Black Screen Issue

Studio
#1

Hello everyone,

Is just me who is having a problem that we’re calling of “black screen” or anyone else has noticed that this problem is becaming common? Before this problem was rare but since the last updates this is happening too many times.

(The inssue consists in:

When you drop a pod archive into zappar, the same stops to work and the workspace became black making necessary restart the IDE and also deleting the archive.)

Don’t know ecxatly how to fix this problem or what ecxatly cause it but I want to know if is possible.

Att, Higor.

#2

Hi Higor,

Hope you’ve been well.

Could you send through the model which is causing the issue over to support@zappar.com please?

We’ll have a closer look at the model and reply to you through that channel.

Thanks,
Seb

#3

Hey higor, sebastian,

Did you figure out what was causing this? I’ve suddenly started experiencing this with a few pods and I don’t believe we’ve made any significant changes to our export / import pipeline.

In some cases it’s a certain keyframe of an animation that causes this. With one of our pods, scrubbing the timeline to the last keyframe caused the Studio viewport to go black and only a restart would bring it back. This happened consistently every time you’d bring the timeline to that keyframe. Now I’m also experiencing this immediately after importing another pod.

These files seem to work fine in PVRShaman and I haven’t seen this behavior in earlier Studio versions so I’m guessing changes to the Studio viewport could have something to do with this?

1 Like
#4

Did some more testing…

Curiously enough, the pod that caused black screen on import now keeps doing it when the timeline hits the last frame. Also happens if the keyframe is not at the end of the timeline. Changing the keyframe to point at the second to last animationFrame and restarting Studio stops this from happening. Adding a new keyframe anywhere on the timeline and setting that to change the animationFrame to the last frame in the pod will cause the black screen as well.

Looks like the issue has something to do with drawing the last animationFrame? At least in my case it seems so.

1 Like
#5

Hey Ero,

It definitely sounds like an odd issue you’re experiencing.

Unfortunately Higor wasn’t able to send over his pod file so I didn’t get a chance to look into it.

Would it be possible for you to send the pod file over to us at support@zappar.com please?

I haven’t experienced this error myself but I’d like to have a closer look at your file to see what might be causing it.

Thanks,
Seb

#6

Hey Slothling and Sebastian,

Thanks by your awnsers and theories about the black screen inssue. I already did lots of test in the 3D pods files and in zappar. What I could do, I did and I reach anywhere, don’t know why this happen so I just swapped my pod files to FBX. I use both. Export in FBX and POD if POD don’t work, FBX does.
If you have any other theorie about this problem, show, I’ll be watching this post. I won’t say what I’ve done because it’s total lost of time explain (well, didn’t work heh).

About Sebastian, I’ve to say sorry about this but I can’t send my PODs/FBX or projects because I didn’t have the authorization for this, so I just soluted as I told with FBX format. By the way usually the awnsers from this support email don’t help much as expected.

But thanks both of you guys by taking a look into this inssue. If I have something relavant to solute this problem, have the certain that I’ll keep this post updated.

Att, Higor.

#7

Hey Sebastian,

I made a new discovery today. This last keyframe of timeline causing black screen in Studio thing also causes a crash in the Zappar app, but only on iOS. Android seems to handle it fine. If I alter the last keyframe so that it does not run the pod animationFrame to the very last one everything is ok.

I’ve gotten permission from our client to send models from this project to you guys for support, so I’ll try to isolate one with the issue and send it your way soonish. Hopefully that can shed some light on the problem and help you guys figure it out :slight_smile:

#8

Hey Ero,

It sounds like quite a strange issue.

Sending over a model with the error present will definitely help us to pinpoint the cause, thank you so much!

If you send it to support@zappar.com I can contact you through that channel, to maintain the privacy of your client.

If there are any solutions to share I can post an update on this thread.

All the best,
Seb

#9

Continuing the discussion from Black Screen Issue:

I am experiencing the same black screen issue. It happened to me when I was working through the 3D football game tutorial. I got tot he Bezier curves section with the timeline and it went to a black screen. Is there a fix to this? Any tips on undoing what I may have done? I have the .zpp file saved so I could send that in as well. Thanks.

#10

Hey there,

Thanks for letting us know, this is an issue we’re currently looking into.

In most cases closing Studio and re-opening it resolves the black screen issue but if it continues, it would be worth performing a clean install of Studio.

Could you please let me know if the black screen error is still present after taking these steps?

Thanks,
Seb

#11

So after a fresh install the file that had the black screen issue is still experiencing it. I do not have this issue with any other projects. If it helps any it happened when I was working in the timeline and adjusting the bezier curves for the football tutorial. Thanks for the help.

Destery

#12

Hey Destery,

Thanks for going through those steps.

Does the black screen occur right after opening the project, or after a while?

Also, could you send through the project that’s causing the issue to support@zappar.com please?

Thanks,
Seb

#14

Hi Seb,

Every time I open the project it just starts at a black screen. I will send it over to support. Thanks.

Destery

#15

Hi, I’m having the same issue. I change my Videoplayer relative to and everything went black. The same issue on all my projects as well. Did I press something on accident?

#16

Hi @vu.v.lam,

Does the black screen stay even after restarting Studio?

Also, could you please send an email through to support@zappar.com with the the following:

  • Studio version (select About after clicking the lightning bolt symbol in Studio)
  • System information
  • Steps needed to reproduce error
  • Screenshots and error logs, if possible

Thanks,
Seb

#17

Hi Sebastian,

Restarting the software and reloading it still had the black screen issue. I was only able to fix this after reinstalling Zapworks.

Sorry I didn’t keep any record of the incident.

#18

No worries @vu.v.lam.

If it happens again you can send an email to support with the information from the previous post, for us to take a closer look.

All the best,
Seb

1 Like
#19

thanks, will do!

1 Like
#21

I’m assuming this hasn’t been resolved yet. I’m having exactly the same problem and it is making the project impossible to work on. Please can you let me/us know what is happening. Thanks.

2 Likes
#22

I have had it happen to me as well. Along with some other bugs I have found. I was going to write up a list later.

Steve

2 Likes