progeCAD support, tips and troubleshooting forum. progeCAD works very similar to some versions of AutoCAD. Moderated.

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#816 by Craddy
Fri Oct 30, 2009 8:53 am
Hi,

I'm having problems printing to one of my a3 printers in the office with ProgeCAD. We have an A3 template setup which works fine. But when we print to the Infotec laser A3 machine we encounter problems. It prints okay but when you go to save the file it comes up with this error:

Image

The log file has this in it:

2668 Prj\lib\DRW\DWGdirectWriter.cpp 0 Unknown Error Creating an Invalid Block *Paper_Space


and then the program quits.

However if we send the drawing to print to an A3 Injet machine there is no problem what so ever.

I have tried using the updated drivers, adding the PCL 5e driver (as its only black and white printer)
Set it so that it sends directly to the printer and doesnt Spool.

Has anyone else come accross this problem?


[hr][table][tr][td]Version:[/td][td]9.0.28.10[/td][/tr][tr][td]OS:[/td][td]Windows XP Service Pack 3 (English)[/td][/tr][tr][td]RAM:[/td][td]2GB[/td][/tr][/table][hr]
#817 by caddit
Fri Oct 30, 2009 11:04 am
Hello,


Thanks for your post. Apologies about the approval process, BTW, it helps avoid certain problems on the net.

Can I verify that you are using the latest version progeCAD 9.0.28.10? Also can I please know your OS and all printers that you have installed? Does the error only occur after plotting A3 to your Infotec? Can you confirm that the error does not occur using the same file and print settings to the PDF printer, for example?

Please send the file with the error AND please send your A3 template. Are you using a special plot style ctb or stb table during printing? (Please check your plot settings for this.) If you are, please also send that.

Please send all files together via email to:
Image

Thanks!

#818 by Craddy
Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:18 pm
hi,

thanks for your reply (no problem about the signup)

I have sent you the email with the files and we are using ProgeCAD 9.0.28.10 on Windows XP Service Pack 3.

This is only happening with this one printer using any plot styles at the moment.


thanks
#819 by caddit
Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:27 pm
Hi,

Can you give me a link to the exact model of your printer with specifications, somewhere official, on the web? Also what is the version of the Windows XP driver that you are using to print from progeCAD?

Do I correctly understand that the problem exists even when driver version is different? Is this actually a Ricoh printer?

Also, does the Windows XP printer driver for this printer offer an option to "Print as Image" in the driver's print settings? If so, I would just like to restart progeCAD, and then see if using the printer with this setting results in the same error when trying to save the DWG file after printing - or not.

Thanks again.
#823 by caddit
Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:57 am
Hello,


Your template file has been submitted to a developer as we haven't noticed any serious errors. I did notice (in both progeCAD Professional 2009 and AutoCAD 2010) that Layout2 of your template which has your business border is oriented off the sheet, and that paper measurement is set to imperial (inches) but apparent drawing units of the border itself are millimeters. Looks like Layout2 could be cleaned up a bit.

About your Infotec printer, I would like to verify:
1) do you have the save error when you print from either paper space layout or model space (i.e. open file fresh and print, then try to save) or just from paper space?
2) Do you have the Infotec Postscript 3 option loaded? Have you tried plotting using the postscript option instead?
3) Do you have the error if you load fresh the file, scale and print instead to A4?
4) Do you have the save error if you draw from a clean blank file (not using your perhaps misconfigured DWG template file)?
5) Are you sharing the actual print queue from a Windows print server in your office, or are you printing directly to the IP address of a network card in your Infortec printer?
6) Your A3 printer only prints in black and white correct?

#826 by Craddy
Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:46 pm
Okay the strange thing is here, this morning everything seems to work as it should now and we aren't getting the same error as mentioned in this post. Not sure if we did anything to fix this or if it was solved overnight when the server installed new updates?

But this is what was happening:

1) It was happening in both.
2) No option for this in the driver, is it done in ProgeCAD?
3) Not sure its working this morning
4) We tried using the default template provided in ProgeCAD and the same error occurred.
5) Windows print server
6) Yes its just B&W
#827 by caddit
Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:13 am
Craddy,

BTW a developer added a couple of questions to this thread, just to confirm:

-if you open the drawing after having it printed (with error) and saved, does it look correct?
-if you do the "Audit" command before printing the drawing, then you print and save it. does the same problem happen?


However, I could also suggest possibly bypassing the print server altogether may help. But it is only possible if your Infotec B&W A3 plotter has built-in network card (optional?).

2) No option for this in the driver, is it done in ProgeCAD?

Postscript is an (another) optional feature of the Infotec product line, according to the PDF product brochure in your web link... was just asking if you had it, that's all.


To explain, the background to this overall problem is: Along with entity data, progeCAD also saves some aspects of current working environment, such as current printer information, in the DWG file. This is part of the DWG file format "specification" (using that word very loosely). However, your print server may be feeding progeCAD invalid or incompatible information that makes progeCAD strangely die as you describe. This is not uncommon in CAD world, AutoCAD has its fair shake of hardware compatibility nightmares as well - especially with version 2010 graphics card compatibility from what I understand..

Sometimes it takes some patient sleuthing to isolate the exact cause and remedy.

#828 by Craddy
Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:05 am
Hi,

-after it crashes we loose the tab when we reopen the drawing.
-Yes just the same as when we do it without auditing

Ok thanks can try to install that see if it helps the issue (incase it returns)

We havent tried sending it to the printer directly either as of yet. But at the moment ProgeCAD is printing without any problems.
#1233 by fvmacedo
Tue Aug 31, 2010 11:36 pm
I received a similar error message within a file of ProgeCAD.

After audit the file progecad generated a log error file with the following message "2730 Prj\lib\DRW\DWGdirectWriter.cpp 0 Unknown Error Creating an Invalid Block - *Paper_Space0".

I solved the problem by copying all objects of my project from the Model Space of the corrupted file to a new file. In this file i applied some audit to clean eventual errors and saved it on disk. I opened it again and verified it was error free. Then I went back to the corrupted file to recover layouts I had made on PaperSpace. I deleted all objects from ModelSpace and and In each layout I applied the command to delete duplicate objects (2 duplicates were deleted in each layout). After this I pasted in the new file all objects from my layouts to original coordinates, creating new layouts tabs in the new final. I also changed the default printer.

This worked with me, but I dont know what originated the problem.
Yours fernando.
#1234 by caddit
Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:05 pm
Hi fvmacedo,


Yes, this is one technique we suggest to fix progeCAD crash, when the crash actually due to a corrupt DWG design file from an older version of AutoCAD software:

http://www.caddit.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1179#1179

(see point #5)

But thanks for sharing..