Sketchup 14 mac crashing like never before

[otb designworks]

I am running Mavericks (OSX 10.9) and Sketchup 14.

If I have one of my large files open and then try to open another file, or a version of the same file from yesterday, SU crashes every single time.

So, I try to be smart and close out of the working file and then open the old file (which sucks because I copy and paste between files all the time). SU crashes every single time.

When I restart, SU automatically opens the file that I had already closed before it crashed?! So, then I try to open the old file and SU crashes every single time.

The only way I have made it work is to close the working file. Then quit SU. Then open SU, then open the old file, then copy the geometry into a new file, then save that to the desktop, then close both files and quit SU again, then open sketchup, then open working file, then open geometry file, then copy and paste.

So, that is awesome.. This started to be a small, infrequent annoyance in 13 and I figured it would get cleaned up in an update. Something in 14 is crushing my system however.

I have probably sent 40 bugs plat reports to Trimble in the last few days.

And back to 13 we go...Very Disappointing. VERY

[AndrewS]

I've alerted our QA team; they're looking into it for you.

Andrew

[otb designworks]

Thanks Andrew!

Anything I can do to help them out, just let me know!

I just got a new Mac Pro 2013, with a spanking fresh OS install and SU install and it is also crashing that system.

I feels like SU is keeping things in memory, even when the file has been closed, and it glitches out when you try to open another file. Doesn't do it with small files; just my big VBE's

Sometimes, the new file will open in a window, and be visible, but all the layer and scene palates are unpopulated for a sec or so and then crash. Other times, it just crashes before you even see the new file window.

Really glad you saw this! Thanks...

[diegob]

I have exactly the same problem
and it is practically impossible to work regularly
I'm using the pro version and I'm stuck
this is very very annoying
I have a small office and use I sketchup as a main software for my work
and this bugs is creating very big problems and delays on deliveries
since yesterday did not come out

[otb designworks]

Still doing it; something is definitely broken in the new version 14.

Is this the "under the hood" massive improvements we keep hearing about?

Nothing like an update that destroys the ability to open files and crashes reliability with no warning; that's a good one...

[Chris Fullmer]

Hi Chuck, if you remove all your plugins and then try running SU for a while, does it work correctly again?

[otb designworks]

Hi chris,

I will give that a shot. I just had a client over and SU was crashing at an unbelievable level.

I ended up having to close the file. Quit SU. Open SU. Open new file.

If I just closed a file and opened a new one, it would crash 80% of the time.

I will purge plugin and see how that works; thanks

[driven]

@chuck,

you can rename 'Plugins' from 'Ruby Console'

dir = File.dirname(Sketchup.find_support_files("", "Plugins").first)
# adding _copy will block the folder loading and SU will make a new one with only su rubies
dir_suppressed = dir + "_copy"
# if you have a saved copy, the 'temp' new Plugins end up in trash...
dir_to_trash = (File.expand_path("~/.Trash/Plugins" )
  if File.exists?(dir_suppressed)
    File.rename(dir, dir_to_trash)
    File.rename(dir_suppressed, dir)
  else 
    File.rename(dir, dir_suppressed)
  end
# and then a re-start to load the 'Plugins' folder...

run once to suppress the folder, restart, test, run again to put it back, restart...

john

[otb designworks]

Thanks John,

I emptied my folder and started adding them back one after another.

I have a highly surprising suspicious one that is definitely causing trouble. I will report back when I know for sure.

Thanks everyone!

[otb designworks]

OK, here is with I came up with.

I have 4 files, 3 are version 2014 and 1 is version 13. Of the 3, one is a 100meg monster with lots of foliage, high res textures, etc.

I emptied the plugin folder, fired up SU, started with one of the 2014, then the other 2014, then the v13, and, if all is good, I hit it with the 100meg monster.

I added one plugin at a time back and continued testing.

As surprising as it may seem, without any doubt, the culprit is SectionCutFace v4.4. I know, no way a TIG plugin is throwing SU for a loop, but it definitely is.

