Unreal Engine 4.7.4 Freezes

When I Launch UR Engine 4.7.4 and Open New Project [Level Minimal_Defult (Persistent)], once the workspace opens UR Engine ceases to respond (on one occasion I have managed to hit Play on an example project before UR Engine becomes unresponsive), I can’t enter input into windows (ctrl-alt-del doesn’t work for instance) and Windows then terminates after approx. 20 minutes. I then perform a Normal Windows startup after abnormal termination.

Attached log files from …

C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\EpicGamesLauncher\Saved\LogsEpicGamesLauncher.log

C:\Users\xxxxx\Documents\Unreal Projects\MyProject4\Saved\Logs

I have attached the 64bit dxdiag output.

Also nothing was noted in the windows event viewer System logs.

I am new to UR Engine so if I have missed something please advise.

Thank you.

Hi excopia,

Does this occur with any other map or is it limited to the minimal default map? For instance, if you open a content examples map from the content examples project in the learn tab, do you see the same crash occur? Have you moved the minimal default map from the maps filepath?

Hello,

With 4.7.4 this happened with the blank, first person and third person default projects. I haven’t tried any of the other project examples at this point. The project(s) were not moved from their original project path. Everything is as created by the engine.

Today I upgraded to 4.7.5 as prompted by the launcher.

Per your suggestion I then downloaded and created a ‘Content Examples’ project and attempted to ‘Open Level’; Unreal Engine became unresponsive upon opening the ‘Open Level’ dialogue.

Cheers.

Go to the Library tab of the launcher and find your engine version. Select the dropdown menu and run “verify”. This will check your engine to see if any files are missing or broken and fix/repair them. Then try to run the open level again and see if it works for you.

I removed all versions of the engine. I then removed the content examples. Next I reinstalled 4.7.5 and the content examples. I then verified both the engine and content examples. Next I created the project and opened it in the engine. Upon ‘open level’ the engine became progressively slower over about a 10sec interval and then became unresponsive requiring a of the computer.

Is there any information on screen that denote what the editor is doing when it freezes? For instance do you see “Compiling Shaders” on screen? Do you have a firewall active?

Today I decided to remove all uncertainty and completely reinstalled windows 7 (64bit) on the offending PC. In essence a blank canvas. I then applied drivers, windows 7 updates and reinstalled Unreal Engine 4.7.5. I have attached a new DxDiag.link text

I tested 3 scenarios …

  1. Open the ‘blank’ blueprint with starter content (the default settings); compiling shaders completed; system hung.
  2. Repeated test 1 with NO starter content and was able to build/run (albeit nothing added to the scene); pan the camera around etc. and it did not hang.
  3. Downloaded the ‘Content Examples’; opened the ‘Open Level’ dialog; no example was selected I just waited; after 10-20sec the system hung.

Windows firewall is running, and Unreal Engine is enabled to communicate TCP/UDP on any port through the firewall with public networks.

Just to be additionally safe, make sure that SwarmAgent is also marked as an exception for your firewall. If it isn’t the SwarmAgent for lighting will get caught by the firewall and provide a host of problems, including hanging the editor.

Just checked, and swarmagent.exe has the same firewall access as ue4editor.exe. So this should be good to go.

In one of the projects that is hanging, try deleting the Intermediate, saved, and the derived data cache folders (if there is one) then re-open and see if it still hangs.

I removed the ‘intermediate and saved’ directories from the ‘blank’ project and it still hung per the above. I tried this three times (1) hung when I panned the camera, the assets loaded and shader compiled, (2) hung whilst moving the mouse around on screen (no actions performed eg. play/pan etc), and (3) hung during asset loading.

I then removed the ‘derived data cache, intermediate and saved’ directories from the ‘Content Examples’ project and it also hung when opening the ‘open level’ menu item.

Thank you for persisting with this, I realise there is not a lot to go on.

Can you try updating your video card drivers to the GeForce drivers that just came out today?

Updated drivers and opened the ‘blank’ project (with starter content) and the same result, after approx. 30sec the editor hung.

Can you open your task manager in windows while attempting to open the editor. See how much memory both the editor and the launcher are using when opening. Also, do any other programs tend to hang on your PC? We haven’t been able to reproduce this on our end thus far.

Task manager shows memory usage as …
UE4Editor.exe 328,000K
EpicGameLauncher.exe 114,000K
I have also never had problems with applications freezing before this.

I next ran resmon and noted that after launching the editor [before opening a new ‘blank project with starter content’] the number of threads was 41, the CPU hovered around 5% and the status of the process was ‘Running’.

Upon opening a new ‘blank project with starter content’ and during the project load splash screen [where you have the loading % counter] the thread count drops to 1 and the process status is ‘terminated’. It would appear the editor has some fatal issue during loading, and that the apparent freeze after the new project has loaded is the end result.

If you still have the blank project with starter content, can you pull the contents out of the contents folder and start the project. Then add the contents back in folder by folder until the system hangs. Once that occurs, please let me know which folder is causing the error you are seeing. Thank you!

I imported all the assets from the starter content into a blank project (with no starter content) and had no issues.

I can’t do this with the blank project (with starter content) where if I remove all the content then open the project the starter content gets added automatically, I guess due to the project configuration.

This problem is a real time waster, I only have issues with the template projects WITH starter content, and I can get around the issue apparently by adding the content manually. So I would just close this unless you want to continue investigating.

Hi excopia,

For now we will close this for tracking purposes as I have been unable to reproduce this on my end. If this occurs and you find the cause, please comment here and I’ll be happy to take another look.