Assuming your issue is related to the OpenMaya API and isn&#39;t a general programming error...<br><br>Maya&#39;s really good at managing its object lifetimes...you just have to let it do its job. Some quick rules (a few of which I&#39;ve learned the hard way :D):
<br><ul><li>Don&#39;t store MObject instances across invocations of any of your plugin&#39;s methods - Maya can invalidate these from time to time and using an invalid MObject is pretty much the same as using a dangling pointer. Check the OpenMaya docs for more info on when Maya can decide to invalidate an MObject (I forget what all the cases are).
<br></li><li>When a creator function returns a pointer to an MPx* object to Maya, that object <span style="font-style: italic;">belongs</span> to Maya. Don&#39;t delete it.</li><li>Don&#39;t <span style="font-style: italic;">
ever </span>store an MPx* pointer you&#39;ve given to Maya. If one custom node needs to reference another, create an attribute (like the &quot;message&quot; attribute Maya uses for light linking) and link them that way:</li>
<ul><li>If Maya doesn&#39;t know that node A references node B it can delete node B at a whim (or allow the user or some custom script to delete it), leaving node A with a dangling pointer. If the connection were made via an attribute then node A would find the missing connection next time it tries to use B and could respond appropriately.
<br></li><li>Also, if node A decides to delete it&#39;s pointer to B, then Maya is left with a dangling pointer which will blow things up nicely next time Maya touches that part of the DG.</li></ul><li>Types like MPoint, MVector (etc) are close enough to being POD that you can do with these pretty much whatever you want. Just be consistent. Maya will never give you a pointer to one of its internal data arrays so you&#39;re pretty safe when it comes to messing anything up that way.
</li><li>M*Array is pretty much equivalent to std::vector. The same rules apply.</li><li>If you have a bunch of data that you want to pass from one object to another <span style="font-style: italic;">use a datablock</span>
  and let Maya pass the data around the DG. Nodes should <span style="font-style: italic;">never</span>  look directly at each other&#39;s data (except in special cases like light/object linking where a &quot;message&quot; type connection exists to ensure that object is in a valid state before it gets queried), let Maya pass that info around the DG for you.
<br></li></ul>My guess is that you&#39;re either trying to use an MObject after Maya has invalidated it (in which case you need to make sure you don&#39;t keep MObject instances around too long - get a new node reference from a representation that doesn&#39;t expire each time you need the object), or you&#39;re keeping a pointer to an MPx* type node and either you or Maya is deleting it prematurely (in which case you need to replace that pointer with a proper Maya attribute and connection).
<br><br>Not really boost/smart pointer issues, but you might want to check to see if you&#39;ve got a smart pointer to a smart pointer to something you shouldn&#39;t be managing (or something like that), or if a long-lived container has MObjects somewhere in its data elements.
<br><br>Phill<br>