Material Previews are not Generated

Quote from Rob Holmes (RobH2 @ Autodesk Forums) on 2025-December-19, 00:45

Feels strange to hear echoes in a forum that has no active posts...  Well, here's to populating the Forum.

I'm a new user. I've installed the necessary components and everything seems to be working well except that I cannot generate a preview of a material that I place in the 'Materials' tab.

I've viewed the help video and followed it explicitly.

1. I created a 'New Folder' and immediately renamed it
2. I check the corner of the new Material that I grabbed from the object, choose 'RWS', verify the other options and hit 'Render Preview.' The screen flashes, I see a wire frame sphere that disappears in less than a second and I'm looking and an empty and blank scene. No task is running.
3. So, I've placed the material on a LAB scene test sphere and rendered it. I saved it and imported it, that worked fine.

   But, I'd like to just be able to automate it like I'm supposed to be able to do. What am I setting wrong or missing?
   I'm using Max 2026, the latest version of XSMP and V-Ray 7, update 2 hotfix 3.  Maybe the issue is the 'hotfix 3' that was released recently?