I just purchased autodesk maya 2009 student version, and installed the license.  After purchasing the software, I have encountered a disappointing circumstance.  Every single time I try to run the program a fatal error occurs, and I can not open or use maya.

My procedures are as follows:
1) open maya
2) fatal error. Attempting to save in C:/DOCUME~1/TRISHA~1/LOCALS~1/Temp/Trisha Mcnamara.20090501.1631.ma
3) program terminates

Any help is greatly appreciated. 

I have called the Autodesk and was denied service over the phone because I purchased a student version. Ironically the autodesk representative said that the reason they have the student software is so that students can learn (with anticipation that they will be future clients).  However, autodesk sets a bad precedence for interaction and customer support by denying me telephone support to resolve my fundamental problem.  I have not been able to even open the program.  I have also filled out several error reports and received no responses.  I am hoping that this issue can be resolved (promptly).  Thanks to anyone that can help.

Trisha

first of I have to disagree with you that Autodesk has bad custom service.... I’m sure I can’t speak for everyone, and their own experience.  however-- before i bought the student edition of maya about 4 months ago- I was trying to find a place I could buy it.  Anyways the short story is I call the lady thats over educational stuff at auto desk, not knowing who she was.  It was the only number I could find.  And well she answered her phone, and we talked for 10- 15 mins. (By the way she over all the educational stuff ‘national rep president’ or something lol. I don’t think she needed to talk to me.) Also, most of the time if you post a question here on the forums, a Autodesk rep, or admin will respond with-in 24 hrs, if no one else in the community has helped:)

so moving on to you problem-- I have the student version of Maya as well.  I experienced a fatal error the other day that lost about 12 hrs of work, and all the files are glitched and has stuff missing.  So I had to revert to a older saved version:( I’m not sure why this happen.  But regarding your issue-- I’m sure the first thing some one that can help will ask, is what is your computer spec etc. to to make sure it’s not a hardware problem.

best of luck to you.

Thanks for your response.  I hope that a representative will reassure my faith in the company. 

The denial of the phone service to resolve a fundamental problem in running the software was simply disheartening. 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

My computer specs are as follows

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU
T7500 @ 2.20GHz
789MHz, 3.00GB of Ram

Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 3

32 bit operating system

Graphics Card
NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT

there should have been a CER dialog that came up.  did you submit the info, add text that be searched on to find it ?  in addition there should have been a crash log in your TEMP directory.  Without knowing where the crash is occurring its really hard to give a reason for the crash.

If you haven’t updated to Maya 2009 SP1a you probably should
are you using the OS /3GB boot option
what graphic driver version ?

I know some people have said they have problems with XP SP3, though i haven’t seen anything on my test systems

The first thing I would try is see if you can run Maya in batch mode. Open up a command prompt and run “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2009\bin\maya.exe” -prompt

If that works, but launching Maya in GUI mode does not, it’s probably a problem with your graphics card.  The 8600GT is not a qualified graphics card, and this may have something to do with your problems. There are many cards based on GeForce® GPU chipsets. NVIDIA® and Autodesk do not recommend these cards for use with Maya as you may experience various refresh, display and stability problems and inadequate performance. We suggest you choose from NVIDIA’s workstation cards instead. Qualified systems are listed at http://www.autodesk.com/maya-hardware.

You may want to try a different even older driver for the 8600GT or try different settings in your nVidia control panel.

I just followed your directions to run maya in batch mode via start up at the command prompt.  There were fatal errors about 4 of the 5 times I ran the program.

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2009\bin\maya.exe

That’s a start. Let’s see. Did you ever have another version of Maya installed? If so, it is possible that Maya 2009 copied an older version of your Maya.env file that contains something that is a problem for 2009. You can delete or rename your prefs folder, but Maya will copy, not recreate a Maya.env, so open that up in a text editor and remove everything. If you installed Maya 2009 SP 1a over an existing installation, uninstall, then completely remove C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2009 by hand, then reinstall.

I just uninstalled Maya 2009, deleted the prefs folder and the Maya folder in My Documents, and then reinstalled Maya 2009 SP1.  I am still getting fatal errors.  Am I supposed to reinstall the original software or the Maya 2009 SP1?  (I am confused about whether the install even worked, because the image attached displayed.)

Also when I opened Maya.env in notepad, the file was empty. 

I did have Maya previously installed on my computer.

	Attachment

Believe it or not, I get these Fatal errors in EVERY version of Maya I have so far used.  There is no way around it in my opinion. And yes I have submitted reports with no response, reinstalled, purchase other copies...you name it.  I have come to realize the best way in battling errors: SAVE OFTEN. 

I, myself, am battling so many other Maya errors that simply just crash the program without notice among other errors.  So that’s the best advice I can give you.

Without known where the crash is occurring its just a guessing game of what is not configured properly.

Startup crashes can be due to many mis-configured components.

Some of the known problem areas, but probably not all

old version of Nvidia Gelato renderer
user plugins/startup script overrides
/3GB boot option with certain graphic cards/drivers
Graphic card drivers, not supplying minimum level of OpenGL expected
Microsoft software drivers is openGL 1.1 Maya uses features of 1.5 and above
Radeon drivers normally need to have some settings changed to allow better interaction
Windows DEP Data Exection Protection - compatibility problems
Corrupted installations
Mel errors on startup

Knowing when the error occurs can help to isolate the problem.

In the splash screen there is the output line that shpws the progress of Maya on startup

If the last item talks of time line, this indicates a problem with the OpenGL driver configuration. The time line being the 1st item that uses OpenGL
If only the script window opens, usually a problem with the startup scripts.  at the begiining of the script window history there will most likely be some Mel error that needs to be corrected.

Set MAYA_DEBUG_ENABLE_CRASH_REPORTING=1 before Running Maya, that or the CER crash reports should provide most/all of the info required