Cura doesn't show STL models

[DancingSquirrel 0]

Hi everybody,

I am having problems with opening StL Files in Cura. The files just do not show up on the build plate. I tried files with different sizes and i also reinstalled cura again, but it just won't open the files. Sometimes the files appear after 20 minutes of waiting with an error message (see file attached). Can someone please help me out?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Carol

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

My guess would be that the STL files are invalid - could you attach them to a reply so we can have a look at them?

 

Although looking at your file name (First_Layer_Oval_0.2.stl) - is your object 3D? Cura can't handle STL files which define two dimensional shapes, and if it's incredibly thin (like, say, 0.2mm) it may be considering it close enough to flat, which would make it a non-manifold object which Cura will also object to.

[DancingSquirrel 0]

Thanks a lot for your reply. I don't think that the files are invalid or too thin. I have the problem with all files. Even with the ones I downloaded. After waiting around 30 minutes the files just appeared and after that I could load every file. But after closing and opening Cura again, I had to wait for another 30 minutes for the first file to load. 

It feels like Cura first needs to figure out where the files are stored and then there is no problem to load them.

I hope this is not too confusing.

 

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

3 hours ago, DancingSquirrel said:

I hope this is not too confusing.

Confusing is what computers are here for. Now that most people don't have (2D) printers, something else has to pick up the slack of not working for no reason. What OS (including version) and Cura version you running?

[DancingSquirrel 0]

hi,

sorry for the late reply!

i am running the Latest Cura 5.4.0 and OS Big Sure(also the latest).

Thanks 

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

2 hours ago, DancingSquirrel said:

hi,

sorry for the late reply!

i am running the Latest Cura 5.4.0 and OS Big Sure(also the latest).

Thanks 

Don't worry about being late... I don't, and most of the time it works out fine.

 

Big Sur is nearly three years old now (since then there's been Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma just came out yesterday)  - is it just that's the newest version of macOS that your computer can run? I know Apple keeps updating their products for a while, but if Big Sur is the latest you can run you might be on some old hardware (Big Sur is the latest version which can run on 2013-2014 Macs, but it still gets security updates) which could have some performance issues, especially if your models are complex (although it doesn't look like they are).

 

Or I could just be barking up the wrong tree here, I'm not an Apple user (just a tech nut who keeps up with these things in case I need to help out a friend, relative, friend's relative, relative's friend or friend's friend's relative with their computer - I got volunteered around a lot). I don't know what the minimum version of macOS is for Cura officially, but I'm guessing that if it wasn't supposed to run on Big Sur, it wouldn't run on it.

 

Would you mind uploading the STL models so I (or someone else who beats me to it because I should have gone to bed nearly an hour ago) can see if it seems like there's anything in them Cura wouldn't handle that well?

[DancingSquirrel 0]

I do have a pretty old MacBook air from the year 2014. I will try to download Sonoma.

Quote

just a tech nut who keeps up with these things in case I need to help out a friend, relative, friend's relative, relative's friend or friend's friend's relative with their computer - I got volunteered around a lot

sound like a lot of fun :D

it does not really matter which file I try to open with cura I always get the same problem. i  Uploaded two files. With the "TV-Teil" stl. File i also get a huge layer shift when I try to print it. Maybe there is something wrong with the files... 

 

test.stl TV-Teil.stl

[DancingSquirrel 0]

Quote

Big Sur is the latest version which can run on 2013-2014 Macs

you were right! cant download sonoma

 

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

Not a Mac user, so honestly not sure, but it's possible newer versions of Cura don't run well on older versions of macOS. You could try an older version, but it might not have a profile for your printer and I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference anyway (4.13.1 is the last release of version 4, if you wanted to go even older there's 3.6.0 which was released in 2018).

 

There's also that, to put it bluntly, a 2014-era Macbook Air just doesn't have much grunt these days. For all I know there could be a bug causing this, or newer versions of Cura don't work well on older Macs. But it could just be a lack of horsepower.

[Dustin 175]

UltiMaker has documentation about this.

Make sure both your hardware AND operating system meets minimum requirements.
Hardware Requirements: https://support.ultimaker.com/s/article/1667410778209
Operating System: https://support.ultimaker.com/s/article/1667337917781

The Operating System article also has notes at the bottom for a few recommendations of max version for older MacOS

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

11 hours ago, Dustin said:

The Operating System article also has notes at the bottom for a few recommendations of max version for older MacOS

 

Thanks for pointing that out (pretty much everything I have is running Windows 10 or a rolling release Linux distro so it's not something I look at).

 

For Big Sur, you'll need Cura 4.8.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Slashee_the_Cow

[DancingSquirrel 0]

Thanks a lot for your help!

I'm thinking about getting a new MAC. My Mac is nearly 10 Years old now, an eternity for a electronic device!

 

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

4 hours ago, DancingSquirrel said:

My Mac is nearly 10 Years old now, an eternity for a electronic device!

