Importing a package causes windows to open all my programs :/

Greetings friends!

I have been having a horrible Unity error for at least a month now and it seems kind of random. I wanted to post here and see if anyone else has seen this.

When I import a large package into my project, at the apex of the procedure, it fails the import and instead opens up AS MANY PROGRAMS AS POSSIBLE in Windows. ATI Windows, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Chrome, SVN, Unity windows and maybe some others - and usually it seems like it also opens the max amount of windows for that program. I just powered off again when it happened last and didn't manage to get a screen shot (it freaks me out because SVN starts uploading stuff, my PC freezes so I hit reset). Sometimes it doesn't happen, often it does. I have ran my virus scanner a couple times and nothing seems to be wrong. I also disabled my virus prot the last time I tried this and it also didn't fix it.

I am running Unity Pro 4.1.2 on Windows 8 64bit. Has anyone else ever seen this issue before?

 

I've had this problem as well, expect mine is able to survive it and not crash right away, its actually going on right now. I'm searching for a cause so i'll let you know if i find anything.

 

i fiddled around with it abit, it seems any type of tormenting device causes it.
At least that is what seems to of caused mine.

 

It happens to me too. Did the package you import from a website or from a third party download? I don't know why it happens :/

 

The package I used comes from a private developer. Not bought on the asset store but not torrented either. It also happens sometimes with another developers packages that is very active here (Zerano) as well and that is a clean, paid for package. Very bizzarro.

 

This is happening again to me on the most recent build for an asset I am using. I have heard from other people that Unity gets wonky with large packages approaching the GIG size. This is driving me nutz, production screams to a halt every time this happens until we can find a workaround. Very frustrating, Unity guys get this fixed please, this is embarrassing that your program does this.

 

First time using unity. I imported Unity Labs 01: Robot Lab it got stuck at 99% and then it opened 20 programs and maps.

 

Lately, I've been having this problem as well. Create new project. Import a large package and unity will lock up. Sometimes it imports, other times it opens tons of programs. I even just updated unity and it's still doing it. Anyone have any ideas as to what's going on?

Windows 7 64bit btw

 

I know this thread is a couple of months old but was wondering if anyone found a resolution to this. I am seeing it as well when I import huge packages..

 

Same here, but not only packages... I downloaded some free rocks from asset store, and did the exact thing. Its kind of random, couse some assets and packages doesnt opens windows...

 

Downgrade your OS to Windows XP or import the package into Unity 3, after decompressing the package, while importing the package, quickly use ctrl+alt+del to close Unity 3. Copy package files in unity 3 project and paste it into Unity 4 project

 

Heh, it's 2015 an it just happened to me with Unity 5 beta 19 importing 1 Gig asset pack from the store. Seems that they didn't fixed it.

 

Yeah I've had this error for the last several versions of Unity. I think it's buggy code in Unity when it attempts to pop up the modal dialog window that asks you to check which assets you want to import. For some reason, if Unity doesn't have focus when it tries to pop up that window, it sometimes instead opens a window for every single currently running process, even the ones that are set to always hidden by Windows. Maybe it does it out of spite for not paying enough attention to it?

 

I've had this problem for years now. I figured: "Hey, maybe they fixed it in Unity 5!" then when importing the new
Standard Assets It decided to randomly open a black window on my anti-virus, like 10 steam windows, uninstall a game from steam (what?), open Maya, open two floating start menus (using start menu X) as well as make a number of impossible to remove windows appear and weird outlines. I mean I guess that's WAY better than what it did in Unity 4 though.

All in all though I'd say that glitch was a 10/10, would import standard assets again. Now I have to restart my PC as there doesn't seem to be any way to remove these boxes in task manager.

 

Hey, I've never had this problem before upgrading to Unity 5. It never happened me in Unity 4 and now I can't import any big asset packages, has anyone found the solution for this? Thanks

 

I am also having this issue with unity 5.

 

Just downloaded Unity 5 on a freshly reinstalled windows 7 computer. When trying to import / decompress the assets I've purchased from the store it just opens a whole bunch of seemingly random programs.. I tried twice to import the assets into a fresh project, but no luck.

