CAD Forum

[little gecko]

I just upgraded from 2009 to 2010 progeCad and I am experiencing problems with the program/computer stalling. It seems to happen when the autosave comes on. First time it did it was when I deleted a line second time I just hatched an entity.
Have you got any idee what might be wrong?

[caddit]

Hi little gecko,


By "stall" do you mean "freeze" completely or "crash" as in displaying an error then disappearing from the desktop? This kind of problem could have several causes, some of which may never have happened before. Many progeCAD crash issues were resolved in the recent patches that were released. Do you have the latest version? Can you share a little bit about the system which you are running, including:

Windows OS Version and Service Pack level.
RAM
HD (Free)
System Maintenance details (practice regular system maintenance)?
List of Printers installed
Significant other software / drivers / antivirus / other applications which are running in the background

Please also check if you have the debugger "XCrashReport.exe" installed in the progeCAD Program directory (usually C:\Program Files\progeSOFT\progeCAD 2010 Professional ENG by default). It collects event information about the crash.
_________________
CAD Software Support
progeCAD Software Asia Pacific
Alibre Australia, PTC and MathCAD

[little gecko]

Thanx for you reply
By stalling I really ment freezing. The program doesn't shut down but I can't perform any tasks and my curser dissapears. I cannot find XCrash Report.exe in progeCAD 2010 ENG which I downloaded in April.
I have Windows XP 2002 version, 500MB RAM, capacity 80GB, with free space of 48GB. I maintain my system reguarly. The printer is a Canon PIXMA 4200, I run Vet-Antivirus and no other applications in the background.
I hope we can get to the bottom of this.
regards

[Old Megawatts]

I had the same problem when the program (progeCAD 10 Pro) would auto save or when I initiated a save. I finally tracked it down to my printer. In order to use that particular printer, I have to list as the printer, in the printer setup as a pdf printer. This seems to have cured my problem. Hope that this helps.

OM

[caddit]

Hello little gecko,


Since you seem to think the crash might be connected to the autosave, maybe we should have a look at that first. progeCAD auto-saves to C:\DOCUME~1\%user%\LOCALS~1\Temp\

Where %user% = your Windows Profile/Login name

Can you check that this folder exists and has all read-write permissions?

What happens if you turn off Auto-save in progeCAD (Tools -> Options -> General) Does this help?
_________________
CAD Software Support
progeCAD Software Asia Pacific
Alibre Australia, PTC and MathCAD

[little gecko]

thank you Old Megawatts
I have changed the printer settings. I had no time to evaluate wheter it fixed my problem but as soon as I have a chance I will have a go

[little gecko]

I just experienced the same problem with the program freezing up. It happend when the program tried to auto save, only it didn't save but instead it froze and I had to reboot the computer. When I recovered my drawing there where things missing that should have been saved. I also got a error message that says : tolal errors found during audit 29 errors fixed 29.
I have a temp file in my C-drive where drawings are saved to , but auto save does not save within my normal file where I store my drawings.

[little gecko]

I tried to work with auto save turned off but still encountering same problem with curser dissapearing and computer freezing. I get a windows application error that says the application failed to initialize properly (0c0000017). I have no idea what that means.

[disegno]

I have had this happen as well.

Could it be insufficient memory?

How many drawings did you have open at the same time?

What size (MB) was the drawing?
_________________
Regards

[caddit]

512 MB RAM is the minimum supported to run progeCAD on a modern system (although we highly recommend 1 GB, as with most large applications)

little gecko, have you tried tuning XP system performance ?

Do you have lots of other background apps? Antivirus software running?

What graphics card are you using?
_________________
CAD Software Support
progeCAD Software Asia Pacific
Alibre Australia, PTC and MathCAD

[little gecko]

thanks for you suggestions
I have Intel graphics Media Accelerator Driver with 128MB max. graphics memory, processor speed is 3000MHZ.
I also did an audit as you suggested and it found 7 errors which all have been fixed according to the audit.
I switched off the auto-save and have been saving manualy without a problem during my last session until it froze when I tryed to save.
A bit unpredictable to say the least.

[caddit]

little gecko,


7 errors during audit? Freeze when trying to manually save?

Both problems sound like it could be a problem with your drawing itself.

Try this: what happens when you try FILE -> SAVE AS -> Choose a different file name and choose an earlier format (try AutoCAD 2004 DWG) and see if you still get a crash.

Thanks.
_________________
CAD Software Support
progeCAD Software Asia Pacific
Alibre Australia, PTC and MathCAD

[little gecko]

I saved file with "save as" on 2004dwg-format without any problem.
thanks for suggestion.
What do you suggest I try next?

[caddit]

Hi little gecko,


Got there one definite case of DWG format data corruption. We do data restoration service but it can be a bit expensive.

See if you can open the file you saved as AutoCAD 2004 2005 file format and work on from that?

As a tip, with any important drawing files I would run "audit" and "purge" before finally saving them - at least once a day - when you make changes in it. It doesn't hurt the file (at least when you select N to fix errors), and small incremental housekeeping can save you from a big problem (like this one) from developing later on.

IMO also keeping a running archive of at least three prior drawing versions (many keep far more) for each major file also is useful when you discover problems developing in a drawing so that you can at least go back to diagnose what went wrong. With the availability of cheap, reliable external USB drives on the market "not enough hard disk space" is not an excuse .

As a point of interest, most major CAD system offer data housekeeping tools. Mainly because CAD data structures become very complex, with memory pointers and reference handles, coordinate math transformations and object containers etc so storage errors sometimes occur under the limitless combinations of features users create in their drawings. AutoCAD introduced "audit" and "purge" many versions ago. CATIA V4 had a "catclean" IUA script for this purpose. And so forth.
_________________
CAD Software Support
progeCAD Software Asia Pacific
Alibre Australia, PTC and MathCAD

[little gecko]

thank you for your help.
I will take your recommondations on board and will let you know should I have any further problems