Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Questions and answers about 3Dconnexion devices on macOS.

Moderator: Moderators

Japi
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 2:35 pm

Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by Japi »

Hey,

I'm currently testing how does the SpaceMouse Entreprise work under Catalina (Mac 10.15.) and in Blender, but I noticed that the number buttons don't work in Blender (for example if I assigned some macro or keystroke to the number buttons, it doesnt work under Blender). And I also noticed that if I assign a macro/keystroke to the "Esc"-button in the SpaceMouse, the macro/kestroke doesnt work. It seems that Blender still will treat the "Esc"-button on the SpaceMouse as an Esc-keystroke. I'm quite used to assigning Undo to "Esc"-button and Redo to "Enter"-button in many of my apps. I have tested both spacemouse 10.7.2 and 10.7.3 drivers (and no luck with either one).

In the previous version of Mac (10.14. Mojave), I have got the number buttons (and the "Esc"-button) to work with Blender, but with a help of a third party app called ControllerMate, but as this app hasn't been updated in years, so it only works in Mojave, but not anymore in new versions of Mac.
drewf
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2022 8:08 am

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by drewf »

Hi,

I've been using Blender 3.1 on MacOS 12.4 Monterey with my SpaceMouse Enterprise. I had no problems with the buttons performing keystrokes or macros for Blender... Until this week. Suddenly, only a few of my numbered buttons (1-12) would work. The buttons on the lower portion of the device all still work as I have mapped them. I'm trying to figure out what changed recently and if there is any pattern to the failures.

In trying to debug the issue, I've assigned all of the buttons to simply do keystroke 'a' for All Applications. All 12 buttons work fine in other apps, but in Blender, only buttons 11 and 12 work. I can reassigned the Top, Right, and Front buttons all to do the right thing in blender. The only failure is buttons 1-10...

When I get home, I'll try this again on my windows machine and see if I get different results. This is very odd because it was working fine earlier this week and I haven't explicitly updated anything.

Drew
drewf
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2022 8:08 am

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by drewf »

So I found out what changed... I installed the latest MacOS driver from 3DConnection, version 10.7.3 r3469 this past Tuesday. The "update" was released June 20th, 2022.

I tried downloading 10.6.7 and 10.6.4 from the driver archive page (https://3dconnexion.com/us/archived-dri ... acos-10-15) but I was unable to install either one - 10.6.7 failed to install because of something wrong with the install path (and the choice to change the path was not available); 10.6.4 failed because of faulty security privs.

Thankfully, I have plenty of disk space and I haven't emptied my trash on this computer ever, and sitting in there was the installer for v 10.7.0 r3386. I was able to install the old driver and now everything works again.
timjk
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:45 am

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by timjk »

@drewf could you be the hero we need and upload your archived version of 10.7.0 r3386? I would be eternally grateful and fill up all my flash drives with backups of this file.

Unfortunately this problem exists since 10.7.2 which has killed all devices buttons for blender. They promised a fix for 10.7.3 but clearly that was bs once again. It's a real shame how 3DConnexion treats their customers who bought their "pro" hardware but not caring enough to make their drivers work. I've been using 3DConnexion devices for about 14 years now and I don't want to go all pepperidge farm here, but I do remember a time when their drivers were working fine. It's been way too many years since that was the case.

But all of the above wouldn't be such a huge deal if we could just go to their drivers archive and download the last stable version, right? And again 3DConnexion manages to disappoint by not having updated the archive since version 10.6.7 (at least for macOS that is, since there are 2 archived drivers for macOS and 20 for windows).
drewf
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2022 8:08 am

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by drewf »

@Japi, I got your message, but I created this account to reply to your post and as a new user, I don't have privs to reply or contact you directly.

I contacted 3DConnection customer service and I've given the details to a tech who is going to look into it. Hopefully there will be an update soon.
Japi
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 2:35 pm

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by Japi »

drewf wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 8:04 am @Japi, I got your message, but I created this account to reply to your post and as a new user, I don't have privs to reply or contact you directly.

I contacted 3DConnection customer service and I've given the details to a tech who is going to look into it. Hopefully there will be an update soon.
@drewf, no worries! I also sent a message to one of the moderators in here, if they could share the old drivers (and I even sent a link to this thread). Thanks for letting me know that with the older driver the SpaceMouse Enterprise should work in Blender! Hopefully the moderator will share the link or then they will add the old driver to the driver archive also.

@timjk, I will also let you know, if the moderator will respond to my message (and if they share the link to the old driver). But hopefully they would just add the old drivers to the driver archive.
Japi
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 2:35 pm

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by Japi »

Now got the old drivers from @drewf. Thanks!

I can now also confirm that with the 10.7.0 drivers all the number buttons work in Blender (I can assign macros/keystrokes to them and they work in Blender). And I can also assign a macro/keystroke to the "Esc"-button on the SpaceMouse Enterprise and it works in Blender.

In both 10.7.2 and 10.7.3 drivers, these don't work. I don't know how is it in 10.7.1 drivers as I don't have those. But I could test the 10.7.1 drivers also, if somebody has them. At least for now something has changed in drivers 10.7.2 and 10.7.3, that the SpaceMouse doesn't work correctly with Blender, so hopefully 3DConnexion can figure out what has changed and rollback the changes for future driver releases.
ngomes
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 3318
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:22 am
Contact:

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by ngomes »

We're currently investigating this issue and I will follow up here once we know more.
timjk wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 12:00 pm They promised a fix for 10.7.3
Who is "they"? If you are referring to my colleagues in the Technical Support team, you should have received a case number. Please share the case number with us here so that we can look up the status of your request.