I've imported other free assets (rocks, etc..) just fine, but this one asset package wont work, which is quite annoying as it messes up my computer and also I can't use the assets that I paid for :/

Did any of you guys who had this problem figure out how to fix it?

 

This has happened to me on my laptop, home PC, and work PC. Some packages (400mb+) are impossible to open.

I wouldn't even think something like this was possible, but Unity manages to open everything on my computer every big package I import, any PC I'm on, since Unity4.

http://s29.postimg.org/87qh4itav/Untitled.png

 

This is a huge issue, I managed to take a screenshot of my computer when it happened again with a different package from the asset store. http://puu.sh/hFThN.jpg

 

I've been having this problem for some time, and only just found this conversation. The programs opened up aren't actually random, they seem to be mainly background running programs and services. No idea why it happens though, if anyone finds out how to stop it, please tell us.

 

Thanks, helped. Indeed, when a unity loses focus this bug occurs.

 

I can confirm that it is about the focus loss.

 

Same issue here when importing huge assets!
Have a look at this post:
=> http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/the-blacksmith-demo-problems.336129/#post-2182442

It is annoying!

 

Hello everyone.

Same issue on a Windows 7 + Unity 5.1.1f1.
Importing Unity Labs project results in a lot of programs opening.

 

Uff, same here with Windows 7 + Unity 5.1.2 (installed yesterday), happened again today (21/07/2015).
I downloaded the Shadowgun: Deadzone GM's Kit, from here:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/40087

I was reading some emails while Unity was downloading the package, download ended.. pum! it opens tons of programs.

This is the second time, it's HORRIBLE. Please do something even because the bug seems to be very old. :|

 

Same error, wait until package decompress works.

 

Im getting the same issue in Windows 10 now.

 

I ran in to the same problem, then it would not decompress while trying to import. i went to C: (username)\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store-5.x\Unity Technologies\Unity EssentialsAsset Packs
and the package never downloaded. so i re-downloaded it 4.03 gig. instead of importing through the asset store window i am trying to import it using the method you use with custom packages.

I think the error may have come from being able to hit the import before the package was actually in the folder and when unity couldn't find the package it tried opening what ever was available?

decompressing took about 10 minutes;
importing took about 1.5 hours

 

the problem i have now is everything is pink and i get 14 warnings 6 errors

 

I also got this when trying to open Unity's Blacksmith Environment package on the Asset Store, twice. This is real bad.

 

Just had it happen today on 5.2.

Can we open bets on how many more years this bug wont be fixed?

 

Had this happen with Unity5 and Win8 and now again with Win10 and Unity 5.2
It seems to open every process in the task manager and locks most of them. Only way out is to reboot the machine and lose whatever wasn't finished at that point.

I reported this months ago and they still didn't fix it. Very disappointing

 

Yeah it's still happening pretty regularly. It's been around for years and I don't think anyone's looked at it yet.

 

I've had the same thing. The first time it happened, I freaked out a bit and ran a virus scan on everything. The second time I was pretty sure it was Unity, and ran a search leading me to this thread. It was annoying for me because I often bury Unity under other windows while installing packages from the Unity Store. So far I haven't lost anything major or had to do a cold reboot because of it, though I do always have to reboot to get rid of windows that Task Manager can't close. Does making sure it's in focus for the big ones really help? Because if so I can make an exception for those, annoying as it will be, rather than have the worse annoyance of the mess this glitch causes.

 

I corrected this error by doing the following steps...
1. Clicked "Edit" in top menu in Unity 5
2. Clicked "Preferences" in "Edit" menu in Unity 5
3. Clicked on "GI Cache" in "Preferences"
4. Observed that my GI Cache was only 10 GB
5. I was importing a Package that was +1 GB
6. I was already at 9.77 GB
7. Theory, My GI Cache was getting capped before the import process could continue
8. Adjusted GI Cache to 20 GB
9. I have not had the problem since.

