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Sorry, an unrecoverable error has been encountered

ZBrush Usage Questions ZBrush 2020 Usage Questions
#1

Hi there. I’m new to Zbrush but I’ve been reading up and watching videos and trying to learn as quickly as I can. Tonight I tried to set up a rig with zspheres for the first time on a character I modeled. After a lot of headache I realized my mesh was too complex to pose without significant lag every time I tried to rotate a limb. After some back and forth, just testing out different things on one of my many, many spare/backup .zpr files, I decided to close out of whatever I was doing without saving and wanted to pick it up tomorrow. I ended up trying to open one of my previous .zpr save files shortly after because I wanted to grab some screenshots of the model, and suddenly I was met with the error message: "“Sorry, an unrecoverable error has been encountered. Zbrush will attempt to save the current project to the quick-save folder.” with the title “ABNORMAL TERMINATION.”

It is now giving me this message every time I try to open one of my more recent save files. I am able to access certain files (only certain ones, not sure what the deciding factor is) through the quick-save folder, but if I try to open any of my files with the rig or even just my polypaint, it gives me this error and crashes. I’m running on little sleep and I’m pretty fried right now, but I wasn’t able to find anything about this exact issue other than someone on reddit saying “if it happens every time, there might be a problem.” Which is why I’m here. Any advice would be much appreciated, even if it’s just about how to avoid this happening with new projects in the future.

#2

Hi Wren!

Sorry you’re having some trouble.

There probably is a problem, but only with that project, or one of the meshes contained within. Files can become corrupted, meshes can be geometrically problematic in some way, meshes or files can become too dense to be stable on a given system. As a new user, you’re more likely to run across issues like this, as you’re still developing experience with the program. With experience comes the knowledge of what sorts of things to avoid.

If you can create new projects and work without issue, then I would chalk it up to being an issue with one of the assets in your project file, or the file itself. The safest idea is just to go back to the oldest version of the file you can still safely open, and work a bit more mindfully (make iterative backup saves, always!). You may be able to find where the problem is starting in your process.

If you can open any problem version of the file, you may be able to extract the mesh safely as an OBJ (tool >Export).I say OBJ, because this format would purge it of many of the zbrush-specific factors that might be causing the problem. Given your general level of experience, I would advise against this. Best just to start over here.

If you are encountering a crash issue while trying to save ANY new file from a fresh session that has nothing to do with your problem file, then that indicates a more serious problem with your installation, and you will need to contact Pixologic Support.

As to your original issue that started causing the problems–it’s important to pose meshes at the lowest possible level of resolution. Hi resolution meshes will perform poorly in this mode, and distort far more easily. Low poly meshes will perform better, distort less easily, and be easier to correct when they do with fewer points involved. Trying to rig a high res mesh is a recipe for issues.

Be sure to make use of Transpose Master. It’s designed around the idea of creating a new temporary merged version of all the visible subtools you want to pose at their lowest level of resolution. That temporary model can be posed, and then the changes will be transferred back to all your original subtools at their highest levels of subdivision.

This means that for best results when posing, you need a mesh that has a manageable low-poly base level of geometry, and multiple levels of subdivision for finer detail. If your mesh is not currently in this form (for instance a high res mesh with no subdivision levels), you must first convert it into that form.

You can do this by Zremeshing (or otherwise retopologizing) your mesh (or a duplicate) to create a new low poly base with clean , manageable topology, subdivide it sufficiently to hold the incoming detail and then project the detail from the original mesh onto the new, using whichever of those methods that is easier and fits the situation. The end result should be a mesh with a low poly base and multiple subd levels that can work well with transpose master.

#3

Hello Spyndel! Thank you for such a thorough response, I really appreciate your time. I know that files can become corrupted, and I’m sure it would be difficult to pin down exactly why and that isn’t really my issue, but the only thing I’m left wondering is why all of my saves from a certain point became unuseable, when I was previously opening iterations of them with no problem… For example I have this file saved under file1, file2, file3, and so on, and my issues with rigging maybe happened around the file45 mark, so I wanted to go back and open file40 or so and it would give me this same error and crash for, say, file35 to file45-- for an example. I’m just not sure why suddenly multiple files became corrupted after I was only working on (and closed without saving) one in particular. If you have any suggestions for what could have happened or how to avoid it, I’d love to hear them, but otherwise I really appreciate your response and will keep everything you’ve said in mind from here on out :slight_smile: Thank you.

Update: Trying to whittle down the precise file at which the error begins makes it appear as though “Loading Undo History” is what causes the crash message, I’m not sure if that’s completely accurate but it appears to crash either after trying to load undo history or in the middle of it. I have been deleting my undo history every now and again since I did not want it to take minutes to open and knew I wouldn’t need to go back into my older stages for editing. Unsure if this is a common problem because of this specific error message though :s

#4

If you are telling me here that specific files that had been manually saved prior to encountering the issue and were previously opening fine suddenly stared delivering the error when NO changes to the file have been made, then I can’t explain that. You’ll have to take that up with Support.

If you are referring to auto saved files, then those files could have been updated at some point with whatever elements in your file that had become problematic.

#5

Yes, that is what I was saying. My partner helped me do some digging and at this point I believe my system is throwing a fit when I try to open a project with almost any undo states at all, so the “Skip Loading” option solved my issue. Haven’t had the issue since unless zbrush tries to load undo history.

#6

What is the size of the files in question? Saving Undo history can rapidly bloat a file, especially with multiple subtools. Your system just may simply not be able to handle it if it has grown too large. Saving an undo history is not something you want to do casually.