Plotting Issues Win 7 x64 and Autocad 2009

[timlane]

I just upgraded my OS to Windows 7 x64 and I am using Autocad 2009 x64 SP3, We have several HP devices in our office and when I try creating a plot to one of these devices, Autocad will crash. I have tried the lates universal drivers from HP, their XP x64 drivers as well their standard 32 bit XP drivers. All have the same result. I can print through other programs to these devices, just not Autocad. Is anybody else running itto this issue? If so, do you have a fix?

[Sarah Manley]

My office is in he process of rolling out Windows 7 and AutoCAD 2008 x86, AutoCAD 2009/2010 x64. AutoCAD 2008 has no problems printing to any device but we are having issues printing 11x17 to all of our HP Printers using 2009 or 2010. The error message says : "AutoCAD Application has stopped working - A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available." So far windows hasn't notified us about anything and the program closes without saving when you click on the Error Message's "Close Program" button. Printing 8.5x11 works fine and printing 8.5x11 & 11x17 to Canon printers works fine.

[Liamnacuac]

These sound like a HP driver issue with AutoCAD. Have checked the HP site for updated 64 bit drivers?

[Liamnacuac]

Did you guys notice a considerable length of time for the plot manager to start up when you use 64 bit (like four or five minutes)? I am having problems with that as well as the DWG to PDF.pc3 in ACAD 2011 MEP 64 bit. It appears to very quickly create the .pdf, but then takes several minutes to get out of the operation. According to the plot report, it took one minute, six seconds to create the .pdf...

[RobertB]

My office is in he process of rolling out Windows 7 and AutoCAD 2008 x86, AutoCAD 2009/2010 x64. AutoCAD 2008 has no problems printing to any device but we are having issues printing 11x17 to all of our HP Printers using 2009 or 2010. The error message says : "AutoCAD Application has stopped working - A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available." So far windows hasn't notified us about anything and the program closes without saving when you click on the Error Message's "Close Program" button. Printing 8.5x11 works fine and printing 8.5x11 & 11x17 to Canon printers works fine.

There is a known issue with the latest versions of AutoCAD and the HP drivers under 64-bit. The only "solution" at the moment is to use the PCL5 driver rather than the PCL6 driver.

[sinc]

Ouch! Makes me glad we no longer have HP printers in the office. I know some other people who are quite disappointed that their 400-series large-format printers are still working fine physically, but don't have drivers that will work with the current operating systems.

I was also quite disappointed that I had to use a generic printer driver at home for my HP Photosmart. This printer driver is missing most of the features of the old one, and it no longer reports how much ink is left in the cartridges, or anything like that. And the printer isn't even very old - Vista was already out when I bought it, yet HP never created Vista drivers for this specific printer.

HP really seems to be dropping the ball on customer support these days.

[Sarah Manley]

We already have the latest HP Windows 7 x64 drivers. We also tried the suggestion of creating 11x17 as a custom page size. That will print but only from the manual load. We have 8 printers in just one of our offices so having to use the manual load is not a good options. In addition to the manual load we would also have to install the HP print driver on every person's machine as a local driver instead of network. We currently have our printer/plotter service provider trying to get answers from HP.

As for the plot manager, all of that works great. For creating pdfs you might want to check to make sure the layers are not being included. That tends to make it take longer and makes the pdf file larger.

[Liamnacuac]

Interesting, because I was having issues with printing 11x17 to a Ricoh copier. I ended up resolving the problem by installing an older .pmp file for that printer (vs. the newly creatd one).

We already have the latest HP Windows 7 x64 drivers. We also tried the suggestion of creating 11x17 as a custom page size. That will print but only from the manual load. We have 8 printers in just one of our offices so having to use the manual load is not a good options. In addition to the manual load we would also have to install the HP print driver on every person's machine as a local driver instead of network. We currently have our printer/plotter service provider trying to get answers from HP.

As for the plot manager, all of that works great. For creating pdfs you might want to check to make sure the layers are not being included. That tends to make it take longer and makes the pdf file larger.

[Liamnacuac]

It's actually starting the manager that takes a long time, not processing the plots, that's lightning fast. And it is only the initial launch that is slow, after that, the manager starts normally-until you close AutoCAD.
I thought I fixed it by starting with a default profile (instead of importing the users old profile), and assuring the plotting files were in the default location. Even after re-booting, this appeared to work just fine yesterday, but this morning, they are back to that initial delay. It's like AutoCAD either can't find the files, or has to convert from 32 bit to 64 bit, but I am clueless as to what is actually the process for printing. As far as I know, Autodesk hired armies of sprites to process prints.

As for the plot manager, all of that works great. For creating pdfs you might want to check to make sure the layers are not being included. That tends to make it take longer and makes the pdf file larger.[/quote]

[RobertB]

It's actually starting the manager that takes a long time, not processing the plots, that's lightning fast. And it is only the initial launch that is slow, after that, the manager starts normally-until you close AutoCAD.

You should make sure that there are no invalid shortcuts located in the plotter/plot style support folders. That can often delay the Plot Manager dialog box.