After 6 months of relatively crash-free use, Vue 7 xStream has suddenly gotten weird to the point of being unusable.

The first problem was that Vue would crash whenever I tried to edit a material. Every single time! I managed to fix the problem by resetting the app's Options to default. Then immediately after that...

The next (current) problem is that whenever I attempt to load an object, Vue instantly reports an Out of Memory error and crashes. I never get the Object menu itself, just an instant OOM error/crash as soon as I Ctrl-L or attempt the option from the pull-down menu.

I've tried everything I can thing of, including uninstalling and reinstalling Vue (five times already), cleaning the registry, removing any uneeded processes. I've even uninstalled my scanner, but no joy. Vue has become crippled. I can't find any reference to this problem online.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

BTW, I'm running XP Pro with 2GB of ram.

Have you maybe updated? Vue and/or your system (graphic card driver for example)? 

Quote - Have you maybe updated? Vue and/or your system (graphic card driver for example)? 

I've done both. Vue 7.4 and the latest drivers for my graphics card. Still no good.

I think something's changed on my XP system, but I can't figure out what it would be. I have Vue running on a secondary PC and it's working fine.

Try one thing. Go to the Vue preferences and change the status of "enable background draw thread" in the display tab. Maybe it makes a difference.

Thanks for the suggestion, wabe. I just tried that, but no difference.

Is there another/advanced way to configure Vue's behavior beyond the Options menu? I'm wondering if this isn't some sort of memory buffer problem, e.g., the buffer where the Objects preview is loaded into?

I've just discovered the same problem with editing materials: If I attempt to call up the materials menu, same OOM/crash.

In summary, calling up either the Load Object menu or Load Material menu results in a instant OOM error/crash.

I've been fooling with Options settings, but still nothing makes a difference.

Here are my system specs:

Intel Pentium 4 640 HT 3.20 GHz
Windows XP Pro SP2
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M)
512MB BFG NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ OC
Dual monitor setup -
    Primary: Digital Flat Panel (FPD1175W)
    Secondary: Analog Monitor (ViewSonic P95f+ 19 inch Ultrabrite CRT)
DirectX 9.0c
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
Creative I-Trigue 2.1 3300 Speakers
Logitech MX 518 Optical Mouse
Saitek Gamers Keyboard USB

Did you clean the environment subfolder, in the program folder? Vue stores lots of stuff here and sometimes some of this stuff gets corrupted and all sorts of things could happen. I think not all of it is deleted by a reinstall. Other things are also not deleted in reinstall. Chippwalters posted the full instructions to do a clean uninstall some months ago, maybe you can search for it.

Thanks for the tip. I manually cleaned out the folders you described, including all the content and even that vue.reg file in the Windows folder, but I no doubt missed something. I'll take a look for Chippwalters post.

Looks more related to your machine than with Vue, since it is working fine on another machine. have you noticed strange behaviours using other apps or simply using the explorer?
How do you lanch Vue on this machine, with a shortcut on the desktop, Maybe delete the shortcut and create a new one. I've been loading Vue from a shortcut and was getting strange bahaviour, but loading it from the exe file worked every time. Might be down to install/uninstall/reinstall processes. I created a new shortcut from the exe file, and now it works fine with the shortcut too.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3387414&ebot_calc_page#message_3387414

Quote - Looks more related to your machine than with Vue, since it is working fine on another machine. have you noticed strange behaviours using other apps or simply using the explorer?
How do you lanch Vue on this machine, with a shortcut on the desktop, Maybe delete the shortcut and create a new one. I've been loading Vue from a shortcut and was getting strange bahaviour, but loading it from the exe file worked every time. Might be down to install/uninstall/reinstall processes. I created a new shortcut from the exe file, and now it works fine with the shortcut too.

Everything else on my machine appears to be working fine. However I've been wondering if something fundamental to XP has become corrupted, but short of a full system reinstall I don't know how to address that. My wife suggested that I perform a restore point, but I think I've moved too far beyond that option. Plus I don't want to put anything else at risk at this point. :(

Quote - Found it, here.

Awsome! I'll go another round. Thanks!

I still think it has to do with OpenGL. You tell us that it happens when you open a new window, all OpenGL actions. But I think Rutras afvice makes sense - make a fresh installation to see whether it changes something. You btw do not have to delete the content folder, only all the rest you better delete.

I agree. This problem has all the hallmarks of an OpenGL issue. My graphics card claims OpenGL 2.1 Optimizations and Support. Just fooling around with the NVIDIA dual monitor settings can keep Vue from starting at all. I'm going to run some OpenGL benchmarks and see if I can't figure out what's going on.

