How to Use Standalone NXT with Maya

[michaelharmonart]

Currently having a lot of problems with the Maya NXT Plugin (Likely the fault of Maya's funky python environment)
Things like constant erroring, certain parts of the NXT UI being broken (like the workflow tools)

I'd love to use a standalone NXT instance to run code in Maya just like the plugin but can't seem to figure it out. I think the solution might have something to do with contexts but unfortunately I can't really seem to find much documentation on that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ImLucasBrown]

Which version of Maya and the NXT editor are you using?

Unfortunately contexts are probably not what you're looking for; those are more for NXT to call subgraphs in external Python interpreters. Sort of like a farm worker. It could work for you if you're simply trying to run an atomic task (open > work > save > close), but not for interactive work.
Years ago I got most of the way through building a true RPC system, the code is in there to run it, but it's commented out of the menu so the button is disabled. It uses sockets to connect NXT standalone to the NXT plugin(s). There are some corner cases that don't work and it's slow because the comp is processed in both standalone NXT and the DCC. If you search the repo for RPC you should be able to enable it.

[michaelharmonart]

Maya 2025 and the most recent editor. I did see some things related to RPC so that's certainly something I'll look for a bit more

[ImLucasBrown]

Okay, probably related to PySide6. Can you give steps to repro the issue(s) and any errors it throws? When I have some time I'll take a look!

[michaelharmonart]

So I'm on RHEL 9, not too hard to get things to error:

Errors from opening a graph

ERROR: NXT encountered an Uncaught exception!
ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/main_window.py", line 761, in on_tab_change
self.history_view.set_stage_model(model)
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/dockwidgets/history_view.py", line 22, in set_stage_model
super(HistoryView, self).set_stage_model(model)
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/dockwidgets/dock_widget_base.py", line 67, in set_stage_model
self.set_stage_model_connections(self.stage_model, False)
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/dockwidgets/dock_widget_base.py", line 105, in set_stage_model_connections
model_signal.disconnect(my_func)
RuntimeError: Failed to disconnect signal destroyed().

Errors from parenting a node with ctl p

ERROR: NXT encountered an Uncaught exception!
ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/actions.py", line 384, in find_and_open
filepath = file_search.Searcher.get_open_file_path(parent, width,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/file_search.py", line 60, in get_open_file_path
inst = cls(*args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/file_search.py", line 51, in init
self.line_edit = SearchLineEdit(self)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/users/guest/g/graphite/maya-python/nxt_maya/scripts/nxt_editor/file_search.py", line 18, in init
completer.setCompletionMode(completer.UnfilteredPopupCompletion)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AttributeError: 'PySide6.QtWidgets.QCompleter' object has no attribute 'UnfilteredPopupCompletion'

NoneType: None

The workflow tools are just blank. No visible error messages

[michaelharmonart]

I also ran into some other errors that I can't remember exactly how to reproduce but they seemed to include pyside6 in the error message iirc

[ImLucasBrown]

The workflow tools not showing may be related to several things:

1. The _widget_window attribute is not set to True on your instance of the /window node
2. There may be an invalid comp cache, clicking the comp button on your layer in the layer manager will force a recomp and might fix it

I found some other bugs in there which I'm patching now, but I am able to see the UI populate.