Editor menu properties dropdowns not accesible after 10-20min

Editor
#1

Hello,

I’m a newcomer to the Flax world. (1.7.2)
Currently just testing without doing anything (yet) complex, but after 10-20 mins using the editor, all the menus and properties dropdowns are not accessible anymore.

example : when cick on view, the dropdown just blink and is not accessible anymore.
same with all properties dropdowns.

only solution is to close and open the project again.

Am I missing something to make it work properly ?

Thanks.

#2

Hi @CallMeRed Welcome to Flax.

You should update Flax. Current is:
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You may want to uninstall it completely then install the latest. Also some tips and advice. I can run a session of Flax for over 8hrs and not have to restart it. The only time I have to restart it is if I import a lot of things. The Content Manager can be a pain but restarting Flax and waiting resolves itself (this is being worked on though).

Here is Flax on my system with my project open. It is very light on resources. Flax does go up when doing things but usually returns to something that looks like this in Task Manager. This engine is so much lighter than UE4 and UE5 and I will even say that it is much lighter than even Unity 5.6.7 or even 5.4 (which was the lightest Unity in my opinion next to Unity 4 Pro). So happy with everything in Flax.

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Some tips (for anything development related. Blender, Flax et al):

  • Install on a Non-Windows drive. SSD is best. 1 or 2TB SSD/NVME are reasonable now.
  • If you do install on the OS drive (C;) do not install it in any of the Program Files folders. Windows does aliasing in these which causes all sorts of issues for game development type software. Make a GameDev folder in the root => C:\GameDev then install your stuff in there. Solves issues.
  • Do not install your Games on the same drive as your Game Dev stuff. I noticed some oddities when doing this. Especially with Steam and some games. Same goes with the Steam aliasing when not having Steam on the same SSD as your Steam Games. Some do fine but many don’t.
  • A laptop will run Flax, Blender etc just fine. It needs to have great cooling though. My laptop as example is a Legion 5 and does great. My desktop though is the better choice.
  • PC Specs are all over the place. In general though an Ryzen 5 3600 is a great work horse. Easy cooling great performance and handles all dev and work stuff, including VMWare. So something around this level of processor is a great choice.
  • RAM is 16GB minimum! I have 32GB but did fine with 16GB for a long time.

Some simple tips that would affect what you are seeing.

#3

Hi @OlanderDA ,

FLAX_ver

First, thank you for taking the time to try helping me with this issue.

Actually I did install Flax at first on a custom Apps folder, then I uninstalled it and installed it again in the default folder => program files(x86). (both NVMe)

Also, I do not do anything special yet, just loading a basic template project with 1 cube and a floor in the scene.

The problem is the Editor rendering, when the issue occurs, all the dropdowns are flickering when I try click on any items (displaying and disapearing in less than 1 second). => top bar menu, view button, and objects properties.

Also, The toolbox panel is completely empty.

No matter what I tried, the only option is to restart the Flax Editor and reload the project.

I also reinstalled .NET 7 SDK => same issue.

I suspect something with the editor itself or the Nvidia driver but I do not have any issue with other apps, games (blender, vscode and everything else is working fine).

I don’t think it’s my PC, I have I9 (18/36 cores) + 32GB RAM + NV 2080 8GB.

Will continue to try find what caused this Editor rendering glitch.

I will not start any project until I can find the cause and the solution as when this happens, the editor is unusable.

Somehow disappointed, I really wanted to start working with Flax (looks promising)

Will post an update if I find something.

Note: I’m also running/ran other game engines => Godot (too slow), UE (do not like blue print) without any issue.

I like more the Flax world for C#, PhysX and high performance rendering.
Really hope to find a fix to my issue as right now, it is unusable for me.

Many thanks.

#4

Definitely not your PC specs. Agreed on the Flax part. Loving it all and very stable. I heavily abuse…ere…use Flax. :joy:

Only a couple of things we can check and then I am out of resources too. These should get you perfectly stable though.

You may have a corrupt template.

  • Uninstall everything Flax. Then use CCleaner Portable x64. Make sure Flax is gone. You can clean up other things too while you are at it. :joy: This portable version is clean and works great.
  • You can use the built in Disk Cleanup tool prior to CCleaner since it does great with cleaning up Windows related things safely. CCleaner can do it too but it is more direct and can clean up the registry floaters.
  • Use the Windows Defragmentation tool and optimize your NVME. Yes SSD need defragmentation. Much less than spinning drives but they do need optimizing. You can check this out with a bit sampler to see how bad the data is fragmented if you are curious. I do each of my SSD each month manually.
  • Disable any overclocking.

I would not use the default installation folder because of the Windows aliasing.
The only time I see the flickering is when I import a bunch of stuff in one session. This is the Content Manager doing what you are seeing.

I had something goofy going on with nVidia Experience installed. I really don’t need anything except the drivers. Once I got rid of the Experience portion the goofy things stopped. Maybe they fixed it or maybe not. I had some minor issues with a couple driver versions prior so I finally updated and those stopped. Here are my latest drivers. Not sure if the 2080 uses the same but should.

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Check your Editor settings in Flax:

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Next up once you install to a root folder set your up like this to see. This is a good method to do things in any case. This is my E: drive, a 500GB SATA SSD
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Next up make a new project with nothing in it and see. Should be blank and working fine. Drag a 2048x2048 PNG RGBA texture or 5 in there and see if the import box does the right things. Then after import give Flax CM 30 seconds to update its internal flax file data.
You can check the Preserve Alpha Coverage option if you want. I do it if something does not look correct on the first test for RGBA textures.

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Other than that I have nothing more to add. Good luck on this! Post your success or failure. I am curious to how this goes.

Cheers
O

#5

Hello, I’m still having the issue with the Editor.

All menus (context or items / object in the treeview) are blinking shortly and disappears when click on it.
only option is to restart the editor.

When I can use it a longer time, sometimes, all the menu are black (background and foreground fonts)
when move, minimize, maximize Editor, all the editor is full black.

I tried :

  • 3 Nvidia drivers (olders and latest)=> same issue
  • disable transparency in Windows => same issue
  • use native window system title bar in editor => same issue
  • black and light theme => same issue

It’s a display issue but I cannot find the cause.
And it’s only happening with Flax Editor !

The funny thing is that I tried to make a screenshot => it’s all visible on the screenshot image.
Only at display I have this ‘black’ content issue.

Is the editor using WPF ? I read some similar issue with .net 4.8 WPF apps.
something like that :

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

1 Like
#6

Flax uses itself to render the UI. No wpf or anything. No idea why you are getting this issue though, sorry.