Okay, I completely uninstalled Vue 7 and reinstalled it, but the menu problem remains. Any Vue 7 xStream menu that involves a pop-up window--Objects, Materials, Atmospheres--causes an immediate Out of Memory error and crashes the app.

I've run two OpenGL benchmark programs--FurMark_v1.6.5 and OpenGL Extensions Viewer 3.0--and both report my OpenGL graphics card as performing fine.

I'm beginning to think that it may be a corrupted XP DLL somewhere.

Thanks everybody for your feedback.

FYI, seeing that the Vue installer installs Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 "dependencies," I went ahead and independently uninstalled and reinstalled Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package. Now when I try to run Vue, I get the follow error:
**
Vue 7 xStream cannot be started. This version of Vue 7 xStream has been updated. Do you want to cancel the last update?**

When I opt to cancel the last update, I get this error:

Vue 7 xStream cannot be started. Please reinstall the application. (Error 2)

 You might check my blog for the latest in uninstall procedures for Vue:

http://blog.chipp.com

Thanks for the link. I just performed another comprehensive uninstall/reinstall of Vue, but the menu problem remains. If it's a problem with Windows XP or OpenGL itself, then thankfully it's not affecting my other stable of apps--3DS Max, Cinema4D, Bryce, Poser, DAZ Studio.

Here are some more ideas to try:

1. Are you using any customized theme or desktop settings? If you are, I'd suggest try resetting all the way to default.

2. Check out the display hardware acceleration slider and move it all the ways to the left just to see if Vue will run.

To do this: right-click the desktop and select properties.
Choose the settings tab
click advnaced button
click advanced tab
There you will find hardware acceleration. Move it to the far left and Apply. Then try running Vue again and see if it works. If it does, then it means your graphics card is conflicting. You can try 'bumping' the hardware accel slider to the right and trying again-- keep doing this process until it starts crashing again. But the real problem, in this case, would be your drivers.

1. Also,consider downloading the free version of Pioneer and trying to install it. If it works and your xStream does not then somehow xStream is misconfigured. Perhaps it's one of the apps which it is supposed to connect to that's the problem? Can you install xStream in isolation mode where it doesn't depend on any other 3D apps? I dunno as I don't have xStream.

Quote - 1. Are you using any customized theme or desktop settings? If you are, I'd suggest try resetting all the way to default.

Nope. I've also tried restoring all NVIDIA settings to default. I've tried switching to a one-monitor configuration. Nothing helps.

Quote - 2. Check out the display hardware acceleration slider and move it all the ways to the left just to see if Vue will run...

Great suggestion, however I've tried the hardware acceleration slider full on and full off and all positions in between, but no change.

Quote - 3. Also,consider downloading the free version of Pioneer and trying to install it. If it works and your xStream does not then somehow xStream is misconfigured. Perhaps it's one of the apps which it is supposed to connect to that's the problem? Can you install xStream in isolation mode where it doesn't depend on any other 3D apps? I dunno as I don't have xStream.

I've installed xStream in isolation, but makes no difference. Downloading Pioneer is a great idea! I'll give it a try. Thanks again for all your help. :)

Joe

Joe, can you please post a screenshot of your Vue preferences display settings? This is a good help to understand probably.

Thanks for the offer. Currently Vue is uninstalled and I'm going through the Registry and nixing any suspicious references to e-on or Vue (having backed it up first, of course). There are quite a few, even after having run CCleaner.

BTW, anybody know if the Registry data entries, "VUErrorStack Class" and/or "ErrorStack.VUErrorStack" has anything to do with Vue xStream?

Just for yucks I also ran a comprehensive RAM/CPU cache memory check of my system. Everything passed. I also ran the XP command "sfc /scannow" in order to check the integrity of XP's "protected" files. That passed too.

I'm trying to download Vue Pioneer, but the download keeps stalling. Maybe I need a download manager.

Joe

Here's something to try that has cleared up problems before.  Uninstall Vue and then defrag your hard dirve.  Then reinstall.  Sometime bad disk sectors can cause wierd problems that will clear up when you defrag.

Quote - "Here's something to try that has cleared up problems before.  Uninstall Vue and then defrag your hard dirve.  Then reinstall.  Sometime bad disk sectors can cause wierd problems that will clear up when you defrag."

Do you really mean defrag or do you mean chkdsk? If there's bad sectors, you should run chkdsk before defrag. It's normally not a good idea to start moving files around (that's what defrag does) with bad sectors still present in the disk...
In fact, sometimes defrag even recommends to run chkdsk if it detects the need to do so.