanged, which for testing purposes only move in a straight line, keeping 2 out of 3 axes unchanged. No focusing over time / distance, post processing or otherwise enabled on the camera actors. Those are in turn kept as minimal as it gets - two keyframes each, start and end, over spans of 2-10 seconds.
They’re naturally linked to a once again otherwise unmodified director group, which only switches from one cam to the next. Nothing else is in there. The Matinee playback is only forced to play via its play on level start flag, at the moment I have no need for any blueprints controlling that / triggering them otherwise.
It even happens when I only create a blank Matinee with no cameras / director groups or animated actors whatsoever and try to record manual movement through a scene, which ought to rule out a conflict stemming from the animations - which play just fine in-editor.
Like I said, it only began when I switched over to 4.6.1 and newer. I’ve tried it on a project which started out in 4.3, and has since been migrated to 4.6.1 and now 4.7.1, though I’ll bump it to .2 tomorrow. Back during the initial creation, it worked fine. Ever since 4.6.1, matinee recording just crashes regardless of settings, and I’ve tried a whole variety of them . Setting up animations / keyframes works without a hitch, it’s really only when I want to render it to movie or frames that it dies on me.
Given how it happens even in a new project created from the starter templates, I’d fault the engine version somehow. Maybe some files got corrupted, I couldn’t say. I could try doing a fresh install, though that happened with 4.7.1 and it didn’t alleviate the issue.
Thank you for the additional information it helped me create a responsible test project, but unfortunately I am still not getting a crash as you describe it. I am linking a Project which was created in 4.3 of the Engine and another of the same project converted to 4.6.1. If you could try both of these projects to see if you are getting a crash, perhaps you have setup something that I have missed.
Back again. I’ve tried both files, opening the 4.3 version under 4.7.2 and the 4.6.1 under the corresponding version as well as 4.7.2. I’ve been getting the same crash as before, without exception.
Another recent Answerhub entry describes the exact same issue, crash when rendering to movie. The Editor itself runs fine, just the recording window undergoes critical existence failure.
I’ve appended two logs on Pastebin, corresponding to the 4.3 file run under 4.7.2 and the 4.6.1 file run on its own version. They both have timestamps of when I tried them, so you can check the error reports received at the time to compare / confirm.
I can provide more info as necessary, though everything points towards this being an error not related to any given project or asset, but rather the engine encountering an error somewhere along the way.
The additional information and tests were helpful thank you. While I cannot reproduce the crash internally, I am going to enter a bug report in for this issue, but I need a few files from your crashed project to help us find a solution.
I need a copy of the diagnostics.txt, minidump.dmp, [ProjectName].log which can be found at:
We are actively looking at this particular issue, but are not having a lot of luck internally reproducing the crash as it is described. So in order to get as much information as possible, I am asking anyone on this and multiple reported threads of this issue, to please follow the steps below and then attach the Error Report Files here. You can find the Error Report Files of diagnostics.txt, minidump.dmp, [ProjectName].log at:
Go to the Engine Install Location (usually C:\Program Files\Epic Games\4.7\Engine\Binaries\Win64\ OR C:\Program Files\Unreal Engine\4.7\Engine\Binaries\Win64).
When in the Install Directory, Shift-Right Click (with nothing selected) and Open Command Window Here
In the command window type:
UE4Editor.exe “[ProjectPATH]” -onethread
Once the Editor opens, proceed with the steps used to crash the engine previously (Create a Movie from matinee).
Remember to submit the Crash to Epic via the Crash Reporter that pops up, include the following in the Description:
One Thread Test per Eric Ketchum
Finally Zip the files mentioned earlier and post back here with your Machine ID (from Crash Reporter) and the Log Files attached.
I haven’t had the chance to test it again up until now, but whatever it was, it’s been fixed. Version 4.7.5 doesn’t crash anymore when creating movies.
Should it start again, I’ll of course get back to it, provide the necessary information. Here’s hoping everybody else can resolve it too.
. Setting up animations / keyframes works without a hitch, it’s really only when I want to render it to movie or frames that it dies on me.