.PLI not .PLT being created when Plotting

[mark.barberini]

Acad 2004 users are unable to create *.plt (plot files) files. When the user tries to create plt, it seems to "crash" (not Acad, just the plotting) and creates pli files instead. Not usable. The user then has to reboot and hope it does not happen again. The reboot does not always work. We do not know if it is an IT issue or a cad issue. We have tried to reinstall Acad, it works for a while but the problem returns. It only affects a few users in the office.

Has anyone else have/had this problem? Does anyone know how to fix this?

Thank you
Mark

[.T.]

Hi Mark,

The first thing I would check is that my print drivers were up to date.

What print driver are you using to plot to file?

[mark.barberini]

We have updated printer drivers. Most printer drivers are windows based. All drivers available to the users are controlled. Printers works for all others in the office except two. One of them had a new box created for him from scratch. same problems. I tried a Heidi driver and still no luck. I was thinking it could be a problem with their print spooler not completing the task.

[.T.]

Ok.

Are there any error messages in the system event viewer that may shed some light?

Start button/Right Click My Computer/Click Manage/Expand Event Viewer/Click System and look for Print warnings or errors in the Sources column.

Also, under Device and Document Settings/Custom Properties for the plot configuration/Advanced Tab, is "In Printer" or "In Computer" selected in Process Document... field? You might try to set it the opposite of what it is and see if that works.

[mark.barberini]

Timcreary

You asked for me to check:
Start button/Right Click My Computer/Click Manage/Expand Event Viewer/Click System and look for Print warnings or errors in the Sources column.

Did this. No errors

I could not find the other thing that you asked me to check, the Advance tab is not there.

[.T.]

I should have been more clear, and, come to think of it, the print driver for your equipment may not have that option in Autocad. This is the case with one of our printers, and I should have thought of that. :Oops:

You may be able to access similar functionality a different way, like through Control Panel/Printers and Faxes/Right click and select Properties/Advanced Tab/ and look at the Spool settings; maybe "print directly to the printer" and bypassing the spooler will work in this situation: Just an idea.

For HP Drivers, try the above plus:
Type PLOT at the command line.
Select the HP Printer/plotter name for the driver that you want to use to create the plot
Click on the Properties button
In the Plotter Configuration Editor, Click on the Custom Properties Button
Go from there with the instructions in the previous post.

Another thought: does this happen with all print devices/drivers, or just one, or a few (looking for common denominators)?

Also, if it is only one device/driver, what printer/plotter driver? Sometimes (actually, on rare occasion to be honest) I get lucky and the manufacturer will have a solution on their support web page so I use that as another source of information when I get stuck.

HTH, post back if not, and we'll go from there.

[mark.barberini]

We went through with our IT dept. and tried checking all settings and compared them with mine (I don't have an issue). all settings are the same. I work in a consulting engineering company with 90 Cad users and this only affects two of them. They work in two different dept. (arc & mec) and rarely deal with each other. other than working on the same project and in the same company (which has 30 cad users on the project and no one else has this issue) I can not find a common thing between them. They barely know each other. We all use the same pc3 file and pentables.

The manufacturer has stopped supporting the driver for the plotter we currently are using. The company is looking to get a new plotter by the end of this year when the lease is up. Once again, the whole company uses this and only two affected. :banghead:

This has been driving me nuts for about a month now :confused: We are trying to get a hold of the Autodesk support but no response yet.

Thank you for the help :grin:

[.T.]

The manufacturer has stopped supporting the driver for the plotter we currently are using.

Just out of curiosity, what brand/model of plotter?

It has been a long time since I've done this, but maybe trying a generic hpgl or hpgl2 driver (if the plotter supports it) would fix what ails you until the new equipment arrives.

Another thought I had: are the permissions for the directory(ies) that the users are trying to "plot" to set correctly? And the permissions to the printer? I would highly suspect this if the users with the problems are recent hires, and given that the one machine was recently set up.

