Rendering can hard crash a Mac with M3 Max #121967
Labels
No Label
Interest
Alembic
Interest
Animation & Rigging
Interest
Asset Browser Project (Legacy)
Interest
Asset System
Interest
Audio
Interest
Automated Testing
Interest
Blender Asset Bundle
Interest
BlendFile
Interest
Collada
Interest
Compatibility
Interest
Compositing
Interest
Core
Interest
Cycles
Interest
Dependency Graph
Interest
Development Management
Interest
EEVEE
Interest
EEVEE & Viewport
Interest
Freestyle
Interest
Geometry Nodes
Interest
Grease Pencil
Interest
ID Management
Interest
Images & Movies
Interest
Import Export
Interest
Line Art
Interest
Masking
Interest
Metal
Interest
Modeling
Interest
Modifiers
Interest
Motion Tracking
Interest
Nodes & Physics
Interest
OpenGL
Interest
Overlay
Interest
Overrides
Interest
Performance
Interest
Physics
Interest
Pipeline, Assets & IO
Interest
Platforms, Builds & Tests
Interest
Python API
Interest
Render & Cycles
Interest
Render Pipeline
Interest
Sculpt, Paint & Texture
Interest
Text Editor
Interest
Translations
Interest
Triaging
Interest
Undo
Interest
USD
Interest
User Interface
Interest
UV Editing
Interest
VFX & Video
Interest
Video Sequencer
Interest
Virtual Reality
Interest
Vulkan
Interest
Wayland
Interest
Workbench
Interest: X11
Legacy
Blender 2.8 Project
Legacy
Milestone 1: Basic, Local Asset Browser
Legacy
OpenGL Error
Meta
Good First Issue
Meta
Papercut
Meta
Retrospective
Meta
Security
Module
Animation & Rigging
Module
Core
Module
Development Management
Module
EEVEE & Viewport
Module
Grease Pencil
Module
Modeling
Module
Nodes & Physics
Module
Pipeline, Assets & IO
Module
Platforms, Builds & Tests
Module
Python API
Module
Render & Cycles
Module
Sculpt, Paint & Texture
Module
Triaging
Module
User Interface
Module
VFX & Video
Platform
FreeBSD
Platform
Linux
Platform
macOS
Platform
Windows
Priority
High
Priority
Low
Priority
Normal
Priority
Unbreak Now!
Status
Archived
Status
Confirmed
Status
Duplicate
Status
Needs Info from Developers
Status
Needs Information from User
Status
Needs Triage
Status
Resolved
Type
Bug
Type
Design
Type
Known Issue
Type
Patch
Type
Report
Type
To Do
No Milestone
No project
No Assignees
4 Participants
Notifications
Due Date
No due date set.
Dependencies
No dependencies set.
Reference: blender/blender#121967
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
No description provided.
Delete Branch "%!s(<nil>)"
Deleting a branch is permanent. Although the deleted branch may continue to exist for a short time before it actually gets removed, it CANNOT be undone in most cases. Continue?
System Information
Operating system: macOS-14.4.1-arm64-arm-64bit 64 Bits
Graphics card: Metal API Apple M3 Max 1.2
Blender Version
Broken: version: version: 4.1.1, branch: blender-v4.1-release, commit date: 2024-04-15 15:11, hash:
e1743a0317bcWorked: 4.1.0 2023-11-26
Short description of error
When rendering a scene using the latest "stable" version of Blender, I can reliably hard-crash my Mac if I check "Use GPU" in the Denoise section of the Render tab.
Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
I don't think I can share the files I've been working on as they are quite large, and they have NOT crashed the old version, or if I UNCHECK "Use GPU".
I haven't tried to crash the new Blender with the standard benchmarking scenes, but if you don't have an M3 Max to test on and can't replicate this bug, I'm happy to help figure this out. The problem is that Blender is hard-crashing my system, i.e. I have to hold down the power button to recover, and I don't want to corrupt my system in the process.
