Opening a NWF is Taking 8 Hours!!!

[ben.bringardner]

We recently modified the structure of our NWF to have a lot of search sets in it and at about the same time we noticed a major slowdown in model load time when opening the nwf file or refreshing. This may just be a coincidence, but what is fact is that load time has gone from 3 minutes before and is now 15 minutes to 8 hours at times (even if .nwc's are already made). It specifically hangs at either 45% after "Combining Models" or at 90%. The file has appended a combination of DWGs and NWDs.

I have found another post that describes well the problem I am seeing, but does not offer a clear reason for the issue.
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autode...g/td-p/3036930

I'd be very interested to hear additional insights into the problem's root cause and/or how to fix this issue? Obviously, we won't be able to afford to wait 8 hours for models to opens.


Thanks,
Ben

[Revit for Breakfast]

How big is your NWF file? I recently troubleshooted a case where clash viewpoints were ballooning the file size causing very longs delays to open the software.

[ben.bringardner]

The NWF is about 18 MB. When the issue started I had about 50-100 viewpoints saved, but this has been normal for me over the last couple years. We are seeing a lot of strange behaviors. First, if a another person on my team opens it from their computer the file size drops to about 5 MB... but then my clash results start un grouping if the file I am clashing has been updated. At times it will crash while grouping clashes. Both of these issues may be 2014 bugs supposedly fixed with SP1, but the SP1 install did not go well for a team member so we have been reluctant to move to SP1.

Considering the costs of NW it should not have these issues.

[steve.perkio]

SP1 fixed the crashing issues for me completely.
Give it a try...

[j_menacker]

I have run into long load times when multiple users access a large federated NWF with different DWG version settings. NWCs are DWG reader dependent. Each user was forcing the other to recreate a complete set of NWCs on open or refresh.

Joe M in WV

[pauljordan]

I have run into long load times when multiple users access a large federated NWF with different DWG version settings. NWCs are DWG reader dependent. Each user was forcing the other to recreate a complete set of NWCs on open or refresh.

Joe M in WV

First things first... NEVER let others access your NWF.. If you're the Navis Dude that creates the NWF, that's your baby.. As you've seen, if they screw it up, guess who's left there after hours to fix it. Give them .NWD's.. Users don't even need Manage.. They can get by with Simulate.

As for the NWF file being 18mb?? That's more than likely because you have a few hundred clash viewpoints in the model and they're all still set to look like what you see in Manage. That's definitely a bug as saving them with things hidden, turned off, and transparent like 2013 tends to do with Clash Viewpoints is what's causing the logjam.

I've had 7 VERY large buildings in one .NWF model with several thousand drawings connected to it and the resulting .nwd file was only 600mg. The .nwf file was a very small size and loaded within minutes.. Mind you, that was pre-2013 when they made the viewpoints change. If you're using Manage to crate viewpoints from clashes, that's what I'm refering to. Once you do that, there should be a single viewpoint at the top of the list that you created what will fix all the viewpoints and make them like they're all full color again and nearly impossible to locate the actual clashes.

Hope that helps..

[j_menacker]

Paul:

In a team of three in house professionals (HVAC/PLUMB/ELEC) creating and coordinating content simultaneously on a continous basis, overhead for maintaining an independent federated NWD is counter productive. Controls should suit the working environment.

Joe M in WV

[pauljordan]

Paul:

In a team of three in house professionals (HVAC/PLUMB/ELEC) creating and coordinating content simultaneously on a continous basis, overhead for maintaining an independent federated NWD is counter productive. Controls should suit the working environment.

Joe M in WV

Joe, I would love to only have to work with 3 at a time. I've got disciplines that have 30 Process Pipe designers so you can see why I lock up my .nwf files.

I've also written batch files that open the .nwf files, update the latest .dwg or .rvt files that are in the folders, and writes a new .nwd file once an hour.

When I'm running 7 buildings at once on a $5.2 billion dollar project, you have to have total control or you'll lose your mind.

Our construction team works along the same principals and they'll have up to 35 different contractors working on the same facility. I've personally gone through a facility and seen 3 large bays with 3 different sub-contractors doing the same things in each bay. I guess when you completely overwhelm the market with large projects, they pull in all the subs to get the work done.

Then there's always the part about having a team in Argentina working on the design for 2 facilities, a team in Arizona working on 3 facilities, and a team in Oregon working on two more.. Yep, coordination and complete control is a must have.. Ohh, and that's if we only have one project going at a time..

I guess I should have mentioned that before my previous response..