Files and folders that are used or modified by Viz Arc are listed below.

Depending on the logged user, related files and folders can be found under %localappdata%\vizrt\VizArc. When the user has administrative privileges, the location is c:\ProgramData\vizrt\VizArc\.

The resolved locations are shown in the System section of the General Settings. Based on the logged user launching Viz Arc, the Reveal buttons open the respective folder directly in Windows Explorer.

The first time a non-administrative user launches Viz Arc, the config and profile settings are copied from c:\ProgramData\vizrt\VizArc\, to the local application data folder. This way, an administrator can create a global default configuration for all users logging onto the system.

• config: Contains the config.json file with all default and custom Viz Arc configurations.

• keybinds: Contains the keybinds.json file used to determine system keyboard shortcuts.

• Logs: Contains a text log file containing every log name, date, log level and message since the first launch of the application. The log level written to disk is selectable in the System settings. Always logs per user on the local machine.

• profiles: Contains the profiles.json file where configured profiles and corresponding Channels and Engines are stored.

• projects: Contains a sub-folder and .json file for each saved Viz Arc project. The projects location can be changed in the System section.

• Resources: Contains useful resources (for example, plug-ins for external devices, Unreal plug-ins and Viz archives).

• temp: Contains temporary files and the crash-recovery snapshots. See Crash Handling and Project Recovery below.

Crash Handling and Project Recovery

In the rare event of an unrecoverable error, Viz Arc protects the operator’s work. It writes a crash log, saves a snapshot of the open project, and offers to restore that snapshot on the next start. The original project, whether stored locally or on Graphic Hub, is never touched by a crash save.

What Happens During a Crash

• A crash log (crash_YYYY_MM_DD_HH_MM_SS.txt) is written next to the regular log files, containing the error and stack trace. The regular log receives the same information.

• The currently open project is saved as a crash snapshot (crash-D-M-YYYY.json) into a dedicated crash folder, kept separate per project so snapshots of different projects can never mix, even when a local and a Graphic Hub project share the same name.

• The crash save runs in the background with a fixed time limit and shows no dialogs, so a failing save can neither hang the shutdown nor get stuck behind a message box. It is a local snapshot only: a Graphic Hub project is not written back to the hub with mid-crash state.

Recovery on the Next Start

When Viz Arc finds a crash snapshot at startup, it asks: “It seems that there was an issue with Viz Arc but we managed to recover your project state. Would you like to recover it?”

• Yes: The snapshot is loaded instead of the last saved project state. The project keeps its original identity, so a normal Save afterwards writes back to the original location (including Graphic Hub).

• No: The last regularly saved state is loaded.

In both cases the handled snapshot is not deleted but archived into a recovered subfolder of the project’s crash folder (the newest 10 are kept per project), so it remains available for inspection or manual recovery. Snapshots are archived the same way when they become obsolete, after a regular save or a clean application exit.

If Viz Arc Appears Frozen

End the process via the Windows Task Manager. On the next start the crash-recovery prompt restores the last snapshot if one was written. For a support case, collect the newest files from the Logs folder, the regular log of the day plus any crash_*.txt, before restarting.

Starting while Viz Arc is Already Running

Viz Arc runs as a single instance per machine. If Viz Arc is already open when it is started again, the existing window is simply brought to the foreground. A background process left over from an earlier session is ended automatically before the new instance starts. In everyday use neither case requires any action.

There is one situation Viz Arc cannot resolve on its own: switching Windows users without logging out. When a user leaves Viz Arc open in their (still logged-in) Windows session, the process belongs to that user and Windows does not allow another user’s session to close it. Viz Arc then asks how to proceed:

• Exit (recommended): First release the other instance: sign the other Windows user out, or end their VizArc.exe in the Task Manager (Users tab, ending another user’s process requires administrator rights). Then start Viz Arc again.

• Continue: Viz Arc starts and works normally, except for features whose network ports are still held by the other instance. For example, the Arc control TCP server may not be available in this session.

If Viz Arc Does Not Start

• Check the newest log file (log_YYYY_MM_DD.txt) and any crash_*.txt in the Logs folder. Startup problems are logged there, including errors that occur before the main window appears.

• A corrupt settings file does not block startup: Viz Arc falls back to default settings and logs the problem. However, a syntactically valid configuration containing a bad value (for example, one written by a script) is loaded as-is. To reset the settings, close Viz Arc and rename or remove Config.json from the config folder. It is recreated with defaults on the next start.

• When a shared data folder is configured (registry value CommonDataFolder under HKLM\SOFTWARE\vizrt\Viz Arc, for example on a network share) and that folder is unreachable, Viz Arc starts with the local per-user data folder instead and shows a warning. Settings may then appear reset until the shared folder is reachable again.

File Locations

Unless a shared data folder is configured, all of these live under the per-user data root %LocalAppData%\Vizrt\VizArc\:

Logs, crash files and other per-user data always stay in the local per-user root, even when the shared data folder is used for the configuration.