I've been using Blender for the past few months completely happily, but I've been using the beta listed above, in which "Use GPU" was not an option. While that version did sometimes crash, it didn't crash nearly as often or as hard. Please disable this by default, and ideally find the bug that's causing problems with (at least) M3 Max.
And thanks for all your hard work on Blender!
Hi, thanks for the report. Blend file that's crashing with GPU denoiser will help here in further investigation. Is it possible to narrow down the file by removing objects, shaders, etc.?
Because I run the risk of damaging my Mac by repeatedly crashing it while other things are running, I want to minimise the risk if possible. It'll take a little while to try to isolate things further, but is there a benchmark or demo file that I could use as a starting point?
Perhaps you can use blender demo scenes: https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/
OK, got there and was able to replicate a crash with one of my own files. The main Mac monitor has completely frozen, but I'm still able to type on the second monitor that this browser window is on. This was replicable in the Viewport, not while rendering, but while "Use GPU was checked in the Viewport > Denoise settings as soon as I zoomed out and moved around a little. Beach ball, then hard freeze. I'll send this comment, then see if I can force quit Blender, but it's locked up one screen at least!
Unable to force quit Blender — the entire Mac froze hard when I tried. I would suspect it's a GPU memory issue becoming a wider memory issue, which kills the machine.
I am using some large textures, and some complex models, so I suspect that's part of the issue. Do you have any demo scenes with specific complex models and/or high-res textures that I could try to crash my Mac with?
Not really a blender bug if crash/freeze is due to insufficient memory. Can you monitor memory during render process?
I don't really have any. But there might be some file at blender demo scene website
It's definitely a Blender bug if it hard crashes the machine! All memory on modern Macs is unified, so if the GPU is allowed to go crazy it can take everything... but I have 48GB of RAM, way more than most dedicated GPUs have. But surely, Blender shouldn't take all the RAM available under any circumstances, and it doesn't, unless you ask it to use the GPU for denoising.
If I have time to keep testing this I will try really hard to make it crash with a demo scene, but I can definitely reproduce this just in the Viewport and not just while rendering, which should make things easier.
Just making sure, this issue can only be reproduced in specific scenes? If so, can you please share the scene you're having issues with, or share the steps to recreate a scene that has issues.
Crashes of the entire computer can come from factors like faulty hardware, or faulty drivers (Like a faulty GPU driver). So the issue may be triggered by Blender, but not caused by Blender. However we will need to investigate this further to identify the exact cause.
OK, so my Mac just hard crashed (beachball, unable to force quit, then the whole Mac died and I had to power back on for a full reboot) during a Blender render in the release 4.1.1, but I didn't have Use GPU enabled. It must be some other difference between the release 4.1.1 and the beta 4.1.0 2023-11-26 which has never crashed my Mac in the same way.
I can't share this file (too big, lots of custom models) but please let me know if there are any tests I can perform to try to isolate what could be causing the problem. And is there a list of changes made to the render pipeline, specifically on Apple Silicon? Something's gone badly wrong.
Take a scene that you're having issues in, and start removing objects and shaders until the issue stops. This will help you identify a culprit object or shader.
However, this issue may be a "combo issue". As in, it only occurs if you have object A in your scene while setting B is enabled. There have been a few bug reports recently of issues with Metal-RT (enabled by default on M3 and newer), specifically with motion blur. So seeing if turning off motion blur, and/or MetalRT might help here.
How to turn off MetalRT
1. Select from the top of Blender `Edit -> Preferences` 2. Open the `System Tab` in the preferences window 3. In the `Cycles Render Devices` section, change `MetalRT` to ofKind of. Cycles contains two main parts to make it work with Metal on Apple GPUs. The general Cycles code, that the CPU and all GPUs share, plus the backend specific code (the extra stuff to make it work with Metal on the GPU).
The list of changes to the "general code" is quite long, but the list of changes to the Metal specific code is relatively short.
https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/commits/branch/blender-v4.1-release/intern/cycles/device/metal with every commit after
Cycles: Fix #114919: Disable MetalRT-by-default if macOS < 14.0And https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/commits/branch/blender-v4.1-release/intern/cycles/kernel/device/metal with every commit after
Cycles: Use Metal Program Scope Global Built-ins on macOS >= 14.0The main changes I can pick out from these that could be causing issues are:
Thanks for the update. It looks like that related bug is experiencing the same thing I am.
Denoise with "Use GPU" checked will hard crash M3 Max regularlyto Rendering can hard crash a Mac with M3 MaxI've changed the name of this bug as it doesn't seem to be directly related to the Denoise thing as I thought it was. Denoise could be a contributing factor sometimes, but I've had a hard crash without it.
With regard to the changes noted:
I don't have any volumetric objects in my scene. Unlikely. I've created several different Blender files, but to give you an idea of the animation I've been making, they're used in this: https://vimeo.com/iainanderson/review/941500073/80101de237
There are curtains, a large table, and lots of pieces, but I've decimated the more complex meshes used for some of the player counters. The renders used in this video were all done with 4.1.0 beta and I couldn't have gotten the job done with 4.1.1.
Maybe?
I had thought this was it as it was the only thing visibly changed between 4.1.0b and 4.1.1, but as I've had a crash with this turned off, it's probably not it.
Maybe?
If I can isolate the crash I will, but I can't try to cause repeated crashes during a work day. Looks like I'm not the only one with this bug, though — it could be specific to the M3 Max.
Out of curiosity, when does the freeze occur? At the start of the render? In the middle of the render? Right at the end of the render? That would help point at what might be the cause.
During the render. Last time, I saw it crash at 22/100 samples.
Based on that info, my guess for the cause of this issue would be either:
I don't really know how to progress from here to try and identify the cause.
Does macOS provide crash logs after you force reboot it?
This could be an M3 Max-specific issue, but 4.1.0b was fine, so it's also a change made to Blender in 4.1.1. As there's another M3 Max owner with the same issue, I'd guess it's not just my Mac.
There are indeed crash logs, but the extremely nasty nature of this crash — just a system-wide freeze — means that the normal "app has crashed" logs aren't being written in the same way as you might expect. If you can point me as to what to send you from the Console (the Mac app which gives access to system logs), I can do.
System: MBP Pro 2023, M2 Max (12C CPU, 38C GPU), 64GB, 2TB SSD, OSX 13.6.7, Blender 4.1.1
Hi,
I can report almost the same issue.
In Blender 4.1 I was able to experience the benefits from using the GPU denoising a few times and for very short periods before crashing.(I saw myself not carrying my PCs around anymore all the time in the future).
But with 4.1.1 I wasn't able to activate gpu denoising even once. It instantly hard crashes. Luckily without freezes but it hard crashes with 100% probability/ reproducibility. It always happens in the exact moment, when the denoiseing pass starts (for final renders) or when I tick the "use GPU" box for viewport rendering while Render Preview is active or when activating Render Preview while the box is ticked.. It doesn't matter what's in the scene, as you can see in the video attached. Just the default scene with only an added plane. I tried several different denoiser-, lighting-, performance-, and color-management-settings - without luck.
I also attached four crash reports. I hope this helps in some way.
Keep up the great work.
Cheers,
Saro
@Saro-Sahihi Your issue is probably different from the issues reported by others here. Please create a separate bug report.
Before you make a separate bug report, can you please test these things:
Hi @Alaska,
thanks for the hint. I downloaded the Intel version by accident. Now, with the Apple Silicon version GPU denoising works perfectly fine.
Should I delete my previous comment then?
@Iain-1 Apparently when macOS encounters a issue, some useful information can be found in the
Consoleapp (Open the Launchpad and search for Console). I've personally never used it, but maybe you could have a look in there for some useful information for helping out with this investigation? (I'm not 100% sure if you can find the information needed due to my in-experience with it)