X3 crashing on startup

[Jim at Gentex]

This is an unusual problem I've never seen before.

 

I got a new computer system upgrade 2 weeks ago so I had to reinstall X3 and migrate all my associated posts, etc., to the new system.

 

No problems migrating to the new system, and everything in X3 was functioning as it should. I was able to open files, generate toolpaths, and post them as usual. All was in order.

 

Yesterday I was viewing an Excel file on our company SharePoint site, and when I tried to print the document I was viewing, the system crashed.

 

Ok...no problem, I'll just reboot and go from there. (X3 was not running at that time.)

 

After rebooting, everything seemed OK until I tried to open Mastercam. The splash screen appears, then the main program window opens as it should, but after that, nothing. The program freezes at that point. The mouse is active but if I point to 'File' or 'Settings', or anything else on the toolbar and click, nothing happens, then it crashes.

 

I tried several things to try to remedy the problem:

-Repair X3 installation

-Uninstall / Reinstall X3

-System Restore to the previous day when all was working.

-System Restore to a week ago when all was working.

 

No change.

X3 still crashes every time I start it.

 

Fortunately I have a fully functional X3 backed up on my shop laptop, so all I have to do is switch the sim over to the laptop and I can still program, so I'm not dead in the water.

 

The IT boys are going to poke around under the hood of the new system on Monday and run some diagnostics to see if something went haywire in there.

 

In the meantime, is there anything else I can try to do to get this running again?

 

Anyone have a clue as to what may have caused this?

[kkominiarek]

Just to be safe......before starting MCAM make sure the Mcam(your version)commontemp folder is empty.

 

 

Your uninstall/reinstall should've taken care of any corrupt files.

[Jim at Gentex]

Thanks, Ken.

 

Yes, that folder is empty.

 

quote:

---

Your uninstall/reinstall should've taken care of any corrupt files.

---

Yes, that's what I thought too.

But the troubling thing is that X3 wasn't running when the system crashed yesterday.

 

Well apparently this is a systemic problem but I'll be darned if I can guess what it is.

 

Any other thoughts from the gurus around here?

[gcode]

I would uninstall and reinstall video drivers

next...

at this point.. a lobotomy and rebuild is probably

the best solution..

you could spend days troubleshooting and still

not have it up to 100% when you were done.

[FP1]

A few years back I bought a new computer that came with an ATI Radeon X300 video card. The computer worked fine for the first two weeks. Then I installed Mastercam. The computer would crash every time I tried to open Mastercam. Some times after restarting the computer, I would just move the mouse and the computer would freeze and lock up. I threw away the ATI card and put in an Nvida based card and all the problems went away. Do like gcode says and try downloading new video drivers first.

[Müřlıń®]

Hey Jim, try dumping te factory ATI driver and let Windoz use the default driver it has..

 

Just a thought.

 

This might be a case where you don't want the latest and greatest from ATI...

[Jim at Gentex]

Thanks all.

We have it resolved.

 

The IT guy ran some diagnostics this morning to see if there was a hardware problem, but that showed everything was OK.

 

Next, he reinstalled the video drivers as suggested here, but that didn't solve it either.

 

On a hunch, he thought my Windows user profile could possibly be messed up, so he created a new user profile. That got us past the point where MC crashed, but is still wasn't running right.

 

Finally we did a repair installation again on MC with the new user profile, and that did the trick.

 

Apparently when the system crashed, something got corrupted in my profile that prevented MC from running correctly.

 

Strange but true.