Topic: 2008 odd behavior

[Biscuits]

Windows XP Pro with Acad2008

Here's an odd one for all of you.

Once or twice a week:
We have a one particular workstation (out of 11) that when a new drawing is created, it looks fine on screen.
It will print (leaving out an occasional layer here and there) and refuses to let you select any of the non printing items on screen.
Layers are all on and Ok for printing. Regen makes no difference.

The only thing that corrects this is to close the drawing and open it again. Then all is good.
So far we haven't found a common denominator.


Anyone seen anything like this? Any ideas?

[mjfarrell]

Other than verify the user starts with proper template and support files paths, nothing to suggest with seeing the file gone bad.Post a copy of one of the files gone bad, whilst it is still bad, and I'll happily take a look.

[Biscuits]

Thanks I'll do that. Could be a few days though.
I have had the operator email copies to me, but nothing wrong when I open them.

[Bob Wahr]

There's a known workaround for this issue.  Close autocad and reopen it.

I have fairly regular random screwiness in autocad sessions.  The more drawings that have been opened during the session, the greater the chance.  The most common problem I get is that the dialog boxes stop working.  Having objects that are on, thawed, unlocked, and completely unselectable isn't as common but it's not overly rare either.  FWIW, I've been seeing this behavior since 2006 although it is far more common with 2008.  I have never figured out a common denominator but like I said, there seems to be a greater chance when several files have been opened.

[sinc]

I haven't seen the problem with dialog boxes not closing, but I've noticed that crashes are more-frequent when I have a lot of drawings open.  In fact, opening four or five drawings and then shutting down C3D while all of them are still open will crash C3D on me with some regularity (but not always).  The first one or two drawings shut down normally, then BOOM!

[Josh Nieman]

I can vouch for what Bob says... I see pretty much identical behavior from my 2008, here.

[Bob Wahr]

I haven't seen the problem with dialog boxes not closing,

Not, not closing.  Not opening is the problem.  Anything with a dialog goes bye-bye.  The plus side is that I am getting a refresher in command line versions of commands.

[mjfarrell]

cmddia=1  filedia=1  CHECK?

[Bob Wahr]

yep, it's not a setting it's a bug.  When that happens, it's only one of many symptoms that are occurring.  For example, Balloon notifications for xref changes pop up entirely blank except for the drawing name.  Several other things.  Next time it happens, I'll try to remember to get you some screenshots.

[Bryco]

Interesting, I don't have any lisp turning filedia on and off, since I virtually only use vba I don't have a need.
Bob are you using lisps with filedia?

[Bob Wahr]

It's more often command dialogs than file dialogs.  The file dialogs work but get screwed in other ways.  I can't associate it to anything consistently.  I can open drawings to plot only and have it happen.  I've had it happen after 1/2 hour sometimes, other times, the same session will run for a week and a half with no problems.  It's possible that something custom is screwing it up.  I know for a fact that it happens in two of our offices.  Our third just recently made the switch to 2k8 and I had already written it off as a bug by then.  Guess I should check with them.  Guess while I'm at it, I might as well write a command logger to see if I can track this down.

[Dinosaur]

Do you get the hourglass cursor during this?  I often have that when Civil 3D decide it is to busy to display any boxes, menus, tool bars, etc. in anything but white and crunch away until whatever has its tissy in a fit clears . . . often this is measured in minutes.

[Keith™]

This issue is likely caused by a memory issue. On systems where the memory runs low(real memory, not virtual memory), the display is not updated as it should be and the objects are no longer available to be picked or modified.
This issue has been around since A2k2 and has yet to be resolved. Since memory space can be eaten up by the number of drawings opened, the size of the drawings, other programs running, etc. it is very hard to resolve. The simplest method of resolution is to close AutoCAD and reopen. This flushes the memory cache and frees up lots of space .. until the drawing is worked on for a bit. The second option is to increase the amount of physical memory in the system, or determine what programs are running that might free up enough memory so the problem does not exhibit and shut them down.

I had this problem on several workstations and increasing the memory finally resolved the issue

[Cathy]

Interesting, I don't have any lisp turning filedia on and off, since I virtually only use vba I don't have a need.
Bob are you using lisps with filedia?

Something in 2008 C3D turns my filedia off... I'm running without any lisps or VBA and it happens once a week or so.  Of course, I crash a few times a day -- so anything could be going on. 

Do you get the hourglass cursor during this?  I often have that when Civil 3D decide it is to busy to display any boxes, menus, tool bars, etc. in anything but white and crunch away until whatever has its tissy in a fit clears . . . often this is measured in minutes.

I'm so glad someone else has this problem.  It happens to me all the time -- and I can force it to happen by trying to move a label by dragging the text instead of the grip -- which unfortunately for me seems to be my natural tendancy.   

[sinc]

I put a line in the ACADDOC.LSP file that sets FILEDIA to 1, because I notice the same thing.  When C3D crashes, there is a good chance it will have FILEDIA reset the next time it starts up.

I've seen some others say they also do things like override the OPEN command to set FILEDIA to 1 first, then call the OPEN command, but I haven't found any need for that.  The only time my FILEDIA seems to get reset is when C3D crashes.