Where's SkIndigo 1.0.9? Blame it on Vista...

[Whaat]

I officially hate Windows Vista. I haven't released SkIndigo 1.0.9 because I have not been able to get preview renders to work. The strangest thing was that previews would work with SkIndigo 1.0.9 if it was used with Indigo 1.0.8. However, it would no longer work when used with Indigo 1.0.9 (stable). When used with Indigo 1.0.9, Indigo would throw an error message. For example, see this thread:

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/fo ... php?t=3988

The strange thing was that SkIndigo was writing the preview material to the file 'previewmats.igs' without error, but when I opened the file 'previewmats.igs', it contained a very old version of the file (obviously not the one that was just written).

Anyway, the whole thing is extremely confusing and I have only scratched the surface of describing the problem.

So what was the problem? Windows Vista Compatibilty file system! Has anyone else ran into this type of problem? For some reason (still unbeknownst to me), Windows Vista was writing the file 'previewmats.igs' to a 'VirtualStores' directory and Indigo 1.0.9 was obviously was not looking for the file there. (For some reason, Indigo 1.0.8 was able to find the file there )

Does anyone understand why this would happen?

How do I prevent this from happening on other users computers?

This is one of the most bizarre and frustrating issues I have ever come across. I only figured it out 'by chance' when I finally noticed the 'View Compatibility Files' button in Windows Explorer.

Thanks Microsoft for another stupid 'feature' to make our lives so much easier!

[OnoSendai]

Sketchup might be running in Windows XP compatibility mode.
Right click on the sketchup .exe and see if u can spot something like that.

[Whaat]

Sketchup might be running in Windows XP compatibility mode.
Right click on the sketchup .exe and see if u can spot something like that.

Thanks but that's not it. Maybe the Ruby API is somehow running in Windows XP mode...I don't know.

[OnoSendai]

What path are you writing previewmats.igs to?
Perhaps you need to write to a path you have full write access to (perhaps something in the user directory, or perhaps the system temp directory?)

[cpfresh]

it gets written to <sketchup install folder>\Plugins\SkIndigo\

[OnoSendai]

That could be a problem if sketchup is installed in 'program files'.

[Whaat]

That could be a problem if sketchup is installed in 'program files'.

...which it is ...

[OnoSendai]

Try writing the mat preview scene to the system temp or user home dir.

[cpfresh]

any updates Whaat?

[ropel]

Windows Vista Compatibilty file system! ...
Does anyone understand why this would happen?
How do I prevent this from happening on other users computers?

As I know, Vista doesn't let anyone but Administrator to write directly in c:/program files.
I personally resolved the problem disabling UAC (user access control) and giving administrator privileges to my login account. Doing this way "VirtualStore" will not be used again.
Another option is, obviously, to install both Sketchup and Indigo in a different directory than c:/program files.
I've tested other solutions to this problem, but nothing else is 100% fail proof.

[Whaat]

Thanks, ropel. I was able to solve the problem by writing the preview file to a directory that is not in c:/program files.

[kwistenbiebel]

Hi Whaat,

I am having a minor issue.
Sometimes I model on my laptop (vista 32 bit) and move the file to my desktop (Mac Pro vista 64 bit) for rendering.
The desktop has Indigo 64 bit installed..
When I open the model with the MacPro and try to render it, I need to reassign the metal materials because it can't find the .nk data.

Any way to overcome this?

Regards,
Kwistenbiebel