Crash in ntdll.dll when starting DazStudio

cameron_eldridge

I'm seeing crashes in DazStudio almost constantly. 9 times out of 10 it'll crash when starting at the "build Interface" step of startup. The 1 in 10 times it actually does start, it'll crash some time randomly after that...

When it does start up, I have no config saved, the side panels are not they way the normally are. I've managed to open and close it a few times "successfully", and it's not retained any settings.

Looking at the event viewer, I see the following entry when it crashes, this is very consistant -

Faulting application name: DAZStudio.exe, version: 4.23.0.1, time stamp: 0x67039697
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.26100.2454, time stamp: 0x7cb6b6a8
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x00000000000881f5
Faulting process id: 0xC238
Faulting application start time: 0x1DB4FB4DC49686C
Faulting application path: C:\Daz 3D\Applications\64-bit\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\DAZStudio.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 92fa15eb-0ecf-473e-88e8-d0ce2b3f85bb
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

The log file has no errors in it, only a few warnings. (See attached)

I've uninstalled and re-installed Daz, when this started happening it was at version 4.22, and it's now at 4.23 with the same issue. I've tried updating nvidia drivers too, plus a sfc scan of windows files, all running fine and no errors reported there, but Daz still not starting.

Thinking it was some recently installed content, I tried starting daz without my external drive mounted (where my content library is), with the same result.

I've removed all the files from the plugins folder, and it starts reasonably consistantly then, but it's not really a usable application without those files. A binary search style file replacement to bring them back in didn't really identify any specific plugics causing issues, it was quite random when issues appeared, but consistantly the same issue reported in the event viewer.

All that in mind, is there something else I'm missing here to check? Not sure where to go next?

Richard Haseltine

A web search does suggest that crashes in ntdll are a not infrequent issue with a variety of applications, though it is hard to know how many of the support sites that come up are legitmate. There are a couple of threads on Microsoft's own support site which offer some steps to try. This isn't an issue I have seen many reports of with respect to DS, so I suspect that running DS is only the proximate cause triggering a more basic issue.

crosswind

Well, if you disable NVIDIA Iray Renderer plugin, then there'll be no crash when launching DS... (surely you'll have no iray engine....but try using other drawstyles and functions to see if DS runs stably)... that means the culprit should be Nvidia card per se or Nvidia driver.

Card issue may be related to physical failure or damage. Driver issue may be related to file conflict or corruption. Hope the culprit is not the former, so 1stly suggest you completely uninstall Nvidia drivers by using DDU, the install a fresh new NSD, then try again.

mikael-aronsson

The exception code (0xc0000374) indicates a meory corruption problem so it can be pretty much anything, it would require having a peek at a dump file to figure out what is going on. but as it happens at startup one of the plugins sounds like it could be the problems, but there is no easy way to find out what, it sounds like you tried most things with the plugins.

It say it loaded OpenGL without any hickups, that could indicate that all is well with that, but it could also indicate that the GPU drivers are the problems as it has now been loaded and it will start using it ;)

The last line say:

"QLayout: Attempting to add QLayout "" to ThumbPane "Thumb Render", which already has a layout"

Check if this is always the last line in the log file when it crashes, is so it is at least consistent every time.

When it does start, try to reset the workspace or change to something else, it may be some issure with that.

Make a backup copy of all the local settings for daz in your user folder and delete as much as you can and see if that helps.

Any idea when it started to happen ? (you only said it happened with 4.22, but did it start when you installed 4.22 ?) or could there be something else ?

If it worked before and stop working (and it's the same software) something has changed, otherwise it could not crash, so if you can identity something that changed at the same time all of this started you might find be problem, updating  something else ? windows update ?

You should have something like this in the log after the crash, it's possible one of these files are the problem:

2024-12-14 12:48:27.561 [INFO] :: Loading Actions: C:/Users/zzzz/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/actions.dsx

2024-12-14 12:48:27.595 [INFO] :: Loading Custom Actions: C:/Users/zzzz/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/customactions.dsx

2024-12-14 12:48:27.642 [INFO] :: Loading Menus: C:/Users/zzzz/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/menus.dsx

2024-12-14 12:48:27.668 [INFO] :: Loading ToolBars: C:/Users/zzzz/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/toolbars.dsx

The only other things I can think of is to save the log one of the times when it does start and compare that with one when it crashes (WinDiff, Total Commander or something), the timestamps will of course be different but otherwise they should be the same, see if there are any differences before the crash and what happens just after the crash.