Freeze of 4.12 Editor (and Launcher) with Menu Opening

Development Programming & Scripting
1

I get an absolute freeze of the editor and even the Epic Launcher since upgrading to 4.12. With the opening of ANY menu item, or any popup menu in any Epic GUI. For example, in the launcher, if I click the “gear” title bar icon, it will freeze. If I create a new project and I open any of the pop-up menus such as “Starter Content,” I will get a freeze.

In the editor, the opening of any ordinary menu item like “File” or “Edit” will likewise freeze the editor.

Note that the freeze does, after several minutes (not sure of exact time) release. It is quite a long pause so I haven’t sat there long enough to determine how long, but it seems to be at least 10-15 minutes.

This is occuring on one particular machine, a newer Alienware laptop. I had been working on this machine fine for several months prior to 4.12. Not sure is this is related to an update of Unreal or to windows 10 itself.

Not sure where to troubleshoot or what to look at. Have uninstalled and res-installed Unreal and Epic Launcher. Appreciate any advice.

2

Hi gbrill,

Please perform the following troubleshooting steps:

  1. Post your Dxdiag
  2. Test with a blank blueprint project: Does this freeze occur?
  3. Install an earlier version of UE4 if you don’t have one in your library already
  4. Open a blank blueprint project: Does this freeze occur?
  5. Close launcher and open project by double-clicking the .uproject? Does freeze occur.

Please try these steps and respond with the results.

Thanks,

.

3

There is only a freeze when a menu is opened, and at no other time. Further, the freeze is “temporary” in that after several minutes the application will return.

To answer you:

earlier UE4 does the same thing. 4.11 and 4.12 do it.

Epic launcher itself will freeze when you click a menu item EVEN IF no UE4 installed. In particular, the “settings” gear icon (which opens a menu).

Blank project, yes, if a menu is selected.

uproject doubleclick, no, again, not until a menu item is selected

Clearly there is some directx call or something going on with UE’s menuing system that is breaking. It has only to do with whatever happens when you open a menu in any UE4 application (launcher, editor, etc.) Gameplay or PIE games are not affected (because there are no GUI menus in these)

IMPORTANT NOTE: I was able to track it down to the latest insider build of windows 10. Reverting to previous insider build DID resolve the issue. So perhaps some change to DirectX or other aspect of the newer insider build is causing a conflict with my setup.

It is not a driver issue for GeoForce as I tried earlier drivers and that did not resolve the issue. BIOS update did not resolve the issue. Really, it is something to do with that lastest fast-track insider build I got a week or so ago from Microsoft.

So at this point, I am functional again as I have reverted to a previous build. I didn’t get a dxdiag from that build (I wish I had) so there is no way for me to tell you what that config was at the time I had the error. Right now, things are working again and I strongly suspect that something in DirectX is different with that new build.

This may or may not be a concern for Unreal as you would probably want to wait until there is a stable Windows 10 build to evaluate, but I can say with confidence that something in the newer Windows 10 build breaks Unreal Editor and Launcher, at least on machines with my graphics configuration.

4

Thanks for posting your answer. Since this issue may be resolved by Microsoft by the official release build, we cannot feasibly make any adjustments to the Engine at this time.

You may want to report this to Microsoft, however, as they might not be aware of a conflict in their new build with Direct X.

5

What would be helpful would be if you could shed any insight into how/why UE is leveraging directx in its editor and other menu systems. Some kind of popup, overlay, clipping call? If I had some insight into what was being called into, I could better know exactly what the issue was and then offer a very specific patch request. I can read the source and if I can find the location, maybe I will do that. But if you know offhand, would be great to know.

As for the build issue, there really isn’t a mechanism to give this granularity of feedback to Microsoft really…you can specify why you are rolling back (which I did) but beyond that, I don’t expect them to take an action. I think, though, there is a high likelihood that they will go ahead with that build and it may cause problems for UE later, so ideally you folks might have a machine or two on the insider program and trying things out when the new builds come out. Microsoft would be more likely to listen to you.