Troubleshooting guide - LDD startup and advanced graphics problems

[Superkalle]

I popped a mail about this to the LDD Team and got a response this evening:

"Yes we are aware of the problemn and have people working on it. Thank you for letting us know."

So reassuring news I suppose.

[Aanchir]

Good to hear some feedback from TLG on this. I wonder what caused it. Perhaps TLG was trying to update LDD and encountered an error? But I think we'd know about any planned updates of considerable size in advance.

[legoboy3998]

I popped a mail about this to the LDD Team and got a response this evening:

"Yes we are aware of the problemn and have people working on it. Thank you for letting us know."

So reassuring news I suppose.

LDD is working now. ...Now if only I could remember what it was I wanted to work on in it.

Sal

WFB, WI

[JustPlainJim]

Hi. My first post here, because I'm not sure where else to turn.

I've been trying to run the latest LDD and it's been crashing on me. I never had an issue with previous versions. I see a message that says "installing bricks" and then it simply closes the program. No explanation, no error message. I tried Safe Mode and it does the same thing.

I've tried uninstalling and re-installing LDD, but it always says that Lego Digital Designer is already installed on my PC. I've gone in and deleted the directory in Program Files and the directory under my "Documents and Settings" folder. I wonder if that may be because I chose the "install for all users" option...

I checked my drivers and they seem up to date. I tried altering the preferences file and it didn't change anything. Same issue.

I also wonder if it's a matter of my operating system. I'm running Windows XP 64-bit edition and I've had problems with other programs not running (most notably Spore).

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks for your time.

[Superkalle]

Hi Jim

I would have said upgrade graphics drivers, but you seem to have checked that - and the problem appears also in safe mode which rules out graphcis drivers even more.

You said you deleted all files. Was it in the "c:\Program Files (x86)" folder and the "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer" folder. I'm asking since you mentioned two other folders (program files without the x86 and a "Documents and Settings".

I have Win7 64bit myself and have never experienced any problems.

[JustPlainJim]

You said you deleted all files. Was it in the "c:\Program Files (x86)" folder and the "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer" folder. I'm asking since you mentioned two other folders (program files without the x86 and a "Documents and Settings".

I have Win7 64bit myself and have never experienced any problems.

Ugh. Sorry. I've done tech support before. I know better than to give a cruddy situation report like that...

Yes, I deleted the contents of "C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer", as it is in an OS before Windows Vista. I also deleted the contents of "C:\Program Files (x86)\LEGO Company\LEGO Digital Designer", as recommended. I downloaded the latest drivers for my graphics card and I had hoped that would help.

I even went so far as to open up the registry editor (not recommended, I know) and remove any instance of the Lego Digital Designer. I still have the problem where it says that LDD is already installed on my computer.

Thoughts?

[Superkalle]

Thoughts?

Well, it also appears I didn't read very well since you did write you had XP 64 bit. To be honest, I didn't even know XP existed in a 64 bit version.

Anyway, strange problem. It's as if installer has left some garbage behind that doesn't get uninstalled, thus making LDD think it's allready on the computer. Or the registry is corrupt.

I'm not sure I have any more ideas right now. Maybe someone else here at the forum can help out.

[Lego Otaku]

Will ccleaner work to clean registery of outdated data? Not sure if it works on XP 64 bits.

[JustPlainJim]

Yeah, Windows XP-64 was a little-used OS, but I got it just before Windows 7 came out and Vista was my only other option for a 64-bit OS and I really didn't want to go that route... It's kind of the black sheep of the Windows OS's, because it's just different enough from 32-bit XP that some people refuse to develop for it. iTunes and TurboTax are my two biggest gripes in this category.

I tried doing the full deletion again, removed everything and ran ccLeaner. Not sure if I had ccleaner set up right, but it ran through my registry and cleaned 500+ problems... I tried running the LDD installer and it, once again, said I had already installed the software. Going to try a reset and see if that works... after work. Stupid day job getting in the way of my Lego time... ;)

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I really didn't want to call Lego's tech support, but it looks like I have to.

[Crimson]

Hello, new poster here trying to get this silly thing working.

I get the install, attempt to open the program, and nothing happens. LDD.exe appears in the task manager for a couple seconds and disappears.

