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Thread: smoking gun for insertion problems

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    All AUGI, all the time Liamnacuac's Avatar
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    Default smoking gun for insertion problems

    OK, is anyone NOT in Las Vegas?

    I have ONE worker that lost her tool palette tools on Monday. For some unknown reason, I can't get her Autocad 2010 to use the tools even though they are pathed correctly and the lisp routines are located in the correct locations (obviously since everyone else is running OK). I ran the repair routine and that had little effect. Another anomaly is when a block is inserted on my computer, it scales correctly based on model or paper space ltscale. On her computer, it appears to not use any of the scaling and will insert the line portions of the block at 12 times the correct size, and the text 96 times the correct size. usually, blocks will insert way off of the insertion point, as if it is scaling the insertion based off of 0,0. the result is a block won't appear on the drawing area in paper space. I didn't try them in model space to see how far off their insertion was...
    Any suggestions as to a direction for me to look for settings or problems? Some of our workers were really slow to adopt non-scaled drawing habits (I.E. they will automatically scale up title blocks 96 times and set text size to 9" for 1/8" drawings). and may have settings in dimensioning or may have a lisp routine that is setting scale parameters, but some of the lisp routines are also not working, even if I load them and launch them manually. If you want I can post one of the .lsp and the tool palette macro, and the results on my computer vs. her computer.

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    All AUGI, all the time Liamnacuac's Avatar
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    Default Re: smoking gun for insertion problems

    Ok,here is an update. The user said all of the tools were working this morning. then they stopped without a reboot or closing AutoCAD. I changed the support files pathing so that all the local files come before network files (except for our font directory). Do you suppose this could have caused an problem?
    BTW, I ended up changing them back because the new order caused other problems.

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    Default Re: smoking gun for insertion problems

    I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for or will work for you, but in times like these, I merely hack the registry to force AutoCAD to rebuild the user profile. Sometimes that alone works, but a more thorough approach is to also delete all the product folders under the users name prior to double-clicking the shortcut. This will remove any customization however, so it's typically good to let the user know that. Custom toolbars, palettes, etc. can always be copied and replaced after the fact, but if the problem resides in those custom pieces, restoring them may just bring back the problem. Therefore I just tell the user they are SOL and they need to start again from scratch.

    Unless there is a more serious problem, this approach normally works. Afterwards I tend to create a custom Workspace and Profile for the user, set them as current in the software, and then customize the properties of the shortcut to automatically run those via the /w and /p switches. That way if the user does in fact want to customize anything, and something like this happens again, it's quicker and easier to get back to the OOTB settings.

    Personally I'm not a fan of tinkering with the CUI and I don't want users to either. I support several different Autodesk product lines for an AEC company, and have seen many a product "broken" by users who, know enough to be dangerous, and who customize their software. Before you know it, these little gremlins start rearing their ugly head

    Good luck!

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    All AUGI, all the time Liamnacuac's Avatar
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    Default Re: smoking gun for insertion problems

    Thanks, Timothy,

    I found when I do a stand alone install or a repair (as I did here) on AutoCAD MEP, it creats a shortcut that loads AEC stuff as well as the MEP workspaces. I don't need all this typically, so I go back and change the shortcut to just a standard acad.exe with /p and the profile arg. What I'm leery of, is the information that the program stopped working mid-operation without any changes from me or the user? This doesn't make sense to me.
    Another puzzle is even though I have the tool palettes pathed to look at a network drive, they aren't changing to the updated tools I have been working on (to fix her problem). I have checked the file paths several times, after several reboots and network reconnections..

    Ponderous

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    Default Re: smoking gun for insertion problems

    Quote Originally Posted by Liamnacuac View Post
    I found when I do a stand alone install or a repair (as I did here) on AutoCAD MEP, it creats a shortcut that loads AEC stuff as well as the MEP workspaces. I don't need all this typically, so I go back and change the shortcut to just a standard acad.exe with /p and the profile arg.
    Are you aware that when installing AutoCAD MEP, you have the option of having multiple shortcuts display on the desktop, of which AutoCAD MEP as AutoCAD is a choice? If the users merely need to use AutoCAD MEP as vanilla AutoCAD, this shortcut and associated Profile and settings would suffice. Sounds to me like you are creating work for yourself, and if so, I'd be happy to elaborate on where/how to have AutoCAD generate this shortcut and associated settings automatically.

    Quote Originally Posted by Liamnacuac View Post
    What I'm leery of, is the information that the program stopped working mid-operation without any changes from me or the user? This doesn't make sense to me.
    Doesn't make sense to me either

    Quote Originally Posted by Liamnacuac View Post
    Another puzzle is even though I have the tool palettes pathed to look at a network drive, they aren't changing to the updated tools I have been working on (to fix her problem). I have checked the file paths several times, after several reboots and network reconnections.
    Sorry, can't help you there either. What we do here is run scripts upon login that automatically copies common content (fonts, linetype & shape files, PC3 & CTB files, etc.) from the network to each users hard drive, which makes sure that everyone's OOTB installation works exactly as it was installed without changing each workstation to use custom search path settings. I haven't had any experience using a network location for tool palettes, but we have avoided that approach for some of the reasons you describe.

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    All AUGI, all the time Liamnacuac's Avatar
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    Default Re: smoking gun for insertion problems

    Sorry, can't help you there either. What we do here is run scripts upon login that automatically copies common content (fonts, linetype & shape files, PC3 & CTB files, etc.) from the network to each users hard drive, which makes sure that everyone's OOTB installation works exactly as it was installed without changing each workstation to use custom search path settings. I haven't had any experience using a network location for tool palettes, but we have avoided that approach for some of the reasons you describe.[/quote]

    Well, now. That is interesting to me. As I inherited this procedure, I don't know about it's reasoning. I assume this loads slower than if we path settings? I have also been a little afraid to attempt to create a deployment as I am not strong on programming, and know little about setting up scripts. Also we are using four different flavors, so I still have custom scripts. When I asked our vendor about having someone take a look, there was an additional fee... I doubt I could convince our current network admin help me, he's kinda grouchy, but that seems the logical approach.
    It would seem to me that if the "old method" I have for macros works on six seats, it should work on the troubled one, so I have to find out what makes that computer special.
    Last edited by Liamnacuac; 2009-12-04 at 11:19 PM.

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    Default Re: smoking gun for insertion problems

    Quote Originally Posted by Liamnacuac View Post
    Well, now. That is interesting to me. As I inherited this procedure, I don't know about it's reasoning. I assume this loads slower than if we path settings? I have also been a little afraid to attempt to create a deployment as I am not strong on programming, and know little about setting up scripts. Also we are using four different flavors, so I still have custom scripts. When I asked our vendor about having someone take a look, there was an additional fee... I doubt I could convince our current network admin help me, he's kinda grouchy, but that seems the logical approach.
    It would seem to me that if the "old method" I have for macros works on six seats, it should work on the troubled one, so I have to find out what makes that computer special.
    Actually there are no speed lags. We use the utility ROBOCOPY as part of our script to copy what we need locally, and the script (merely a text file) only loads what is missing. It all happens in the background, and the user is no wiser.

    As we are currently running 2009 flavors of AutoCAD, AutoCAD MEP, and Civild3D Land Desktop Companion, all on different Operating Systems (XP 32-bit, Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 32- & 64-bit) across the enterprise, we have setup the script to automatically check the OS, as well as the software application, and copy only the necessary files into the appropriate folders accordingly.

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    All AUGI, all the time Liamnacuac's Avatar
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    Default Re: smoking gun for insertion problems

    Great! Thanks for the info. I'll have to find out about Robocopy as well.

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