Yeah. Doesn't help that back in 2014, technology hadn't really caught up with ultraportable devices - processing power, decent battery life and compact size: pick two. Much as I hate to admit it (not an Apple fan myself, to put it mildly) these days even the Macbook Airs are pretty good thanks to the Apple-designed processors.

 

Me prattling on for too long about stuff that doesn't matter follows:

I have older stuff around, but other than a ~12 year old gaming laptop from back when "gaming laptop" meant it was two inches thick, needed exceedingly loud fans to keep things cool when doing anything more than word processing, was so power efficient that it needed a three cell battery which actually stuck out the bottom and elevated the keyboard, had more ports than a Mediterranean coastline, you could upgrade both RAM slots and BOTH HDD bays which would probably be the second most powerful thing I have so I keep it around as a backup in case my desktop suddenly decides to die for no good reason.

 

The older stuff I keep around is mostly for the lulz. Fun fact: you can actually run Windows 10 on an ancient netbook with an Atom N550 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB HDD (which is good, because you'll need plenty of space to swap since 2GB of RAM is nowhere near enough... and was barely enough when it launched with Windows 7) and its showpiece, a 10.1" 1366 x 768 resistive touchscreen whose resistive layer actually floated above the screen and gave everything a grainy appearance which could rotate 180° a hinge and fold flat back down on top of the keyboard, giving you a tablet with 1" bezels which is about as thick as the first four Android tablets I owned put together. Actually to say it runs Windows 10 is a bit of a stretch. It crawls Windows 10. It drags Windows 10 inch by inch across the floor constantly wheezing for breath.

[BlondieSL 0]

15Feb2024

I know that this is an old thread, but this problem is still here in 5.5.0.

 

What I've noticed is that the 1st time I try to load any STL file, it's taking 3.5 minutes or more.

Even a small, simple model, still takes that kind of time.

 

However, once loaded, I can remove it and drag and drop any other STIL file, big or small and it just pops up immediately!

 

It's clear to me that upon first launch, Cura is "doing things" or caught in some kind of loop, perhaps loading too many libraries or searching for something.

 

Once it's found, Cura loads any other projects just fine and fast.

 

To the programmers, I ask, have you looked at the initial load/run libraries or functions in Cura's code?

 

I know that version 5 and up are rebuilt (or that's my understanding) so the fact that this problem does NOT exist in versions 4.8, might be meaningless if the entire code has been changed.

 

PLEASE CURA, please find and fix what's going on.  If it turns out that Cura is trying to load specific libraries, depending on a person's personal settings and/or equipment, then perhaps after the initial run, have Cura save that environment and automatically load up what is needed on first run.  This could solve the problem.

 

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

6 hours ago, BlondieSL said:

To the programmers, I ask, have you looked at the initial load/run libraries or functions in Cura's code?

 

I know that version 5 and up are rebuilt (or that's my understanding) so the fact that this problem does NOT exist in versions 4.8, might be meaningless if the entire code has been changed.

 

PLEASE CURA, please find and fix what's going on.  If it turns out that Cura is trying to load specific libraries, depending on a person's personal settings and/or equipment, then perhaps after the initial run, have Cura save that environment and automatically load up what is needed on first run.  This could solve the problem.

If you want to contact the developers directly, they rarely lurk on the forums. You'd need to go to the Cura GitHub repo for that.

 

There's a plugin (you can find it in the Marketplace at the top right and doesn't require signing in or anything) called Startup Optimiser (thanks @ahoeben) which only loads definitions and such for printers which are currently in use, that can shave a bit of time off the startup time in Cura, but I don't know if it'll fix how long it takes to load a model initially.

 

There's probably an entry for it already in the issues section of the Cura GitHub but searching sucks, so might be a bit hard to find. If you can find one (or just create your own, but please try and look for an existing one first, duplicates are annoying) and contribute your system information, Cura version and configuration folder and a sample file or two it might help them figure something out.

[BlondieSL 0]

I do have the Startup Optimizer loaded.  Please note that this is only used for the initial loading of Cura itself.

 

It has zero effect on this bug where trying to load an .STL file, whether raw or as part of a project, takes MINUTES to appear!

 

The optimizer can't help with that and in fact, as I'm typing this, I confirmed this by disabling the 2 options, exiting Cura 5.5 and restarting.  Starting is never an issue.  It always loads quickly enough.

 

So for clarity, this issue, which many are reporting, affects loading .STL files that take minutes to load the first time.  No matter the size or complexity.

 

Once loaded, then we can close the STL or projects and load any other STL or project and they load instantly.

 

As a programmer, I can tell that there's "something" in the initial startup code that perhaps isn't loading other things that are required, OR, when trying to load an STL, the code that does that, on 1st init, is getting caught up into some loop or is "looking" for something.  Interestingly enough, there's no hard drive thrashing during this point.

 

Again, after several minutes and it loads, any other STL files load normally and fast.  No matter the size or complexity.

 

For that reason, when I'm going to be working with Cura a lot, I just leave it running and minimize it when not in use.  I even put this Lab computer to sleep and when awakened, Cura works fine, because whatever is going on, is already resolved in memory.

 

I mention things that was in hopes that IF a coder see this, it might trigger some ideas.

