Drawing freezes for one PC, not on another

[Robert Hempel]

Hi all,

Been trying to resolve this issue for a couple of weeks now and I'm out of hair to pull!

A remote user (connected via VPN over a private national ethernet line) experiences freezes on drawings that have no issues at the head office. I have tried removing XREF's and images from our templates to see if that was causing the issue to no avail. I ended up using a process monitor program to see what was AutoCAD was doing differently on each machine (see attached images).

PC1 is my PC which searches for .lnk, .ctb, and .stb files in our directory with filters and then opens the drawing - no problems
PC2 is our remote user which searches with the filters and then WITH NO FILTER, which then goes through all 128,000 documents in the folder before opening the drawing, which can take 3 minutes or so.

This happens whenever the remote user undo's a command, switches to a different paper space tab, or opens a drawing. What exactly is AutoCAD looking for? If I could direct it to look locally or elsewhere it might solve the issue! I have opened a blank metric template on the remote user's PC and there are no issues, I assume because its not looking for any extra files as there is nothing to display.

I know one resolution would be to change our filing system to not have a folder containing 120K+ documents, but if we can find another solution that would be preferable!

Can anyone with a bit more knowledge or AutoCAD help me out here? If you need anymore details please let me know.

Thank you in advance.

Rob

[cadtag]

...

I know one resolution would be to change our filing system to not have a folder containing 120K+ documents, but if we can find another solution that would be preferable!


Rob

holy .bat files batman!!

dunno -- but i'd personally say some organization into a folder/subfolder/file structure that makes sense ought to be Job 1.

giant heaps of paper on the floor do not make a good filing system, and 120k+ files in a folder don't either.

[remi678731]

Sometimes I wish people would answer questions without critiques someone else's work flow. They have their process for their reasons, not all companies have the same requirements. Until you are there boots on the ground trying to work in their process try to deal with the persons question at hand.
As to the original question just a thought you might look at file support search paths and make sure the remote isn't looking for something it can't find because it is looking in the wrong place.
If you you find another solution please post it. I have a similar problem not sure what the answer is. I know the computer is looking for something not sure if it is a CAD issue or not.

[Robert Hempel]

I had a thought to copy over my profile and see if that made any difference, will try that today at some point and let you know.

Regarding the filing system, not my design and changing now would be a lot of work for the programmers (apparently, not my area!). That was why I mentioned it in the post as it is the easiest answer for me, but not everyone else

[Tom Beauford]

Without changing that horrible file system couldn't you use temp and support folders on the PC so only the drawing file is remote? 360 solves that as well by working on the PC while only opening and saving online.

[cadtag]

Sometimes I wish people would answer questions without critiques someone else's work flow. They have their process for their reasons, not all companies have the same requirements. Until you are there boots on the ground trying to work in their process try to deal with the persons question at hand.

Well, sometimes the existing workflow is a disticnt impediment to getting anything done effectively. And in the case of computer files systems, none that I know of were designed to efficiently handle 100,000+ files in a single folder. The single folder metaphor kinda died after DOS 1.0 was superseded, and every modern filesystem incorporates a hierarchical folder structure, and is designed to work effficientlky with a hierarchy.