Settings window getting 'stuck'

  • Enscape 2.4

    Windows 7 64bit

    SketchUp 2018


    Making any edits to the General tab make the window 'stick' and say Not Responding for 20-30 seconds each little change I make. This seems to have just started in the last day.


    Very frustrating.:cursing:

  • I have had this issue in the past... for me it was related to using a custom HDR skybox. I have since avoided using high res skyboxes as a workaround, so cant say if it has been fixed. At the time, the skybox image data was being saved to the temporary xml file that is where the "last state" settings are saved. Because the HDR data is huge, it took considerable time to save after each little change.

  • I have had this issue in the past... for me it was related to using a custom HDR skybox. I have since avoided using high res skyboxes as a workaround, so cant say if it has been fixed. At the time, the skybox image data was being saved to the temporary xml file that is where the "last state" settings are saved. Because the HDR data is huge, it took considerable time to save after each little change.

    No Skybox loaded in this file. I was hopeful that was it, but no. Skybox is ticked off.


    Enscape window isnt even started. If I open just the Settings window by itself, its just non responsive.

  • I have had this issue in the past... for me it was related to using a custom HDR skybox. I have since avoided using high res skyboxes as a workaround, so cant say if it has been fixed. At the time, the skybox image data was being saved to the temporary xml file that is where the "last state" settings are saved. Because the HDR data is huge, it took considerable time to save after each little change.

    I take back what I said. It appears that even if you have Skybox ticked off, it will still load the HDR file, so it was loading a hi-res one. removed that file and it is working as expected. Thanks for the clue to help me figure this out.

  • fyi... the reason it is being loaded is that it is actually embedded in the xml file... if you open the setting xml file in notepad you will see the section for skybox is like 1000 pages long. When you untick the check box it does not delete those lines of code.


    fwiw... I feel the fact that the skybox contents are embedded in xml constitutes a bug. This should have been removed when it was reported the first time. I suppose the enscape team feels differently.

  • The simplest approach would be to load a smaller skybox file and then untick the skybox checkbox. This will replace the large amount of data with something manageable. The problem is that if you had loaded a large skybox and only untick the box, the data remains in the active settings file for some reason.


    If you want to remove it completely, in windows... you would need to look under My Documents > Enscape > Settings


    The active settings file is called "active" with no extension. It is an xml file like the custom setting files.


    Look for the <SkyboxFileContent> entry.


    Note, if you had loaded a large HDR, you may need to use something other than notepad... it could not open them for me. Notepad ++ works for me.


    I reported this issue last year (XML setting files with HDRs are huge)


    Since then I only use small HDR skyboxes with enscape.


    Also, unless you are using large skyboxes as a background image, there is no reason to use high resolution, enscape downsizes it for lighting calculations.


    Another downside to using large skyboxes is that if you create many custom settings (like I do) and each is 100MB, you can quickly fill up you system drive (mine is an SSD so space is a premium) Each time you make a new settings file the skybox data gets duplicated, even if you do not change the image being used. So for example if you make 20 variations of settings only changing exposure, or skybox rotation, and all those settings all use the same 100MB HDR, you end up with 2 GB of settings files. This same number of settings files could be around 100MB total if the skybox was just referenced as a file, and not embedded in the xml. If your drive is filling up you can move old settings file to another location.

  • The simplest approach would be to load a smaller skybox file and then untick the skybox checkbox.

    That's how I was able to fix it. A right click and "clear" option would be nice though.


    I just feel that these settings should be saved per file and not be saved with Enscape. Its the most frustrating thing to me.

  • That's how I was able to fix it. A right click and "clear" option would be nice though.


    I just feel that these settings should be saved per file and not be saved with Enscape. Its the most frustrating thing to me.


    Well, they do have to make it consistent across platforms, and that may not work for some. So the simple UI / automatic way of working would need to be consistent.


    However, a non-automatic way of assigning a specific setting file to a scene name could be created pretty easily. For example, each time you open your file, if the scene or view you are looking at contains the name of a previously created setting file, enscape would automatically use that setting for that scene. This seems to be a program universal scheme which could also be implemented on standalone with saved views, and could work with batch rendering. Like tags for scene names. We could even use this approach to quickly assign styles by creating views with names that contain the setting name in them. You could create versions of views by duplicating the view and changing the settings tag.

  • is there any way there will be a fix to date anyway? Since the settings are related to the fact that there is and HDR, but still it is vital to be able to manipulate it without crashing enscape every time.. with a HDR. It puts the purpose of realtime aside in my opinion if you can't make use of all the settings fluently.

    Thomas Willberger ? any news

    • Official Post

    Thank you so much for all the feedback and reports guys, I'll have a look at this and file it as a bug report accordingly. :)