Troubleshooting

Find a fix for common painting, baking and export issues. Most start with the active texture set, its map status or a preview that needs refreshing.

Working across UV tiles

Choose Create UDIM Sets for a model unwrapped across several tiles. The UDIM guide covers setup, painting across tiles, baking and numbered exports.

Troubleshooting

A smart material or smart mask refuses to apply

It needs mesh maps that are not baked yet. The message names them; bake them in Bake Mesh Maps and apply again. Missing or outdated edge maps can queue an edge rebake; other missing requirements need an explicit bake. See the required maps per material.

Edge wear reads as stale, or does not follow a new bevel

The edge maps were baked before the mesh or the bake settings changed. Click Rebake Edge Map in the Edge Wear properties, or switch the mask's Edges From to Live Geometry so the wear follows mesh edits without a bake. Increasing a generator's amount never changes which edges qualify — Minimum Edge Angle and Edge Width (px) do, and they are bake settings.

Textures changed on disk but the viewport did not

Click Refresh to load your updated textures. Refresh also updates triplanar placement after moving geometry.

Painting stops when I click another layer

Selecting a fill, folder or non-painted mask ends the paint session by design; Finish does the same. Select a paint layer or painted mask and click Paint again.

Validate Project reports broken assignments

Material slots were inserted or reordered after the set was assigned, or a mesh datablock is shared. Make the mesh single-user if needed, then reassign the affected slots from Texture Set Settings, which also exposes renaming, assignment repair, validation and resolution.

Applying the Height map through a bump node doubles the relief

The exported Normal already includes Height. Use Height for displacement only, or drop it when you use the combined normal. See Export.

Codex will not connect

Enable Blender's Allow Online Access and use Assistant › Sign in with ChatGPT. First use downloads a verified private runtime; inspect setup progress and any download error. Reconnect after changing account storage or the Advanced runtime override. See Assistant setup.

The Assistant asks for mesh maps

Create, Refine and Plan require current AO, Curvature, Normal, World Normal, Position and Thickness for every set in scope, plus view and map sharing. Bake missing or stale maps, then retry. Explain can discuss the material without that preflight.

A heavy layer looks out of date

Check cache mode and preview status. Frozen caches need Refresh Cache; Cached layers update after edits settle. Bypassed layers return with Restore Selected. Preview controls do not remove layers from the exported result.

Export reports existing files or a recovery error

Review Output Preview and publication rules. Choose another destination or explicitly enable Replace Existing Files. If recovery cannot read its journal, preserve it and the existing outputs for diagnosis rather than deleting files to force a retry.

Reclaiming memory after removing texture sets

Removing a set restores its slots but keeps images, materials and meshes. Use Blender's orphan cleanup when you want to reclaim unused managed datablocks.

Reporting a problem

Open an issue on GitHub with your Blender version, platform, the Open Painter version from the extension list, and a minimal .blend when you can share one. For a slow preview, attach the report from Performance › Copy Engine Report. For Connect, Materials+ or billing questions, write to our contact form.