On a Win7 Ultimate, 64-bits, I can start Blender 2.53 beta and use it just fine, including opening an existing blend file saved on my hard drive. However, if I locate the same blend file through Windows file explorer and double-click the file name, Blender 2.53 beta starts okay (so evidently file associations are correctly defined), but after an initial painting of the entire border of the Blender program and title bar, nothing inside the border gets painted, and the program ceases to work right. I get these error messages:
blender.exe has stopped working
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.
Does anybody have a similar problem? What might be wrong? Any sure and known solutions?
Sorry, I thought I was being clear enough. Let me try again.
Yes, I got and installed 64-bit Blender. I can use it just fine as long as I start it and then open a blend file. No problems. If you or anyone starts Blender and dismisses the splash screen, what you see is the title bar at the top with the word “Blender” in it. You also see the resize border of the whole Blender app, and inside that border one sees the various “sub” windows, like 3D view, Timeline, etc. Well, when I double-click the name of a blend file showing listed in Windows file explorer, Blender starts just fine, shows its title bar and resize border, and then it hangs, showing none of its sub-windows; that whole area is just dark gray. That’s when I get the message box with the error messages I mentioned. Does this help?
Is this a known beta bug? Or, is maybe something wrong on my system? Does anybody else have this problem? As long as I first start Blender and then go find the blend file I want to use, everything works fine. But, finding a blend file first and then double-clicking its name to open it is so convenient, This ought to work (it does with almost any Windows app, including all the previous versions of Blender I’ve used since 2.42).
That’s a strange issue you’re having, only a carefull analysis of your system could help. All I can think of is hardware issues, drivers missing, maybe incompatibility issues or not properly associated files…
if blender opens and can be operated then there is no hardware issue or drivers…
If you can’t do the ‘open with / file association’ .blend from explorer, it might be a permissions thing. i sadly have insufficient experience with win7 to give any suggestions… it could be that the version of blender 2.5.x you obtained doesnt yet correctly deal with ‘injected’ files. did you get the 2.5 executable from blender.org? If yes, try a later binary from graphicall.org instead
Yeah, I’m fairly sure I set file associations correctly. The fact alone that Blender does start when I double-click a blend file indicates the association is defined correctly (although Blender quickly “locks up” in this case after it starts). Also, the observation that when I start and use Blender, with so far no problems detected; that tells me also that it’s probably not a driver problem. The suggestion that the latest released Blender.org version (the first beta?) may not yet handle file associations (i.e., is this what you mean when you say “injected” files?) correctly yet might be the answer. I’ve never attempted to get a more recent build from graphicall.org even though I’ve been using Blender for 4-5 years. I’ll look into that. Thanks for the feedback anyway everyone. problem not solved, but it is reassuring that people around here always try.