I Hope this helps others, I also had the problem with Unity 5 turning all my PC tasks to visible and opened some unnecessary programs, Which nearly fezzes my PC. I'm running Unity 5 on Windows 10 If that is any help for devs or other people that want to try this fix.

 

I don't think this has anything to do with your Global Illumination cache, plus the fact this happened pre Unity 5. It just randomly causes the problem when it feels like it and what you saw is just a coincidence (most likely)

 

His fix also worked for me. I'm running unity 5.2.0f3 on windows 10.

 

It could have everything to do with your GI Cache, some scenes and assets you import may need more space in the GI Cache, depending on what you are importing, assets may have attributes on them that have lighting and other effects that is stored in the GI Cache even if you dont compile your project or not. I have also had this problem before but just recently appeared again. I believe there may be two issues with importing stuff in Unity and I just wanted to address my fix so it could help others. Please don't shoot down a fix if it doesn't fix your issue. I'm still importing and making games faster than ever with my fix, so please try it if you are having issues if not please don't bash it. Thanks!

 

Don't take it personally, I just feel they are unrelated and a coincidence. I will now go on to explain why, which is what I should have done in the first place.

Why I don't think it has anything to do with GI Cache:
- This has happened before GI Cache even existed, which is not to say it couldn't be a cause of several, but...
- GI Cache is stored in a different location than your project (unless you changed the location to your project for some reason)
- I have never seen an asset package include GI Cache, due to the above, it's in a different location to your assets. It's a local cache, you can share it between computers if you (I assume) copy it between them, but not through asset packages (I could be proven wrong on this, but I have never seen it).
- GI Cache is modified when lighting is built (either automatically or manually)
- Due to the above, if importing a scene/package, it still won't be modified until AFTER importing and AFTER you've manually opened the scene and started building lighting automatically or manually. This error occurs at some point during importing, which does not modify the GI Cache.

I tested the last point out by clearing my cache, so it was empty. I then imported several assets from the store, such as the lighting examples for Unity 5, Viking Village and others, assets that are heavy in lighting and would in theory use the GI Cache. Viking Village is also a large package (nearing 1GB) and has caused the issue to me before so it's a good one to test.
The results from the above tests are, the GI Cache is the same, it was not touched. Importing and the GI Cache are not linked, and cannot in theory be the cause in my opinion with my results from above.

What COULD happen, is that lighting could be being built at the same time as the import that may cause the error. And is another area to be tested.

So if I think that it's not the cause, then what is... I don't know. So how have I fixed it when I came upon this problem, is:

- Restart the computer, which is a given because it becomes pretty much unusable. My hunch is that everyone including you has done this.
- Open up Unity upon boot and import the package again.

That's it, I never had the issue again upon restart. That was always my fix. But I cannot guarantee that's the case for everyone because:

- Is anyone opening other software before Unity and getting the problem again? Maybe some software somewhere is interfering?
- What anti-virus do people have? A possible interference? Although would not explain why my reboot just fixes it.

I'm curious what exact steps you took, did you restart your computer, open Unity and then clean your cache followed by import? Did you get it every time you tried to import? Did you try importing just after restarting and opening Unity? This is why I think it may have just been a coincidence, as a simple restart fixed it for me and may have for you regardless of clearing the GI Cache. So it's important to note down the steps taken, how often it happens etc.
If for you upon restart and trying to import again, kept causing the error and clearing the GI Cache stopped this, then was lighting being built at the same time as import? As stated above, import doesn't affect the GI Cache, but something that does could have been happening at the same time as import, causing the conditions for the import process to affect Windows the way it does. Which would actually be a good thing, because if we can indirectly force import to freak out, then Unity can have an easy way of reproducing the error.

I don't want to find a work around for this, I want to find the cause for it so it can be fixed entirely, and the steps to do that is finding the very precise conditions this happens under, as it appears to be mostly random.

What we do know is:
- It seems to randomly happen when importing very large assets, close to 1GB.
- Appears to only affect Windows OS's? (At least 64bit, what about 32 bit? Not seen anyone mention that.)
- This has been happening since at least 2013.

