Topic: Civil 3D 2012 | Service Pack 2.1

[BlackBox]

Has anyone installed Civil 3D 2012 Service Pack 2.1?

We were about to, until we came across this concerning thread.

Is anyone else experiencing this undesired behavior, or better yet, know of a solution?

TIA

[Jeff_M]

C3D2012 SP2 & SP2.1 had/have issues. I had to uninstall C3D2012 and reinstall with SP1 to be able to get work done. My issue with 2.1 was not the crashing others reported, but my Dref'ed surfaces refused to synchronize at drawing startup. So all of my Surface labels showed as ? ? ?'s until I performed a manual synchronization.....every time a drawing was opened. And, a manual sync, when done while in Paperspace, takes you to Modelspace and leaves you there. Not very conducive to Publishing a 40 sheet set of drawings, or even just working in them.

[BlackBox]

Thanks for the prompt response, Jeff... And the clarification.

One would think that the issue you describe must be the reason for the Data Shortcuts Hotfix... But it does not appear to be the case:

<snip>

This hotfix resolves an issue were a user is asked to save a drawing before creating a Data Shortcut, then saves the drawing, retries to create the Data Shortcut but is again prompted to save the drawing.

<snip>

[Jeff_M]

No, that hotfix just allowed you to create a new Shortcut in a drawing in which you used fields in Mtext for Assembly labels. Something changed in base Autocad's handling of fields which conflicted with how C3D verified if the drawing was saved. (This happened when the Autocad service pack was included with C3D's)

[BlackBox]

Makes me wonder why my state's DOT was highly recommending it (SP2.1) as a 'critical service pack we have worked with Autodesk to provide' ... Granted, they're long time Microstation users, but surely they must notice this, or similar, undesired behavior. I cannot believe they recommended this. 

[Jeff_M]

Maybe they don't label Dref'ed objects? SP2.1 does fix a number of things (biggest one for some people is the Drive command which SP1 broke, but I don't use this much so doesn't bother me)

[BlackBox]

Their main fix with SP2.1 was either having an incorrectly configured ..\AeccPartParamCfg.xml file, or that the drawing template specified for QNEW in their plug-in's Profile had added a Custom property to a parts list. More on this topic.

[BlackBox]

We at Foo DOT are responsible for SP2.1. We worked with Autodesk to provide that for our pilot project and have no issues on all the machines we have installed.
The service pack does port back to 2012 features in 2013 that we need. It also resolved many known drainage issues successfully. There were only about 10 items added to this service pack as compared to 2.0. It does intall on top of 2.0, perhaps someone installed it incorrectly. We have seen absolutely no fatal errors. If anything this is far more stable for us.

... This is systemic of how this client sees their product as a total station, and not as the 3rd-party plug-in that it really is (to any design firm). This product will continue to fail, until they realize that their product (this plug-in) must perform without interfering with others' production deployments.

So much so, that now (allegedly), Autodesk has pushed out a service pack that this client claims to be responsible for... I'd love to see an Autodesk response to this claim. 

There's a world of difference in their legacy of Microstation mediocrity, and what they're setting out to accomplish (with taxpayer dollars) in their Civil 3D plug-in... They live in a very, tiny bubble, and don't even know it.  :ugly: