Hello, I’m using the Maya ART to animate a character for my project. It’s producing some issues, though. It seems that, at random points (in this case, while selecting bones in the fingers), Maya produces a fatal error, namely:
Fatal Error. Attempting to save in
<<Temp file path>>
It then proceeds to shut down entirely.
I’ve applied the suggested fix from Maya, which is to add MAYA_DISABLE_CIP=1 to the Maya environment file, and this does not help. I have also ensured that my disc has space for temporary files (as having no space has caused this issue in the past). I would like to know what I can do about this, because as it stands, the rigging tool is unusable.
After creating a new blank Maya file and importing the character from scratch, it now lets me select finger bones, but crashes the moment I click “export motion”.
I’m also having issues in that the rigging tool fails to locate the Export file every time the model is opened, and so I have to navigate to it separately every time I open a file, regardless of whether I bookmark the folder (the bookmark vanishes) or check the box to remember the new location (it doesn’t). This is, as you might imagine, a drain on productivity.
It seems that a major cause of the issue is two dynamic chains that are set up on the model. If these are set to use “Dynamic” mode, then the editor seems to crash a lot. If not, then there don’t seem to be many problems.
There are still issues, it seems, even without the chains set to “Dynamic”.
Yes, it looks like the issue is irrespective of the settings of the dynamic chains - it’s just prevalent throughout.
What version of maya are you running, and do you know if you are on the latest service pack for that version?
Unfortunately, when Maya crashes like that, it doesn’t produce any meaningful error to help track down issues.
I’m using Maya 2014. As for the service pack, I’m not sure, I’ll give that a look. It is rather irritating that they don’t produce a meaningful error log.
ok, 2014 has a service pack 4. If you don’t have that installed, you should definitely look into that as it might help. You can check under help->about Maya. it should say in the first line:
Ah, mine just says:
Version: Autodesk Maya 2014 x64
Hmm… I’m attempting to install the service pack, but I’m having issues. From what I can tell, you need to first uninstall Maya, which I have done, and then run the service pack install. My problem is that the installer appears to be stuck extracting the files - it doesn’t appear to be doing anything.
I finally got the service pack installed, and it didn’t help. The tools are still crashing.
I honestly am not sure what else to try here. Do you have the latest scripts from the dropbox location?
I do indeed. It was the first thing I tried when this issue started occurring. Is there a way to enable error logging for Maya, so we can get a closer look at what might be happening?
EDIT: It seems this occurs most obviously when clicking “Export Motion”, but it seems to work okay when there is no animation.
Ah, I’ve found the crash log! Here’s a pastebin of it:
Crash Log
I’m going to try updating my graphics drivers, as that has been highlighted as a potential cause of crashes like this.
EDIT: Updating graphics drivers didn’t help.
More info. It allows me to click the Export Motion button as long as I haven’t played the animation since opening. If I click play and then stop, Maya crashed after hitting Export Motion.
Also, is there a way to redirect to the Export file? Checking “make path changes permanent” simply doesn’t work.
Apologies for the late reply, been focusing on a game project here at work and let my inbox and threads go unattended 
Odd that make path changes permanent isn’t working for you. Try checking your reference editor after redirecting the path change and make sure resolved and unresolved paths are the same. You should be able to edit them manually to make it so.
Haven’t had a chance to figure out what the crash log actually means. Definitely seems to be something above the tool, as in, the tool might be causing it, but the crash log is pointing at dll files that are actually part of windows 
One more thing to ask about your crash, and this will seem random. Does your UI have a thumbnail for the character? Or when you go to add character for animation, does the character have an image there that is correct? I’ve seen crashes where if there is no thumbnail, everything goes bad when dealing with UI functions.
I’ll give that a look when I have the chance.
And no, the UI doesn’t have a character thumbnail, but I don’t know how to add one.
ah, there’s a really good chance that’s the issue then. So you didn’t create the files you’re working with then? During the creation process, it will create the thumbnails for you.
If someone else created these files, you can try to get them to give you the thumbnails, which are located here:
/MayaTools/General/Icons/ART/Thumbnails/YOUR_PROJECT
and each character has two icon files: characterName.bmp, and characterName_small.bmp
Another option is for you to create those files yourself, either by copying one of the existing character icon sets and renaming them(such as the mannequin character) or just create some icons in Photoshop or the like.
The last option is to rebuild the character yourself. This will also solve your reference path issue. You can open the export file, and in the epic games menu, click on the character rig creator to bring up the UI, then hit build. At this point it will make your icons and it will rebuild the rig.
Okay, sounds good. The jiggle bones and dynamic chains are actually part of the tool, so those should come through just fine on a rebuild if you wanted to try.
I didn’t create them, no, and I wasn’t sent the thumbnails, which explains it somewhat.
I’ll create my own thumbnails, I think. It seems the simpler option. Rebuilding the rig is unfortunately not an option, since it has been customised with jiggle bones and dynamic chains.