Crash while closing

Technical Problems SketchUp
21

I do have the original json backed up but I don’t know which part is causing the instability so not sure what parts I may want to inject back into the new file.

Currently, I still cannot open a file directly because it will insta crash. I have to open SKP then the file/model and it will load and now I’m afraid to close SKP because who knows if I will be able to open it again without redoing 20 steps. We will see how long this lasts. It makes me wonder if it’s an order of operations thing and not just the json.

Certainly this is not a new issue and it, currently, seems more unstable than prior.

22

I looked at four of yours @jlo1 and they’re all Ruby related.

2 Likes
23

Euh, Ruby related ? So in real world terms, what does that mean ? And what do we do meantime ?

Yesterday I found a “workaround”.

On one of the “offending” machines I deleted ALL the plugins & the .json file + the .dat file that tells SU where support files are & reinjected these elements from a machine where SU has been relatively stable..

It took me quite a while, but it “worked”…for the moment.

But what happens if you don’t have a “donor” setup that works ? & I could only spend the time because the “offending” machine wasn’t being used, and I had a little time to waste as it’s holiday season…

This kind of sh*t should simply not be happening in 2025 and furthermore, it should be easy to save preferences from one machine and move them to another in the form of a user profile…

The “migrate plugins” plugin goes some way to addressing that, but I had used that on the two “offending” machines in the office prior to encountering the .json file corruption issue.

Bref, as we say in French, this needs sorting YESTERDAY

24

Does Ruby related mean Plugin related?

25

Yes it does

26

So to my mind, blaming SketchUp for crashes caused by plugins is misplaced, since SketchUp doesn’t develop the plugins. If a clean install works properly, these crashes presumably stem from external sources.

27

Mostly true. Many crashes are from extensions that clash with each other in some way or trigger a bug in SketchUp. That’s not entirely SketchUp’s fault as Trimble didn’t write those extensions. But one could argue that such crashes expose bugs in the Ruby API, which is part of SketchUp.

28

Fair enough - but I would take the opposite view. Its for plugin developers to try to ensure their code is solid, but entirely at the users risk as to whether they install those plugins or not. Bad code can always cause havoc. SketchUp imho, are only responsible for SketchUp.

29

…that may be, though plugins not playing nice with each other is as old as SU & yet it’s only since 2025 that those issues have spilled over into messing up the .json file in some obscure way.

Plus, if there are so many plugin related problems, its that the Ruby API has evolved and some older plugins are/were not future-proof.

& if you’ve tried using AI to help write a plugin (where the AI goes and fetches the API) you’ll see that often it messes up as the published rules may not be “correct”.

This would appear to be a complex “spaghetti” to unravel, but us ordinary users need an easy way to get up and running with a stable build that remembers our prefs !

1 Like
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What do I or can I do with this information?

31

So, Barry’s inspection of bug reports indicates that there is a problem with one of more of your extensions. What happens is SketchUp rewrites the JSON files during it’s shutdown cycle.

Apparently (educated guess) the JSON rewrite is being interrupted or corrupted by some triggered bug involving the Ruby API, we presume by one of the extensions that you have installed.

In Extension Manager, switch OFF all extensions, except those that come along with SketchUp. (I.e, Dynamic Components, Add Location, and Sandbox Tools.)
Restart SketchUp.
In Extension Manager, change to see if any of them need updating (via the Manage tab.) Update them and restart if any do.
Otherwise, switch on a small group of extensions at a time for testing, to narrow down the culprit(s). Restart after switching them ON.
Test.

Repeat, by switching on another small set of extensions, and test again.

In this way, see if you can determine which extension may be interfering with normal SketchUp shutdown (which, as said, is perhaps interfering with normal rewriting of the JSON preferences files.)

(Musing) One of the recent changes in the past few cycles, was that multi-threaded SKP file saving was added. Just a hunch, that perhaps a extension saving either the model, a copy of it, or some other extension file could be triggering whilst SketchUp wants to rewrite the JSON files?

Actually I have been having repeated issues with the JSON file corruption in the past 3 versions since the SketchUp Windows edition began migrating to use the Qt GUI libraires. (Starting with version 23.)

I also have been having repeated problems with custom templates in these same versions causing crashes.

1 Like
32

Dan, I’ve observed that the rewrite of the .JSON file gets done also at start, not just quit…

As I say, my work around was to erase all plugins, .JSON and.dat files and reinject the lot from a computer where for some reason all was fine.

But either way it’s chronophage.

I hope someone finds the “culprit” especially for those who don’t have the luck/luxury of a config’ that works as a “donor”…

Toolbars setup
33

Yes I agree. The run counter is incremented, and the open time for model files and templates can be updated, as well as the recent file list. There are other settings (as well as these files times and paths) that can be rewritten during the session. (I.e., changing an application preference may also fire a rewrite.)

34

Were looking at ways to fix this. For now were keeping the all in one preferences file. I have the team looking at ways to improve it until we can split it up in a meaningful way so that its more stable as Dan points out. Likely wont change in the initial 26 release, but its something we are actively trying to fix.

1 Like
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