Revit 2010 Crashes When Printing

[ktracy.194130]

Hi All,
We have a troubling situation. We've got to print a 100% CD set Monday morning. However, one of the sheets crashes Revit whenever we try to print it. This happens for printing to our large format printer, printing to PDF, and publishing to DWF. We've tried fixing the errors, creating new views, auditing, etc. We've tried changing graphics accelleration. Nothing is working.

Here is the scenario-
1. A floor plan view has multiple dependent views.
2. Another floor plan view of the same level has the same dependent views, but has plan regions created to show clerestory windows above the typical cut plane.

The sheet with the #2 view is crashing when we try to print it. We've tried reviewing all of the areas with plan regions but to no avail. Still crashing. If we create an entirely different view with no plan region and a different view range altogether it still crashes.

Could there be corrupt elements above a certain cut plane? Is there a way to find them if there were? Does anyone have any suggestions?

[bcgatti]

Have you tried changing from Vector to Raster processing under the Print Setup dialog? That has worked for me quite a few times when printing specific views has caused a crash.

[ktracy.194130]

Have you tried changing from Vector to Raster processing under the Print Setup dialog? That has worked for me quite a few times when printing specific views has caused a crash.

That was it! Such a simple thing we never checked. Thanks for your help. We could have spent all day trying to figure out that one sheet.

Now the issue is finding what went wrong in those drawings that causes them to crash with vector printing.

[twiceroadsfool]

Put it back on Vector, and delete your titleblock and try plotting again.

Which release of 2010 are you on? The original? WU1? WU2?

The original release had tons of issues plotting images (which are often in titleblocks).

[ktracy.194130]

We have all of the latest 2010 service packs and hotfixes installed. If it was the titleblock wouldn't there be problems with all of the sheets?

[twiceroadsfool]

Sorry, i misread that part. Is there any chance any of those clerestory windows have DWG detailing in the family?

Its a tedius process, but start turning things off in the view in a logical progression, and see if you can whittle it down to whats causing the crash.

IE: Go in VG and turn off the entire Model tab. See if it prints. If it DOES, start narrowing down the catagories. When you find out which elements it is, copy and paste them to a new project, see if they cause the crash there. Clerestory makes me think Window or Curtain Wall, which makes me think Mullion / sash frame, which makes me think DWG import in to a profile.

Sometimes DWG's dont play nice. But im grasping at straws, unless you can upload the file or part of it.

[bcgatti]

I gave the answer that I did based upon an SR that we opened with AutoDesk a while back. We had a project that would randomly (not the same sheets each time) crash when trying to print.

As a test I unloaded the Links, removed the border family, etc.. based upon recommondations from AutoDesk. Sometimes sheets would print when doing this, sometimes not. Once again, it was always entirely random on this project.

The solution that that AutoDesk support gave after reviewing the Revit model that I posted was to change to Raster processing.

[twiceroadsfool]

Changing the setting to Raster has other effects on the drawings being plotted, that sometimes reach as far as (seriously) degraded quality, and so on. The setting exists for when there are shaded views and/or other Raster images on drawings, hence why Revit warns you that it is switching certain views to raster during plotting.

It sucks that they gave you that as an answer. If all drawings were supposed to be printed on Raster, there wouldnt BE a Vector setting.

Id also be curious to handle a PDF that was done on Raster, to see if it would lose its Vector capabilities. If it would, thats a non-viable solution for a lot of people, myself included.

Im not saying it didnt SOLVE your predicament, im just saying it isnt the CAUSE of your predicament.

[bcgatti]

I think the fact that the crashes were entirely random and difficult to reproduce is what led to the response to my SR. I'm sure that my logs and journals captured the crashes but that they did not lead support anywhere.

I looked at the AutoDesk response of using Raster processing as being the same type of catch-all as the recommended crash workaround when printing from Adboe (Print as Image). "When all else fails, do it this way and it you will not have the problem again..."

It may not be the prettiest workaround but it does work well in a pinch.