I can have every plugin back in the folder and SU will happily open, open, and open more.

When I put the three sectioncutface items back into the folder, SU will maybe get the first 2 open 50% of the time. The v13 will kill it almost every time, even with only one other file open. Never got 3 files open without a crash.

I removed the SCF plugin and tried again and everything ran with no issues.

So, thinning I somehow got a corrupted install of SCF, I went back through the Sketchucation plugin store and installed a fresh version.

Crash crash crash.

remove the plugin files (~superseded, sectioncutface folder, and sectioncutface.rb) and everything seems to be fine in the few minutes I tried to crash SU without success.

plugin back in and crash again.

I'll send a TIG a PM pointing to this thread, but something is definitely not working correctly, either on the plugin side, or mac, or mavericks, or who knows.

[driven]

TIG's got a mac as well now, so maybe it can be resolved quicky...
john

[TIG]

Now I am awake I'll look into this.

There is no way that SectionCutFace should cause issues.
But if it does, and it's the only loading Plugin, then we have a mystery.
It does include an observer - used for the Auto-Update option [which is NOT recommended for anything but the simplest models anyway].
So this might be causing issues as some Observers on a MAC can be flaky.
Perhaps it's not loading/unloading cleanly
BUT I don't see any issues on my MAC [Mavericks too]...

Sometimes observers clash with other tools or another tool's observers causes issues with an innocent tool - but if you can get SectionCutFace to fail when it's the only Plugin loading then it's weird...

Give me a little time to investigate...

@otb designworks
I might PM you some alternative code to test...
So a lack of action here might simply reflect frantic behind the scenes testing

[tt_su]

We have seen that a fix for a previous observer crash could have lead to a new one in SU2014. TIG, if you can play around with it - temporarily disable it to see if it still crashes that would be a good place to start. Then report it back to us.

For instance, in SU2014 removing and EntityObserver in the onEntityErased event now crashes because we fixed a memory leak.

Has there been any BugSplats submitted for this issue? With any name/description we can use to look them up?

[TIG]

@thomthom

I'll look at the SCFace Observers [Tools and App] shortly.
The AppObs simply attaches the ToolsObs with a onNew/onOpen event.
The ToolsObs does nothing unless there are some Auto-Update [aka Glued] SCFaces in the model.
I'm wondering if there's an issue with it 'unloading the two Observers' via the AppObs 'onQuit', for some MAC versions ?

I'll report back...

[tt_su]

@tig said:

I'm wondering if there's an issue with it 'unloading the two Observers' via the AppObs 'onQuit', for some MAC versions ?

Are you removing the observer when SketchUp quits?

[TIG]

I've just put SCFace through its paces again on my MAC with Mavericks: using a combo of its 'types' - AutoUpdate/UpdateOnDemand/Unlinked - with opening/new SKPs etc, adding new SCFaces etc, and then quitting SketchUp - all behaved normally - no issues at all

Just like on PC...

When SketchUp onQuits SCFace AppObs tries to remove the model's SCFace ToolsObs and then the SCFace AppObs itself etc.
These are in a begin...rescue... to trap errors...

Does removing an observer on MAC at onQuit work differently to PC.
I know that unlike PCs MACs get several instances of SketchUp - one per open model ?

Perhaps I've missed a combo...

[tt_su]

I think onQuit was not working prior to SU2014 - should be fixed now.
If the user's who experienced this have submitted BugSplats then I might be able to dig into that and find clues to where the crash happens.

[otb designworks]

I have sent a bugsplat report every time so there are probably 30 or 40 of them from me in the last week.

I am happy to run code or test if anyone needs it.

The crashes seem to happen after the new file window opens but before the layers and scenes palettes populate, fwiw

I can make a short screencast if that helps?

Thanks guys!!!

[TIG]

@Chuck

Anything to track it down...
I can't reproduce a splat at all...

[otb designworks]

Hi TIG,

Do you have some large SU files? Saved as v13?

What happens when you try to open 2 of those one after another?

I'll whip up a short screencast...