I've had this weird occasional crashing in Poser Pro 2010, very random sort of thing. Finally I decided to post this.

I discovered that when PP 2010 starts hanging seemingly for no reason - usually when deleting a figure, occasionally during a render - I see "Adobe3DAndVideoServer.exe" in Processes in Windows Task Manager. Ending that process always puts Poser back on track. It will, however, remain in a hung and unresponsive state as long as "Adobe3DAndVideoServer.exe" is allowed to continue doing whatever it's doing.

I don't think it's part of Poser though, or part of AIR, but I could be wrong. It seems to be a part of Photoshop CS4, and it doesn't always run, but when it does it always causes Poser to hang. I do know it has something to do with interfacing with the Quick Time service, and might also be interfacing with AIR.

I'm just putting this out there for those who see strange and inexplicable hanging in Poser and don't know why - check your Task Manager for "Adobe3DAndVideoServer.exe" the next time that happens and if it's there, turning it off will likely fix Poser.

If I had to guess I'd guess it's not playing nice with Adobe AIR, but that's just a guess.

I'll quote this from an Adobe Tech Note in case it helps:

ISSUE

*When you open a folder of 3D images in Adobe Bridge CS4, the thumbnails of the 3D images take a long time (sometimes hours) to display. *

REASON

3D images contain large amounts of vector data that take a long time to translate into thumbnails.

SOLUTION

Turn off 3D thumbnail rendering.

If you don't use 3D files, then turn off the file that displays 3D files. If you do use 3D files and want them to display in Bridge, then there is no solution at this time.

To turn off 3D thumbnail rendering in Mac OS:

1. Close Bridge.
2. In the Finder, navigate to the Applications/Adobe Bridge CS4 folder, or the folder into which you installed Adobe Bridge CS4.
3. Press the Control key and click on the Adobe Bridge CS4 application file.
4. Choose Show Package Contents.
5. Open the Content folder, and then open the MacOS folder.
6. Move the adobe3dandvideoserver application file to a location you'll remember.
7. Close the folders, and restart Bridge.

To turn off 3D thumbnail rendering in Windows:

1. Close Bridge.
2. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Bridge CS4 folder, or the folder into which you installed Adobe Bridge CS4.
3. Move the Adobe3DAndVideoServer.exe file to a location you'll remember.
4. Reopen Bridge.

Well thank you much for that!

Bridge is the source, eh? I hadn't thought about that, but yeah I have Bridge set to open at startup and I use it all the time for navigating my 2D texture files. I never use it for 3D though.

Well I tried the solution and I imagine it will work. Thanks again. :-)