Constant Crashes. Probably 100 crashes per project

Ive been a blender user for 10 years and for the majority of that time I used blender only on mac. I would say in the 8ish years I used blender on Mac I had 4 or 5 crashes tops. However, as you know on a mac, cycles is slllllow.

So, I decided to go PC and I love it! But! First thing I noticed is how much Blender crashes on PC. I’ve been on Blender with a PC since 2.78(ish)

My build then was:
Ryzen 5 1600
GTX 1050ti
16GIG Ram
500w PSU
MSI x370 Gaming Pro Carbon

It didnt matter what kind of project I had. It could have been a project with 3mil poly’s to the Blender default scene. Blender would crash. It crashed while opening a menu or while orbiting a cube. The only way I would get anything done is by saving constantly and pure luck that I would get 5-10mins of no crash.

I did notice that my 1050ti 4GIG ram would be maxed out. 4 gigs doesnt cut it no matter what. However, I had a feeling my gfx cards ram wasnt the problem.

2.8 is out now and its obviously worse since its in dev. But! I got a big boy gfx card, an RTX 2070 (plus 850w PSU). Thought it would help, not fix, but help. Nope. Nothing has changed.

Ok, so some info on my scenes. They are heavy. Very highpoly meshes. 4k+ Textures (ive tried toning it down lately, 1k and 2k is good enough) However, my video ram is all good, not maxed out at all. Plus I know its not my scenes cuz blender still crashes with just the default cube.

Now, I dont expect anyone to fix my problems for me but I hope someone can show me how to troubleshoot the problems. Vid card not the problem. My ram looks good. I do notice spikes from my CPU tho.

I have looked around on here to see what others have tried but their problems crash on render or they had a .dll file from windows crashing them. How do I find stuff like this out? I have upgraded all Nvidia Drivers and Windows drivers. Also, Ill add that I use other software like Fusion 360, Unity, Resolve, SubPainter, Marmoset and none of these programs crash on me like blender does.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I hope I can figure this out since its really putting a bummer on the whole experience and Ill have to go for another rendering solution like Octane.

well it could be anything. have you tried completely uninstalling Blender and reinstalling it? is it a basic install or have you got any add-ons that might be causing issues? when you say your GPU isn’t the problem, how do you know - have you tested it, checked the drivers etc etc?
one trick i recently learned for getting info on crashes is to load Blender via the CMD prompt;
https://b3d.interplanety.org/en/how-to-check-errors-if-blender-closes-together-with-system-console-window/

try this and repost what it says, if you can’t fix it yourself.

When you say it crashes with the default cube, what sort of behavior do you see? Does it crash on startup, or rendering, or are there specific operations that are more likely to lead to crashes etc.?

Have you downloaded the latest 2.80 recently?

Any unusual hardware devices? Tablets, 3d navigation devices, etc.?

I really appreciate your time guys thanks!

@wolfie138

Ive heard people talking about uninstalling blender. But, how? To my knowledge there is no uninstall and when I search the blender manual, literally nothing shows up. Is deleting an old version uninstalling? In terms of installing it. Ive never done anything other than download blender, unzip and open the program.

For 2.8 no add-ons. I dont want to make any of this any more complicated. lol

Well, I dont know that it isnt my GPU. I just think its highly unlikely since firstly, Ive had the same problem with another card. The 1050ti is pretty popular cuz of the price and the RTX 2070 is just a great card. (other opinions for another thread lol)

Not sure how to test my card for Blender. I watch MSI afterburner like a hawk. However, not too well educated on how to understand everything that it monitors. Only thing that spikes now with the RTX is the “Memory Clock” is this bad? Everything else is good. The GPU memory, the GPU usage, Temperature. All good.

Also not sure how to check the Nvidia drivers for problems with blender. Doesnt everybody keep them updated? I do. I will try a search.

Yes! I have tried that. And to be honest. Blender performance is extremely better. However, I still do get crashes. But instead of “100 crashes per project” Ill get 10. Hopefully it stays that way, fingers crossed.
This below is the only thing logged besides “info: saved”

Read blend: E:\RYAN\Concept Art\Concept Ideas\glock-0118.blend
TIFFFetchNormalTag: Warning, Incompatible type for “RichTIFFIPTC”; tag ignored.

Why does running from CMD help with performance?

@Zoot

With the default cube, it can crash while literally doing nothing. Not even a mouse click. Sometimes ill get past a click or two and I can open a menu or orbit in the shaded viewport. It has crashed on startup, rendering or simple mesh editing.

I am currently working with 2.8 released on Jan 06

Naw, just a mouse, keyboard and desktop PC :slight_smile:

Thanks again guys

I don’t know so much about hardware problems so I can’t comment on that.
But about the uninstalling part: type %appdata% into your Windows start menu and a Roaming folder should pop up. Navigate to Blender Foundation/Blender. There will be folders with Blender version numbers. Even if you start Blender unpacked from a ZIP and don’t have it installed from an installer, you should find something here. Either backup the folders somewhere, delete them or rename them and Blender should return to factory settings.

