PreForm Crash to Desktop, every time now

Anyone else getting multiple CTDs at the moment? I can load and support a file, but the moment I bring in another stl file onto the platform, splat. All gone. 3.15.2 and two previous versions. Very annoying! What do I need to provide to solve this, because it is costing me money now!! Thanks.

Don’t know what OS you’re using but on the Mac it’s been running flawlessly for the past weeks, always with updated versions.

Yes, it’s happening to me right now. In the pass, I had this problem too. Really annoying…
Card graphic drivers, Windows, Preform? Don’t know.

I’m running Windows (version 7, 64-bit), and Preform crashes a lot. Sometimes I have to reload it multiple times to send a print. It seems to happen most often when loading in a file (i.e. dragging and dropping an STL into the build area), or after changing printer settings or rebuilding supports. I do have a habit of trying to grab the viewport with my right mouse button and rotate my model to see if it’s done yet, not sure if clicking around while it’s working is a factor.

It started happening around the time they integrated Dashboard into the software (a feature I don’t use). There were other artifacts I think began around that time, too (like menu dropdowns taking a couple seconds to open now instead of being instantaneous).

I reported it to Formlabs a while back, sending logs and even a crash report. Without a pdb symbols file for Preform.exe I can’t tell precisely what triggers it, but it looked to me like a threading issue (race conditions?). When I asked, Support said they haven’t seen any spike or general increase in bug reporting.

I’m running Win10x64 20H2 and don’t have any of the issues you all are describing.

I don’t remember the last time Preform crashed. And I load multiple objects all the time. I have an older Win7x64 system, just tried Preform’s current revision on that system and no problems there, either.

How much DRAM in the systems that fail? Mine are all 64GB system builds.

I’m running Windows 10 Pro, no significant amount of crashes, just once in a while.

As a side note - have any of you noticed some weird UI behavior on the latest Preform release?

My toolbar windows fly out far to the left. When the UI is maximized, clicking “File” results in a drop down that isn’t visible.

Exactly the same for me here. This is on and off after some updates, since 2 years.

See my computer specs;
AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT 12-Core Processor 4.2 GHz
64,0 Go RAM
Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000
Windows 10 Prof. 20H2
Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD NVMe M.2

Good specs. The EVO is an SSD, not HDD. :slight_smile:

You’ve probably thought of this already, but if you haven’t, checking to make sure all your drivers are up to date is worth doing. And NVMe is a fairly new interface, there may be newer FW for your EVO, and BIOS updates for your video card and motherboard.

I have multiple monitors and saw that sometimes on earlier versions of Preform (2.x). The main program was on my middle monitor, but the menu dropdown would appear on the left one. Try moving around the location of the main window on the screen and see if it still happens.

48GB on my machine.

Thank you for your suggestions, I appreciate. All theses parts were installed last fall by a computer expert. I don’t think that “Preform crashing by opening a window to select your STL” has to do something with this (But maybe). I have a lot of softwares installed on my computer with great success. Maybe Windows, antivirus or videocard updates… ? Like I said, I had this problem after some of the Preform updates since around 2 years now.

Do you have another PC you could try, one that doesn’t have “lots of softwares” installed on it?

A NVMe machine built a year ago almost certainly has outstanding Firmware/BIOS updates available. If you don’t know how to check for that, maybe you can bring it back to your expert for a checkup.

Generally, programs that crash do so because of a problem with how memory is being used by the OS and other software in the machine. NVMe makes a lot of low-level use of the computer’s DRAM interface. A year ago, NVMe was still a “new” technology. So IMO there’s a non-zero chance that this is the source of your problem.

Yes I could try Preform on another PC.

Before this NVMe SSD, I had also the same problem with a normal SSD.
But I will check that. Thank you for your suggestions.

This is funny because today everything is fine. No Preform crash… I did nothing. I don’t really know why!
This is a good day I presume. :slight_smile:

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