"Fatal error" upon opening scene?

[stiltzkin]

I've been working on this file for a while now, and last I left it I saved and closed Maya and shut down like normal, but now when I try to open the scene this error pops up: "Fatal Error. Attempting to save in C:DOCUME~1DavidLOCALS~1TempDavid.20040711.0021.ma"
Then Maya closes. The same error occurs when I try to open the temporary file it saves. I'd like it if I didn't lose all that work....... what causes such an error?

[joojaa]

Illegel math operation such as division with zero and ccorrupt nodes... Edit the ma file and delete nodes one at a time.

[stiltzkin]

First of all, it's an mb file, not ma, but what's the difference? Does it matter? How do I edit it to delete nodes (and... what exactly are nodes? If you couldn't tell, I'm still new to a lot of concepts.) Open it in a text editor?

[gmask]

According to the error message you posted earlier it's a .ma (ascii) file. The difference is that ascii is readable and editable in a text editting program.

First thing you could check is to open the file in a text editor and make sure it is a complete file.

The last line of the file should read something like this:

// End of 1.ma

Maya is a node based program. Nodes perform functions. You create by connecting together nodes. Much of this is done behind the scenes using the interface.

It is probably too much to expect you to beable to fix this file. It's allways a good idea to save copies of a file as you go along.

One thign you could try is to create a new scene and import the bad scene into it.

[stiltzkin]

Ah, it did save it as a .ma in my temp folder, didn't it. I didn't notice. Well, it says the right thing at the end of the ascii. If I import the scene, it works ok until I hit 5 to smooth shade everything. Then it gives me the fatal error again. I can't figure it out.

[gmask]

Well you could try turning off objects and hitting smooth shade until you figure out what object or shader is crashing it. It was probably not opening because smooth shading was enabled.

[stiltzkin]

Yeah I was trying that and found the culprit pretty easy (I just deleted the last object I had created and then it worked fine.) Also, in wireframe, the object in question had a different coloring than the rest (I think. I'm a little color blind.) It looked darker. What does the darker coloring mean? That the object is illegal?

[gmask]

No it only means that it has reverted to a default shader.

[stiltzkin]

Ah, alright. Well that problem was relatively easy. Thanks a lot! I was scared I'd lose my work. I'll be sure to save to multiple files from now on.

[joojaa]

BAcking up is a thery of its own. fisroff let maya save many copies... then save many many times and make sure your media is redundant, then make sure its bcked up regulary.