Fatal errors in general: how to fix?

[MarcoW]

Hi all,

I know there ain't a standard method to fix fatal errors...
Every error has it's own cause, that I do understand.

About 10 years ago I worked for a company that had a "help & support contract" for a certain autocad application. In those days, whenever I had a fatal error I could send the drawing to that helpdesk in "dxf" format.

In most cases (if not all) they found the cause of the problem and fixed it. I'd get back the dxf file and import it.

I believe that this methode would be used also whenever I had missing shape files etc. It was quit handy to have those guys.

Since I work for another company there is no helpdesk to call. We are alone ...

Can anyone tell me more about this? I mean like is this a known method that can be learned? Or where to read about it, how to recognize errors in the dxf file?

I know that a dxf file is to be read with notepad but I don't have a clue what to search for.

Any help would be much appreciated for now and then we encounter those fatal errors and it would be nice to solve the probs. Tnx.

[ReMark]

Is it the program or the drawings that are generating the errors?

[ReMark]

What are you doing when you get these fatal errors? As you point out yourself, there are many causes.

What action do you take when you get a fatal error now? What steps do you follow to resolve the problem? Do you even have a step-by-step approach?

[ReMark]

DXF Reference in PDF format for various versions of AutoCAD can be obtained here.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...inkID=10809853

[ReMark]

The format of ASCII DXF files.

http://www.autodesk.com/techpubs/aut...t_al_u05_b.htm

[ReMark]

AutoCAD DXF file structure as outlined in Wikipedia.

< start quote here >

File structure


ASCII versions of DXF can be read with a text-editor. The basic organization of a DXF file is as follows:

• HEADER section – General information about the drawing. Each parameter has a variable name and an associated value.
• CLASSES section – Holds the information for application-defined classes whose instances appear in the BLOCKS, ENTITIES, and OBJECTS sections of the database. Generally does not provide sufficient information to allow interoperability with other programs.
• TABLES section – This section contains definitions of named items.

Application ID (APPID) table Block Record (BLOCK_RECORD) table Dimension Style (DIMSTYPE) table Layer (LAYER) table Linetype (LTYPE) table Text style (STYLE) table User Coordinate System (UCS) table View (VIEW) table Viewport configuration (VPORT) table

• BLOCKS section – This section contains Block Definition entities describing the entities comprising each Block in the drawing.
• ENTITIES section – This section contains the drawing entities, including any Block References.
• OBJECTS section – Contains the data that apply to nongraphical objects, used by AutoLISP and ObjectARX applications.
• THUMBNAILIMAGE section – Contains the preview image for the DXF file.
• END OF FILE

The data format of a DXF is called a "tagged data" format which "means that each data element in the file is preceded by an integer number that is called a group code. A group code's value indicates what type of data element follows. This value also indicates the meaning of a data element for a given object (or record) type. Virtually all user-specified information in a drawing file can be represented in DXF format."

< end quote here >

OK. The rest is up to you. Good luck.

[MarcoW]

Thanks for the replies

Whenever I have a fatal error now I go back so the automatic save file wich is saved every 3 minutes. So only the last 3 minutes are missing. Next is to open the drawing with the recover tool (file - drawing utilities - recover). After that I purge and audit the drawing and save it under the original name in the original place (overwrite).

Most of the time it has improved and the error stays awa .

Considering the above I must say that the problems most of the time lie in the drawing itself, not the program.

I will dig in to the suff you provided to me: a quick look told me that it is a whole new world to explore and I wonder if there are some clues / hints that i can follow.

Thanks again.

[ReMark]

What is the source of the drawings?

I can count on one hand the number of fatal errors I've had over the past ten years. Yet, you get them consistently. That's something I cannot understand or explain.

Are you up-to-date with the service pack for 2007?

What OS are you using? Do you keep it current with critical updates?

Do you use Xrefs and Scalelists?

[ReMark]

What type of fatal errors are you seeing?

Can you post an example of the error message that is displayed?

Three typical fatal errors are:

-unhandled access violation
-unhandled exception
-out of memory

[MarcoW]

I can count on one hand the number of fatal errors I've had over the past ten years. Yet, you get them consistently.

No to daily or weekly but sometimes.