"Unable to open DFX file"

Issue reporting
1

Hi there,
When I try to open my notch file, I get the Demolition-FX that reads:

Error: Unable to open DFX file. Check the file is readable and not corrupt.

It only happens with one of my files. I tried to attach it here, but when I click the file to upload it to this forum, it says ‘Sorry, but the file you provided is empty.’ Has anyone encountered either of these problems? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Harry

2

It sounds like the file got corrupted somehow - if you send the file to us, we may be able to recover it but it’s not guaranteed. Is there anything you can tell us to help shed some light on what happened?

Thanks,

Ryan

3

Here is a link to the file ( it wouldn’t attach here): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OvRYsuZzFfNYXDkXSEpTnidNZ8pGUDz_/view?usp=sharing

The file consists of a few heavy layers with raytracing on. I would get the ‘GPU hung’ pretty often, but it wasn’t a problem as I could always just reopen the file. This time, I had clicked ‘save’ and while the ‘saving…’ dialogue was showing, the ‘GPU hung’ dialogue came up. So I closed the program (when I don’t it just sits there, doesn’t recover) and now when I try to open the file I get the Error: Unable to open DFX file. Check the file is readable and not corrupt. message.
I appreciate any help you could provide!
Harry

4

I see, I think that a mixture of the GPU hang and the interrupted scene corrupted it - taking it look I’m sorry to say there isn’t anything there to salvage.

Did you have any luck with the autosave recovery? this can be found under file > Autosave Recovery, It might have made a save before your scene corrupted.

With all that said, it sounds like you were really pushing your machine beyond the limits it is capable of - so I would suggest reducing settings as much as possible in future if you want to work with scenes like that. If possible, could you let us know what hardware you are using (CPU and GPU mainly), the build of Notch, etc. (feel free to send us this info via support@notch.one)

What kind of meshes were in the scene? Raytracing complexity scales up with the geometry you have in your scene, so you may need to optimise imported or generated meshes a lot.

Thanks,

Ryan

5

Hi Ryan,
I was able to recover it thanks to the autosave! I was cloning a few hundred spheres at 40 x 40 subdivisions and using raytracing. My machine just couldn’t handle it. Thanks for the tips, they really helped.

Harry

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