Unity fails to start after hardware upgrade.

Hi, I've been searching the net for a few days now trying to solve my issue. I was using Unity all fine and happy, until I did a major hardware upgrade and now it does not start at all. I tried complete uninstall of both hub and all installed versions of unity and used CCcleaner to clear orphaned registry entries. And also deleted all the folders that I found in the user/appdata folders. I then did a clean install.

I'm using Windows 10 64 bit version with just basic windows defender, no other AV. I don't have any lavasoft or easytech software installed. I do have visual studio 2019, latest version.

Now when I try to open a project from the hub nothing happens, and if I try to open unity directly I get the error message:


The application was unable to start correctly (0x0000142) Click OK to close the application.



Event viewer shows the following 2 messages:



Faulting application name: Unity.exe, version: 2020.2.0.48874, time stamp: 0x5e9f54c0
Faulting module name: embree.dll, version: 2.14.0.0, time stamp: 0x58c745ab
Exception code: 0xc000001d
Fault offset: 0x0000000000ebab80
Faulting process ID: 0x4614
Faulting application start time: 0x01d6238ac9619135
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2020.2.0a9\Editor\Unity.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\Unity\Hub\Editor\2020.2.0a9\Editor\embree.dll
Report ID: cebc062b-eb23-48cb-b299-1adc786de1d8
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:




Windows cannot access the file for one of the following reasons: there is a problem with the network connection, the disk that the file is stored on, or the storage drivers installed on this computer; or the disk is missing. Windows closed the program Unity Editor because of this error.

Program: Unity Editor
File:

The error value is listed in the Additional Data section.
User Action
1. Open the file again. This situation might be a temporary problem that corrects itself when the program runs again.
2. If the file still cannot be accessed and
- It is on the network, your network administrator should verify that there is not a problem with the network and that the server can be contacted.
- It is on a removable disk, for example, a floppy disk or CD-ROM, verify that the disk is fully inserted into the computer.
3. Check and repair the file system by running CHKDSK. To run CHKDSK, click Start, click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the command prompt, type CHKDSK /F, and then press ENTER.
4. If the problem persists, restore the file from a backup copy.
5. Determine whether other files on the same disk can be opened. If not, the disk might be damaged. If it is a hard disk, contact your administrator or computer hardware vendor for further assistance.

Additional Data
Error value: 00000000
Disk type: 0



No other logs are created in the unity folders for this error.


I've tried running older LTS versions, the current 2019.3.12f1 version and both beta and alpha versions of 2020.2.x with the same error messages being generated.

I've tried running the .exe with the switches -force-opengl and -force-d3d9
I've tried running it as administrator
I've tried running with internet access disabled.
I've tried running holding down alt.
I've updating the security settings on the folders.
I've tried installing to a different drive.
I looked at getting the latest version of embree.dll directly


I upgraded from a 3rd gen i5 to a Ryzen 5 3600 chip, and also upgraded the graphics card to a Geforce 1650 Super, so I think that maybe one of these components are causing the illegal instruction error (0xc000001d) in embree.dll, (which is responsible for ray tracing I believe?) . Any suggestions as to what I can try next would be gratefully received.

 

Hi Diego.

1. Unity is installed in the same drive as windows in the default location c:/program files/unity

2. I've updated all drivers from the manufacturer's websites. I'm using the latest Nvidia studio driver v 442.92 for the graphics card. (I tried with the game driver but that made no difference). Also checked windows updates are up to date, there was just a service update for SQL server 2019 pending.

3. I did notice that there was an unknown device in the device manager so reran the motherboard drivers update and this changed the unknown device to Realtek audio drivers. Audio was working fine before though.

Having fixed the unknown device, I rebooted and tried again, with the same error showing up in event viewer.

Unity itself is not creating any error logs that I can find, so maybe its some kind of permission issue?

thanks.

 

Another interesting thing is that when you try to create a new project, it shows up in the list of projects in the hub, but no files or folders are created in the selected project folder. I am using a folder in the c drive with full write permissions to everyone for the project folder.

 

OK I've made some progress. I added exclusions in Windows Security for the unity folders and the games folders, then went through a windows update, then rebooted. After this, I can create new projects using the 2020 alpha version of Unity and the editor opens fine, but the 2019 version still crashes, both via the hub, and when run directly without the hub. When I try with the current 2019 version, a blank message box, and no events in the event viewer or log files.

 

And now, after installing version 2019.3.13f1 its all working fine. It looks like it was windows security that was messing with the editor files, so after adding the exclusion to the editor folder and installing newer version its fine.

Not sure exactly why it was working fine before, then changing the hardware caused the problem, but my best guess is that maybe the AV quarantined or deleted one or more files which were not being used with the old hardware config, and when i swapped the gfx card over, the editor tried to use the newer features of the card, but then fails due to the required file being unavailable (hence the second entry in event viewer). So reinstalling everything didn't help because the AV just removed the same file again after installation. The only solution is to add exclusions to the editor folders, then remove and reinstall the editor, or just install a different version of the editor.

Hope this helps anyone else who have similar problems.

thanks.