That's it... that's all we know. What could put a spanner in the works is that it happened to someone importing a 100MB asset package or something low, or that there could be multiple causes, hence my suggested test further up in my post.


Sorry for the long post, and I didn't mean it as an attack on your solution so don't take it personally, I just felt that it was a coincidence. As said, I want to find the cause for this so it can get fixed entirely, not a work around. This needs testing, but being such a seemingly rare occurrence, it's a pain and might not ever get fixed. I can't get this problem to happen again on purpose, but if someone can then great as will potentially help fix the problem.


Edit: In fact I've looked around and there's one thing some people have mentioned, and that it uses 7z for decompression, which actually might be the cause. I've looked at the one that comes with Unity and it's version 4.64... I have 9.20 installed (15.08 is in beta). The one that comes with Unity is 6 YEARS OLD, it was released 2nd January 2009.

 

bug not fixed yet

 

Indeed it's not. Having the same issue.. Unity 5.6.0f3 on Win 10 x64 here.. We need an attention.

 

I have had this problem as well. For me its associated with Unity Collab though, the service that gives you a online backup of your project and version control, or at least a form of version control. Collab causes Unity to freeze for me, for 10 min or more when it is logging on to Collab, which happens when I have just opened the project, and sometimes it might lose this connection when I am using Unity, maybe I had it running in the background for a while and such, and then when I get back, it logs on to Collab again, and his this 10+ minute freeze again.

But last month something new happened. The error reported here, it has happened 5 times or more now, it seems random, but it ALWAYS happens just as Collab finishes the 10 minute freeze... that is when it happens, it happens at that point every time.

My background apps are: Opera, Steam, uTorrent, Discord, GoG, Steam, Nvidia GeForce Experience, Logitech Gaming Software and this computer is using Windows Defender as its anti-virus. I

I am thinking we ought to cross reference our background apps to see if this might be part of the reason it happens. Another thing for us to compare I guess, could be the size of the project and how many / size of the assets in the project. Some of the assets I am using is Pro Core, UFPS, Inventory Pro and Quest System Pro. The biggest asset I am using is probably Big Environment Pack 2.

My computer that it has happened on is running Windows 10 64bit, it has 16gb DDR4 RAM, Intel 6700k CPU and a GTX 1080. I also notice that Unity often causes the hard disk it is installed on, which is also the hard disk I have the project on, to have its load go to 100%. I am wondering if it would help to have Unity and / or the project on my SSD, but have not tried that yet.

 

Oh, and when it happens for me, it does not actually open any new programs, but rather make ALL processes, background processes, services and more become shown as regular apps, and if they have any interface that can be opened which was hidden before, then that will happen as well. Its easily more than 100 apps I end up having open when it happens. I have noticed if I log off and on again, its enough to fix the problem, a full restart is not needed. It still closes all the programs and such though.

 

yep still happening for me and a few others on unity 5.6.1f1 after clicking the collab button.

 

I've had this happen quite a few times too, but for me it always happens when Visual Studio is attached to Unity in debug mode and I'm stepping through code related to the Unity windows.

 

This also happens to me on newest version of unity on windows 10. Every time I start unity it opens windows for everything. Very annoying it has never been fixed.

 

This happens to me when running builds. I use a custom build script though, not sure if that matters. I assume it is related to a problem importing a specific asset or type of asset. It seems to happen most often when I make iOS builds. It happened to me today using 5.5.4f1 on Windows 10.

 

I do not think I have experienced this yet with Unity 2017.1. Also Unity finally only seems to be processing Collab when I open the project, where before it often lost its connection to Collab or Unity services overall, and had to do the 10 minute rescan of the whole project to check for possible changes...

So the problem that is the topic for this thread, is hopefully not a problem for my current project anymore.

 

I have this issue when hitting play button on my projects.

 

Having this issue when i modify scripts and it compiles aftwards, or if im importing a package from asset store with scripts thats compiling.

Have this problem in unity 2018.2 and in 2018.2.1f1

Its so extremely annoying, can anything be done with this? Any info at all on what this can be??