Editor crashes on start, trying to allocate way too much GB

I renamed and moved some assets today in order for the names to conform to our team’s naming convention, and now editor crashes on start, trying to allocate 18446744073709551614 bytes (17179869184 GB). Everything was working fine before. The renaming/moving was done only from within the editor.

I was asked to post this on AnswerHub by a staff member. Forum post: VERY unstable - Feedback for Unreal Engine team - Unreal Engine Forums

log file (Dropbox - File Deleted )

Hi CodeSpartan,

Did you try right-clicking on the redirector files in the Content Browser and choosing ‘Clean Up Redirectors’? Do this for all of them, save, and restart the project.

I can’t access the Content Browser because the project doesn’t open - it crashes before the editor opens.

First off, do you have a working backup of your project? If so, I would suggest going back to that version, clone it, and then attempt to rename/move the assets again but this time in stages.

Naming conventions are generally set from the beginning of a project because changing it midway through can cause sever issues (like you now see). So if it needs to be done it should be done in stages. For instance, you would start with the lowest level of assets and work your way up. Ex: Textures > Materials > Static Meshes > Blueprints. After each stage you will need to save all and it’s best to close the project then reopen it. This way you can be sure it isn’t causing any major errors.

I know this is tedious but it has been the most successful way for us internally.

If you do not have a backup, it may be possible to get into your project again by going into the project files through Windows Explorer and delete all of the uassets redirectors. They will generally be small files between 1 and 3 KBs.
Make sure that you create a copy of you project first.

Afterwards, if you can open your project, you will find that many of the references will be broken (blueprints missing static mesh references, static meshes missing material references, etc). You will need to go back and set these references in order to repair the project.