Please contact the developers at developer.blender.org. That amount of crashing is most definitely abnormal. Blender should never, ever crash, so every crash you experience is a bug that ought to be fixed. But, as Blender is FOSS and there’s no QA team to help, nothing will get done if you don’t help the devs reproduce and diagnose the problem.

for uninstalling on Windows, programs either have an option under their listing on the Start menu, or you can go into the Control Panel --> Programs --> Uninstall a Program
i generally do the same when a new version comes out, just d/l it and run it, but i’ve noticed my Blender folder has ended up w/ lots of folders for previous versions and i’m not sure that’s supposed to happen, so i recently cleared them out when i was trying to sort out a crash i was having w/ the E-Cycles build.

i honestly don’t know much about GPUs and Memory Clocks etc, to be honest i never update the drivers on my card - it’s stable, i don’t game, all the updates i’ve seen seem to be game oriented, and after a right load of frustration and carry-on from AMD in the distant past i learned to just stick w/ what was stable for me.

i don’t know why CMD helps w/ performance, the benefit of doing it that way is that it gives you the error log - Blender used to write a crash log, but i don’t believe it does that now; if it does, i’ve never found it.

the fact you’re using 2.8 is - IMO - not helping; it’s a developmental build at the moment and is not stable under certain scenarios. i’ve been using it on the E-Cycles builds and although it’s been okay for what i’m doing, it still has other problems such as the fire/smoke sims not working correctly. Having said that, i’m only using the build to render out my animation, so i’m not really giving it a good workout. unless other more familiar w/ 2.8 know better, i’d say the fact you’re crashing when doing nothing suggests there’s something else wrong other than Blender. Tracking that down might be challenging, it could be hardware or software.
as a first step, the next time it crashes have a look in your Event logs (https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/75433) and see if there’s anything of note there.

A couple things:

This amount of instability really sounds like a computer issue with hardware or software (drivers) because that kind of crashing with the default scene is just not something people are seeing. I know this isn’t really useful advice and I really don’t know where to suggest looking for a solution.

Maybe start with making sure the Windows OpenGL libraries are not messed up somehow.

Make sure your mouse and keyboard are plugged directly into the computer, not into a USB hub (like ports on your monitor say). Try a different mouse if you have one laying around.

I assume you’re using the 64-bit version of Blender? I have seen issues recently with the 32-bit version of 2.80 running on a 64-bit OS. For grins I would suggest trying whichever one you haven’t been using and see if it behaves any differently.

For uninstalling Blender that really just means getting rid of the system wide config files for the specific version you’re using. Two alternatives:

  1. Find where the Blender executable is and there will be a directory in that folder named “2.80” (or “2.79” etc.) Go into that folder and in there create a new folder named “Config” (without the quotes). Once you do that, this version of Blender will store and look for all its config files there rather than in the %appdata% global location. This way you can have many versions of Blender on your system and they will each keep their configs separate.

  2. When you run from a Command Prompt window, you can add the option --factory-startup after the blender executable command to tell it to startup while ignoring all the existing config files so you know you’re starting clean and nothing you’ve configured, addons, etc. should be affecting it.

I had similar problems, crashing and unacceptable slowdowns, and only in Blender - all other software including hogs like MD and PS were fine. I know nothing about programming but I can follow techie instructions, and this worked for me: remove all Blender program files and folders, reinstall 2.79b. Remove opengl32.dll file from the Blender folder. Set rendering to Cycles. Make sure, in User Preferences - System, that Cycles Compute Device is set to CUDA and the correct video card. Upgrade Nvidia driver, but only through Win10 device manager, selecting the driver from my folder with my collection of drivers downloaded from the NVidia website. Don’t let Win10 select the driver, and don’t try to install the driver just by clicking on it. Rinse and repeat, trying out different drivers, starting with the newest available, testing as you go.
It’s working lovely now, but every time Win10 updates it tries to switch the graphics card driver and effs it up again, and I haven’t successfully stopped that.

Hey guys, thanks alot really. There is a lot to digest and try here. So I will try these out.

@Piotr_Adamowicz thanks ill def be reporting this. I didnt know this was around lol Ive never had problems before with blender but now its so bad that Im desperate. Im debating on other software lol

@Ada_Radius These are good tips and I will try these for sure. Yes its weird tho, I have no problems with any other software or games. I use Fusion 360, Substance, Resolve, Unity. Ive tested Octane, Vray, 3d coat and I play Star Citizen! All solid as a rock.

Main thing that does strike my interest and will be doing right away, is uninstalling older blender files/folders (excluding .blend’s) And reinstalling it. Unfortunately, Im impatient(stubborn) and wont stop using 2.8!

Thanks again for everyones help. I will try these and come back here to give results.

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Hey man, I’m encountering the same problem, very frequent crashes with my ryzen 3900x.
I really can’t find any solution and I need help, how have you solved your problem ?
Thanks, I hope to hear from you soon :pray:

Hello there,

Not really, its just something that I have kind of gotten used to. However, ever since I got my 3600x it has gotten better. I should also add that I have switched to Octane Render and have been using the Blender for Octane version. Its been decent so far. Maybe give it a try, its free and Octane kicks ass!