After reading the threads here, I thought that you should save your Poser scenes, every now and then so as not to lose them in case of a crash. Well I did that, and when I re-opened it, after shutting down my computer, and opening P6, this is what I got. It says the file is there, but it is not visible and none of the characters are there? This happened at least 4 times, so I think that perhaps it is another bug?

I've had a similar problem. I think it's related to the memory bug, because sometimes I get a "running out of memory - save your work and restart." If you actually do that, of course, your file is nuked.

Usually when it happens to me, I can see the figures, props, etc., listed on the selection menu and in the hierarchy editor, but they're invisible.

What does the PZ3 file itself look like? Does it seem to have the usual stuff, or is it junk? Or does it appear to be cut off at some point?

I honestly wouldn't know. I generally don't look at pz3's.

has anyone tried saving it to a different file name?

Ockham - if you're wondering if this is the same problem that earlier versions of Poser occasionally had with DAZ figures...no, I think it's different. When that happens, the file size is notably smaller. With this, the file remains the same size.

Interesting. I tried saving to a different filename. It eliminated the "out of memory" error message, but did not bring back the missing items. However, the re-saved file is much smaller than the original. 330kb, as opposed to 2.6 Mb.

So, is there a patch for this memory bug? I just had the same damned thing happen to me on a project I am working on and the damned thing nuked the program all the way down to zero Scarab

No patch yet. They are working as fast as they can. In the meantime, they recommend frequent incremental saves under different file names.

Yes, I had something simular happen to me.

Can the file be loaded into propack or poser 5?

I'll be dipped. It does load into P5. Without the figure's morphs, of course. (Can't try in PP, because it uses multiple runtimes and dynamic hair and cloth.)

And after loading into P5, it works in P6. Even though I didn't save the file from P5. (And I have proof that the file was indeed screwed up: the "save to new filename" I did yesterday is still screwed up.)

I wonder if it's the hair and cloth sims that are the problem? Though I didn't save a new pz3 from P5, I played the animation, to see if it worked, and P5 seems to have written new hair and cloth sims to my hard drive.

I've had this problem too, after trying to render at high quality settings. The render crashed. Opening in P5 worked - I lost all new material settings, of course. I didn't have dynamic cloth in the scene yet. Saved out under a new filename in P5, reopened in P6, fixed up the material and light settings, saved from P6, restarted P6, load and render. That worked.

I've had the "crash when I try to render" problem, and that was different. After restarting, I could open the file just fine in P6. Random textures were missing, but it opened fine.

I think this problem is related to cloth sims. When I open the file, I get a "out of memory" error message - every time. Even after a reboot. And entire props and figures are invisible. They're still in the file, judging from the hierarchy editor and the file size, but don't display.

All the files that did not save are 0 KB, but it appears to have saved pmd files for the pz3 files I was trying to save? I'm guessing that those are material files? I did not get an error message prior to saving so I really don't know what happened?

PMD files are digital morph files ;)

Thanks for the info, Khai (: Now, I am wondering why it would save those but nothing else?