After crashing a few times, Bryce has become increasingly unstable.

Now the Preview view will not even start, I can't Select any models using ctrl and left mouse click, I can't change the view from the rendered image to the wireframe.

So,,,

I've saved everything in ProgFiles/Daz/Bryce6.1 except Content and Data folders and everything that wasn't in a folder like Bryce.exe and uninstall.log files (Bryce 6 Default Presets 4 Uninstall.log) etc

Is there anything else I need to do before attempting to re-install bryce?
Unless there's an easier way?

Please excuse underlining - it won't turn off.

Fran

 Sounds like a computer problem more than a bryce problem if you can't turn off underlining....it's right at the top  and looks like this **U

**

Please ignore the underlining that's a renderosity problem that's been in existance for years.

I'm asking for urgent help with Bryce.

What you need to think about is what has changed since Bryce started this un-ending crashing... to you PC or otherwise. Before doing anything drastic, try a windows roll back to just before the time Bryce had these crashing spell.

Well originally I thought it was because I had Bryce set to High Priority and rendering - while I was listening to the radio, on the same PC...

(guilty expression)

but I did what I usually do when Bryce goes funny under those circumstances, i.e. finish listening to the radio program, then closed both Bryce and Firefox, and then shut down the PC and then just re-start the PC and all is well.

But not this time, this time I opened Bryce - after stopping listening to the radio - not at the same time, and opened one of the ProRender scenes from Pumeco, and found that I could not select the ground plane in Bryce - instead I got a magnifying glass with a plus inside it (- like you do when you zoom in or out in PhotoShop) and the wireframe view zoomed in and out,

Thinking this was a problem with ProRender, I opened a previous scene of mine - which I knew behaved as I expected - (Last time I used it) but this is when I could still not select the ground plane and when closing Bryce, and restarting the PC and opening Bryce again I couldn't even get the wireframe view and the little Preview window was dead black.

I've been mornfully watching catch-up TV, and just now I tried Bryce again...

And it looks normal now, and I haven't even closed the PC down since my last attempt to open Bryce.

I have no idea what was going on.

I thought Bryce had terminally failed!

(Expression of great bewilderment)

 Really sounds like it was a memory issue of some kind Fran.. ...

Memory issue, yeah, well that's what I was thinking originally what with it being cured when I re-started the PC.

And there was me thinking I had the most memory efficient PC I could get, I guess everything got more memory hungry recently.

Quote -  I guess everything got more memory hungry recently.

LOL...and why would the way things are suddenly change, heh heh heh

Why not?

Your PC always "suddenly crashes"!

Internet radio uses a buffer doesn't it?

Um... dunno. 

I do know that the ITV CatchUp player is pants

'Silverlight' indeed - I think it's cursed.

And I dunno why I can watch Channel4 catchup on my laptop but not on the PC...

There is a 2gb file size limit to all Bryce files, be they image files or preset libraries or whatever. If you are having crashes it is because you are stressing out you rmemory. It doesnot matter how much ram your system actually has, you could have 16gb it makes no difference with Bryce. If you are ever approaching the 2gb limit you will have out of memory and crashes.

I can give you alot of details on the subject, any further questions just ask.

No, it wasn't the size of the bryce file, that was pretty minimal, it was probably just me wanting things done too quickly, and setting Bryce to render at High Priority - while trying to listen the radio on the same PC - at the same time.

I haven't had it happen again since that time.

I've been doing a lot of rendering lately but not on High Priority, so that's probably why it hasn't happened again...

notice how I carefully haven't mentioned that I haven't stopped listening to the radio... oops!

Well good. However, there is a big difference between the compressed br6 file size on disc and the actual memory footprint when the file is open and running. Bryce 6.1 compresses saved files in a way previous versions did not. The only way to know how much memory is actually being used is to look at the task manager. I usually keep it quickly accessible. You would be surprised likely at just how quickly a few detailed trees can push you to the limit.

There are also crashes caused by using the cut/paste and replicate duplicate commands. This is because Bryce 6.1 has a problem in the memory buffer, which can cause major crashes due to a memory leak.

Best wishes.

Oh and lastly, what kind of system do you run where a simple radio caused the crash? This does not sound like a normal situation. If you are using a computer with multiple processors or even threads, this should not be a problem. The best way to set priority is within Bryce itself, not within the task manager. If you alter the setting in the task manager itself to high you can expect major problems when running other apps. Set priority high in Bryce and leave it normal in the task manager for maximum system stability. I am running a xeon system with 8 cores so I have tested a million different priority settings for the fastest most stable arrangement.

I have 4 cores, and I only set Bryce to high from inside Bryce.

The form the crash takes is that you can't stop the render and go back into the scene and change anything, since trying to click on anything with the cursor just moves the menu, any menu does this, the top menu, the left hand, one the right, all of them.

And you can't get Bryce to work again simply by closing it and reopening it, you have to restart the computer.

You mention Cut & Paste and Replicate as causing crashes - I've noticed that clicking on "Undo" can also crash Bryce, but it depends on what you are undoing, I can't remember the bad one - which is why I keep getting that one to happen! Lol! 

But that crash is different - that closes Bryce automatically.

With the 'High Priority' crash, at least (if you leave it alone) you can let the render finish.  And thus get something out of it.