Is your setup such that you plot to file to a specific directory, and the plots are spooled from that directory (autospool), or do you have another purpose? Another thing would be the users permissions to run the batch or script that sends the plot (if that is what you use).

Could you zip and post a sample .pli file? I'd like to see what it is (i.e. partial plot or maybe an error log).

Sorry for so many questions.

[mark.barberini]

Don't worry about the questions, it great having an outside look. A fresh prospective always helps.



I have attached a copy of a pli file and there, unfortunately, is no error log present. As far as Cad is concerned, it finished successfully.



When we watch the spooler we see the usual steps. It goes into the spooler as *.pl~ while processing (normal for everyone) then *.pli instead of *.plt. The thing that gets us the most is that it is intermittent. It may work for the next 30 plots, then, pli starts. Reboot and all may be good again for another 20-30 plots.



We tried resetting their permissions to the printer, project, spooler and anything else we could think of. We tried giving one of them corporate access (free to all, without them knowing) and the same thing. We thought we had it because it worked for a few days, but then found out that, that could happen from time to time. ARG!!!!!!!



We are using an OCE-9700 Plotter and driver (windows based). The driver support was last updated in 2002. We thought this could be relevant, but it doesn’t affect anyone else. We all use this as a default. All properties to this driver and printer are set and locked by IT and CAE (Computer Aided Engineering). If a change to the driver is required by a project specification than IT and CAE will create a pc3 file. We have created a new pc3 file for this project and still returns.



They are not new employees, and they never seemed to have this problem before. They have been on this project for nearly 2 years and the problem started 4 months ago. We rebuilt one of their machines to from scratch to check for bad files, sectors, viruses and anything else that could corrupt the system. We relocated the project to a different server and checked both servers.



We are thinking of updating them to the new platform of cad ahead of schedule just to try and resolve this (hopefully), but if this returns………. :veryevil:



Thank you for all your help :cool:

[.T.]

Hi Mark,

Have your IT guys look at the pli, it's just an ascii file:



[SETTINGS]
Port=FILE:
Driver=Tektronix Phaser 780 Plus
GDI Copies=1
GDI Pages=0
[DATA]
PORT=\\OAK-FS9\PDF Distiller
DOC=A1-143232-3900-131-0261 Layout1 (1)
OUTPUT=P:\CAD\ISSUED\01.06.06-IFSC-DMSFeeders-ContractP-239\Mec\PDF\A1-143232-3900-131-0261-Layout1.plI

It doesn't make sense to me (and i'm assuming this pli came from a problem computer), but the computer seems to be using the wrong driver, and it looks like it is trying to send it to a pdf instead; perhaps something went wrong with the Adobe installation? Maybe IT can make heads or tails out of it.

Another thing I notice is that the file name with the path is pretty long. I don't know if there is a limit, but you might try shortening it, like plotting the file to c:\.

[mark.barberini]

timcreary
Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner, I have been putting out other fires around here. This one just happened yesterday.


[SETTINGS]
Port=FILE:

Driver=Oce 9700

GDI Copies=1

GDI Pages=0

[DATA]

PORT=oak-fs9OAK-OCE-BATCH

DOC=A1-143232-3100-122-0145 Layout1 (1)

OUTPUT=P:CADISSUEDJuly7.20.06-IFT-PilingLayoutsStrPlotFilesA1-143232-3100-122-0145.plI

We tried having the user use a shorter path and name. It worked for a bit, but..!! :banghead: I.T. looked at the pli file and they say it does not help them at all. We are going to update these users to 2006, so we are wondering if it will affect them still. The weird thing is that it says in the output ...pli, so.... in reality, it is creating what it said. :lol:

This one is giving me a headache. :-x

Thank you for all your help

[cwade]

Are you saving to a network drive or directly to the person's computer? If trying to save to the network, try saving directly to the person's computer, also make sure that all of thier drivers (including network, video, motherboard, etc) are up to date. I would reccomend using PDF of PLT files though, they can easily be shared and plot really well.