Crash on launch, open, or broken tools

[wschil20]

Your Maya preferences in Windows are stored across the network on your fachome or stuhome in a folder called "maya". Occaisionally, because of network hiccups or jealous computer gods, your preferences may become corrupted. Any number of a wide range of problems can show up when that happens. By default, Linux does not use network preferences, but if you do, they can become corrupted too.

Common signs your May Preferences are corrupt:

• Move, Rotate, Scale gizmo not showing up correctly, or at all
• Polygonal tools behaving abnormally (insert edge-loop not updating interactively, etc...)
• Surface tools behaving abnormally (insert isoparm not updating interactively, etc...)
• Maya crashes immediately when launched, or when your scene opens
• Certain UI elements will not load; script error gives frequent warning/errors about "Shelf"
• stuff like that

1 - First, (with maya closed), rename your preferences folder so that they will be recreated when maya is launched next:

• for Linux: rename /stuhome/maya/YEAR-x64/prefs to something like
  /stuhome/maya/YEAR-x64/prefs_backup.
• for Windows: rename H:\maya\YEAR\prefs to something like
  H:\maya\YEAR\prefs_backup.

YEAR is the version of Maya you are using, either 2008, 2009, or 2010

2 - Now launch Maya, set your project, and open your scene to see if the error still occurs.

• If there error is not fixed, you can delete the new "/stuhome/maya/YEAR-x64" (or H:\maya\YEAR) and rename your old preferences folder to the original name.
• If the problem is fixed, you can delete the Maya folder that you renamed (your preferences were corrupt, and are now reset).
• If that does not resolve the issue, please come talk to one of us at the Systems Office (rm 125) so that we may troubleshoot it further.

It is a good idea to keep a backup of of your preferences and update it occasionally. Even when not working on a network, your preferences may become corrupt. If you suspect that is the case, save a new version of your scene and close Maya. Rename/Replace/Remove your prefs folder and relaunch Maya. The more you use Maya, the more likely it will happen at some point, so don't be too surprised; prefs can go bad with most programs and cause seemingly serious errors.