Did the uninstall, and clean all the files out, and then a reinstall (with multiple restarts in the middle), also made sure my card drivers were fully up to date

I pasted the following to my preferences.ini file

language=en

ApplicationID=4ba67fcd-8187-4986-ac15-3c845c1db5b5

UseShadersInScene=no

UseShadersInPalette=no

CompatibilityModeLevel=100

UseRoundEdges=no

I also have an extra file that contains the following

Elapsed(650) Caught exception, stack trace saved at 'C:\Users\Crimson\AppData\Local\Temp\LEGO Digital Designer-2012-05-03-00-15-31.mdmp'.

Any suggestions?

Win7 64bit

Thanks for the help

[Danomight]

Thank you thank you thank you!!! I've been trying for months to get LDD working on my compy! Updating my graphics drivers, updating directx, and adding 'CompatibilityModeLevel=100' to my preferences file was what finally did it!!!

Anyone who has similar specs to me might want to try this!

Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family

Edited May 22, 2012 by Danomight

[Jason C. Hand]

Now I'm having trouble with LDD. It begins initializing and then freezes. I waited a few minutes for the program to continue startup and it didn't do anything.

[AwesomeStar]

Now I'm having trouble with LDD. It begins initializing and then freezes. I waited a few minutes for the program to continue startup and it didn't do anything.

I am having this exact problem just now. I used LDD a lot last night, continued designing today, and then when I went out for a few hours I came back and this happened every time.

I've uninstalled, re-installed, changed .ini files, properties, anything and everything I can think of, and no luck.

The only thing I can think that I did wrong was I started using advanced rendering settings, and experienced crashes, but after I turned them off all was fine again.

Any help?

~A.S.

[Calabar]

Now I'm having trouble with LDD. It begins initializing and then freezes. I waited a few minutes for the program to continue startup and it didn't do anything.

Did you try to clean the recently opened lxf files from the preferences file?

[Jason C. Hand]

Did you try to clean the recently opened lxf files from the preferences file?

No. I'm not familiar with that. How do you do it?

[Calabar]

I've not LDD here, but let's try:

- Close LDD, if opened.

- Look for the preferences.ini file in your user directory (the precise location depends on the operating system).

- Open the file with a text editor (for example, notepad).

- Find the line containing the recently opened sets (it should start with "RecentModels=...").

- Delete all the entries, Save the file, Start LDD again.

[JackGhost]

I have the same Problem. I worked with LDD last night. Today is freezes while initialising (In n ormal and Safe mode). I completely uninstalled - reinstalled 5 times. I also started it with windows vista and XP compability. I do not know what i could do now. My grafic driver is the newset.

Edited May 31, 2012 by JackGhost

[Superkalle]

I'm having problems too. At first I thought it was because I installed Google Chrome as default browser, but it seems more are having problems. LDD starts and then just hangs at the "initialization" screen...

[Aanchir]

Hmmm, I'm having the same problem (begins "initializing" and then doesn't progress from there) And it was less than an hour ago that I was using LDD without any hassle. Very strange.

Since quite a few people seem to have this problem, I get the idea it probably has something to do with the update server and not with any one user's computer.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Aanchir

[Calabar]

So it seems to be a problem related to some kind of update that most users received for their LDD.

Or did you update something other? (operating system, video driver, etc...)

[Superkalle]

So it seems to be a problem related to some kind of update that most users received for their LDD.

I'm thinking more some kind of server problem.

[Jason C. Hand]

The only thing I updated was the Preferences.ini file. Saw the following info in another psot and pasted it into the file:

language=en

ApplicationID=4ba67fcd-8187-4986-ac15-3c845c1db5b5

UseShadersInScene=no

UseShadersInPalette=no

CompatibilityModeLevel=100

UseRoundEdges=no

Seems some of you other guys are having the same trouble, too

Edited May 31, 2012 by Jason C. Hand

[AwesomeStar]

I'm thinking more some kind of server problem.

Oh well that's alright then. I was worried about it just being my computer but if it's a wider problem I can hold off on carrying on with my designing.

~A.S.

[Jason C. Hand]

I've not LDD here, but let's try:

- Close LDD, if opened.

- Look for the preferences.ini file in your user directory (the precise location depends on the operating system).

- Open the file with a text editor (for example, notepad).

- Find the line containing the recently opened sets (it should start with "RecentModels=...").

- Delete all the entries, Save the file, Start LDD again.

Ok. will do.

[AwesomeStar]

Anybody here thinking of sending TLG a message regarding this?

~A.S.