 

I know how that works.  LOL  Been there, done that.

 

🙂

 

Edited February 17 by BlondieSL
Needed to add something.

[jaysenodell 18]

3 hours ago, BlondieSL said:

As a programmer, I can tell that there's "something" in the initial startup code that perhaps isn't loading other things that are required, OR, when trying to load an STL, the code that does that, on 1st init, is getting caught up into some loop or is "looking" for something.  Interestingly enough, there's no hard drive thrashing during this point.

 

3 hours ago, BlondieSL said:

I mention things that was in hopes that IF a coder see this, it might trigger some ideas.

 

I know how that works.  LOL  Been there, done that.

 

🙂

Ok then, download the source code (it is OSS), complile with debug flag, and debug. Once isolated, refactor, submit the patch via git, and you will have improved the product for yourself and everyone. 

 

As you said, you are a coder so a coder has seen it. Be the coder you are hoping will show up. 

 

[Slashee_the_Cow 489]

13 hours ago, BlondieSL said:

As a programmer, I can tell that there's "something" in the initial startup code that perhaps isn't loading other things that are required, OR, when trying to load an STL, the code that does that, on 1st init, is getting caught up into some loop or is "looking" for something.  Interestingly enough, there's no hard drive thrashing during this point.

As a hobbyist programmer I know that it is nowhere near that simple. Maybe the graphics driver is freezing trying to render the mesh in a SimulationView. Maybe there's a fight between integrated and dedicated graphics as to which is used to render the mesh. Maybe the filesystem driver in Windows freezes upon reading a certain header type for some reason. Maybe Qt has a problem in some instances to relay the load command to Cura's interpreter. Maybe there's a memory leak in there somewhere. Maybe for some reason it has failed to find an EOF in the STL so it keeps asking Windows for more of the file, but there's none to give.

 

For all I know the problem could be with Cura's plugin system, nothing to do with startup. STLReader is (like most components of Cura) a plugin and for whatever reason Cura is having trouble starting an instance of that. Maybe it's just so far down in the queue to be started that all the heavy plugins get in there first.

 

Programming is never as simple as you think it is, even if you're a programmer. And then you have to avoid the old adage that fixing one bug introduces two more. The Cura developers know this is a problem and they are working on it. Some of the Cura developers are unpaid people volunteering their efforts to an open source project. Never assume that the programmers don't know what they're doing if they can't fix a bug.

 

As @jaysenodell said, if you can contribute, you should, for your sake and that of everyone else hit by this bug. If nothing else, you can share a copy of your system information and Cura configuration folder to add to the data they have about it to try and find a common link.

[BlondieSL 0]

I was going to go into a long thing to try to explain this to you, but I'm just not going to bother.

 

Somehow, you seem to think that I'm saying it is easy to troubleshoot, locate and fix. I did not say that.

 

I'm an excellent troubleshooter when it comes to buggy code!  I made an excellent living coding, including troubleshooting and bug squashing.  So yeah, I have a clue of what I speak.

 

Perhaps I wasn't clear on an important point and this point could help the coders if they see it.

However, I highly suspect that they are already aware of this.

 

That is, this minutes-delay in loading the first STL ONLY happens on initial load of Cura 5.5.

 

Once loaded, you can load STLs instantly... any size too!  I've tested it with tiny to huge.  No issues AFTER that 1st long delay.  Driver issues wouldn't normally cause a problem like this then just work fine after the 1st load.

Keep in mind too, as many others have reported, this is ONLY happening in Cura 5+ and not in say, 4.8.  I do understand, and I may be wrong, but I think that I read that 5.x is a complete new build, NOT based on 4x code.

 

Since Cura 5.5 loads STL instantly after the initial load and issue, what I do now, is I just leave Cura running.  I do not exit out.  I just minimize.

 

As I'm working on new things, I can just maximize Cura (not loading again) and the STL populates instantly!  EVERY TIME!

 

I even put my Lab Windows 10 PC to sleep when I'm done for the day, and next time I come back to it, I wake up Windows, it does its thing and I can maximize Cura again.  I will say too, Cura handles sleep/wake perfectly!  Some software does not!

 

So once maximized again, (not reloaded) STL files appear instantly.

For experienced coders, that info is significant.  I get that for inexperienced coders, it may be meaningless.  I get that!

 

So please do not make assumptions when it comes to my decades-long experience in coding!  I'd appreciate that a lot.

 

Not that it matters, but I started coding in the late 1970s in several languages.

 

As for jumping on board to assist, I would so love to.  I really do miss the team environment.

Sadly, I just do not have the time cycles to dedicate to the project.  I seriously wish that I did!!!

The fact that I just don't have time to dedicate to something like this, doesn't mean that I can't comment here and there!  That is, after all, what a forum is for!  🙂

 

At this point, this particular thread is closed for me, in that, there's no need for me to go on and on.  I know what I know.

 

Seriously, no point to it in this manner.

 

Thanks for the interest anyway.  I do appreciate it.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

[john1980 0]

Disable plugin "USB printing"