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Anim scene with referenced rig - stop at 100% loading after reloading the the lastest rig reference

Rigging General
#1

Recently, I came across a problem when I updated my rig and asked the animator to reload it. At first, everything was fine, but the animator couldn’t reopen the file after saving and closing it. Maya freezes at 100% loading and won’t go any further. I asked Claude about it, and it mentioned that reference blocks, reference edits, or PHL could be causing this issue.

I have no idea how to fix it. The only workaround I know is to save the animation data through Studio Library to prevent the issue. But even when I ask animators to do this, the new file they transfer the animation data into sometimes still can’t be opened.

Has anyone experienced this and found a solution?

#2

// Joint template: .
// Initializing RigLogic.
// Initializing RigLogic - Done.
// Warning: file: C:/Users/VFW04/Desktop/Pianist_Rig.ma line 1503869: ‘:defaultArnoldDisplayDriver.message’ is already connected to ‘:defaultArnoldRenderOptions.drivers’.
// Warning: file: C:/Users/VFW04/Desktop/Pianist_Rig.ma line 1526145: Structure ‘Blur3dMetaData’ is already defined. Using the original rather than creating a copy.
// Warning: file: C:/Users/VFW04/Desktop/Pianist_Rig.ma line 1526146: Structure ‘idStructure’ is already defined. Using the original rather than creating a copy.

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This is the last part of script editor history when maya froze.

#3

Hi @jeffchen0725
I dont think this is mGear directly related, but a general Maya question. Maybe something related with reference edits

#4

Hi @Miquel
I wanted to share an update on this issue and ask for your thoughts.

After some investigation, I found that the animation file could be opened successfully after uninstalling mGear. This led me to believe the freeze at 100% loading might be related to mGear version differences between machines.

To address this, I have since taken two steps:

  1. Version management — I now manage the mGear version across all machines to ensure everyone is on the same version.
  2. Optimize Unknown Nodes before publishing — Before publishing any rig update, I clean up unknown nodes to avoid leaving stale plugin references in the file.

That said, I’m still not 100% sure whether version mismatch was the true root cause, or if there’s something else going on. Has anyone else experienced Maya freezing at 100% loading with an mGear rig, even with a consistent version across all machines? And is there anything specific in the mGear loading process that could trigger a hang when encountering unknown or stale nodes?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

#5

That is interesting.
mGear doesn’t create any callback on loading, so it should not interfier on the loading of scenes.
May I know your Maya version and mGear version?
are you using the RBF manager? is to know which solvers are you using, if only the mgear_solver or also the weightdriver. this was changed form WeightDriver to mGearWeightdriver some time ago to avoid name clashing with SHAPE original version.

Also there was an bug fix in this solver, maybe is related, but not sure https://github.com/mgear-dev/mgear/pull/572

Just to confirm, now is stable, right?

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#6

I have experienced this, but never in any reproducible way, and never found out the main cause. Sometimes it’s just a combination of factors. There’s a chance there is something else not related to mgear that you could have removed that also would have solved the problem.

And sometimes we’d have to do hacks like reference the file, then import from reference and re-save the file. Or import instead of open.

Cleaning up unknown nodes is a good practice. Be careful when running “optimize” because if you have too many options checked, that can be a destructive command.

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#7

  • We all use maya2024.

  • Mgear version
    I used 5.3.2
    One colleague used 5.2.1 , the other used 5.1.0

  • Yes, I use RBF manager.

  • Not sure yet, but I’ve been managing the mGear versions and cleaning up Unknown Nodes before publishing, and I haven’t run into this issue again since.

This is the file I tested.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q00C6Nrvsz_zzFttfTFPJ9eA71_joqNB?usp=sharing

image
image1104×491 19.8 KB

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