Also, requests for old software releases can be addressed to Technical Support (contacts here).
Nuno Gomes
Japi
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 2:35 pm

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by Japi »

ngomes wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:51 am Also, requests for old software releases can be addressed to Technical Support (contacts here).
Well I think it would be better to put the old versions directly to the driver archive to be available for everybody. As I also mentioned in my pm message to you (but seems like you didnt respond to that?) Not so that customers need to specially request from the technical support team for an older version of the drivers.
ngomes
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 3318
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:22 am
Contact:

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by ngomes »

Japi wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:12 am Well I think it would be better to put the old versions directly to the driver archive to be available for everybody.
I agree. That's why I suggested contacting Technical Support as they can decide which versions should be in the "archive".
ngomes
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 3318
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:22 am
Contact:

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by ngomes »

Japi wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:12 am in my pm message to you (but seems like you didnt respond to that?)
I use private messages to share information that cannot be made public, like personal details (e-mail, postal addresses and such like).

Information that is of benefit to others should be public. In other words, I responded to your private message in my first post above.
timjk
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:45 am

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by timjk »

ngomes wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:51 am We're currently investigating this issue and I will follow up here once we know more.
timjk wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 12:00 pm They promised a fix for 10.7.3
Who is "they"? If you are referring to my colleagues in the Technical Support team, you should have received a case number. Please share the case number with us here so that we can look up the status of your request.

Also, requests for old software releases can be addressed to Technical Support (contacts here).
Turns out "they" ist you:
ngomes wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 4:55 am
dzyner wrote: Sat May 28, 2022 8:54 am Has anyone experienced this, and if so, any work-arounds?
We're tracking this as bug MAC-339 and we're aiming to include a fix in the next driver update (likely v. 10.7.3).

One workaround is to quit Fusion and terminate the "3DconnexionHelper" process using Activity Monitor. Then, restart 3DconnexionHelper (open the "3Dconnexion" pane in System Preferences, say) and then launch Fusion 360.
Granted, it's the same problem but with a different DCC. So it's not entirely the same thing and fair to say that this is not the ticket we're looking for.
Still it's unclear what else the customers need to do to get a working driver for their very expensive desk decorations. From your posts I summarise:
Customers should...
- Keep track of the support tickets for the support
- Keep track of what versions are working
- Report those and request these older versions to be available via the official support channels (where they should be available in the first place or why even bother having a download archive?)
- hope that the requested version will be deemed worthy to be made available to the public

It does sound a bit ridiculous but sadly it is kinda what's happening here...

I feel like all of this could be easily avoided by either
- having a proper QA phase for the drivers before releasing them
- reading the official support forum posts
- working on known issues and open tickets (since this has been around since at least 10.7.1, confirmed by the customers who did the testing instead of the people responsible, who communicated their findings to other customers instead of the people responsible for customer relationship

I know I'm in a bit of a rant but honestly it is upsetting me and I feel it's reasonable to be upset about this situation and how it's being handled.
We're being delivered drivers that break functions that were working fine beforehand. We're reporting it through the proper channels and are being told to use the other proper channels and make more specific requests.
We're currently investigating this issue and I will follow up here once we know more.
What else do you need to know? The drivers have been broken since 10.7.1., they are fine with 10.7.0 and we would like to have that version available in the download archive. I mean, a working and up-to-date driver, let's say 10.7.4, would be the dream, but I wanna stay realistic here.
ngomes
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 3318
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:22 am
Contact:

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by ngomes »

timjk wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:19 pm Turns out "they" ist you:
You are conflating two unrelated problems.

MAC-339 was an issue affecting several applications when started for a second time (first connection worked fine) and has nothing to do with the Blender problem at hand here. The issue here is specific to Blender, nothing else.
What else do you need to know?
We need to know where the problem is. If in Blender or the driver. Once we have that information, we will know how to resolve it.
timjk
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:45 am

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by timjk »

ngomes wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:35 am
timjk wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:19 pm Turns out "they" ist you:
You are conflating two unrelated problems.

MAC-339 was an issue affecting several applications when started for a second time (first connection worked fine) and has nothing to do with the Blender problem at hand here. The issue here is specific to Blender, nothing else.
What else do you need to know?
We need to know where the problem is. If in Blender or the driver. Once we have that information, we will know how to resolve it.
Then please read the thread again.
- It's working with driver version 10.7.0
- It's not working with the versions that followed 10.7.0
Therefore the problem is the driver, not Blender.

You also already know how to resolve it: Provide version 10.7.0 in the download archive at least until this is fixed with an updated driver version.

Please.
ngomes
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 3318
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:22 am
Contact:

Re: Anyone using Blender with SpaceMouse Enterprise?

Post by ngomes »

timjk wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 4:32 am Provide version 10.7.0 in the download archive
Just had a look and version 10.7.0 is available in the archive download page. It seems to have been moved there in the last couple of days.
Post Reply