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Unable to save to drawing error?


Cad64

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Has anyone else been experiencing this?

 

We have just recently purchased some new computers running Win7 64 bit and Autocad 2011. Several people, including me, are now getting the error shown below while trying to save. It's a random issue and could happen 3 or 4 times a day. And not only does it create this crazy temp file, but it can also cause Autocad to crash.

 

After doing some Googling, it seems that this may be an issue with the operating system permissions or security settings or something. I have not found a definitive answer to this problem. Has anyone else experienced this and if so, were you able to find a solution?

 

Thanks

ACAD-Unable to Save-2.jpg

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Call your IT department and have them clean out the TMP files on the server.

 

I swear the problem has been a topic of a recent (last 3 months) thread. I remember posting a couple of suggestions.

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Yeah, we have a call into our lazy IT guys. Maybe they will get back to us by the end of the week, if we're lucky. :roll:

 

You think it's temp files on the server? I'll mention that and see what they say.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

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Some possible causes for this issue that I just found over at the Autodesk Discussion Groups are:

 

Very fast workstations and a "slow" server.

Network saturation

Excess server workload

Virus protection on the client

Virus protection on the server

"Misbehaving" network drivers on the client or on the server.

 

Our server is a bit slow and unresponsive at times and our new workstations are very fast, so I'm looking at that as a possibility.

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Yesterday I copied a project folder to my desktop and worked from there ,all day, and I had absolutely no problems whatsoever. In fact, Autocad was much faster and more responsive since it didn't have to read and write back and forth to the server. I now feel that the problem lies with our server, not with Autocad. Looks like we may need to upgrade. The only problem is that we just upgraded the server about 3 years ago, and the cost was about $20k, so it's going to be tough trying to explain to the bosses that we need to upgrade again. That's a conversation I'm not looking forward to.

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Yesterday I copied a project folder to my desktop and worked from there ,all day, and I had absolutely no problems whatsoever. In fact, Autocad was much faster and more responsive since it didn't have to read and write back and forth to the server. I now feel that the problem lies with our server, not with Autocad. Looks like we may need to upgrade. The only problem is that we just upgraded the server about 3 years ago, and the cost was about $20k, so it's going to be tough trying to explain to the bosses that we need to upgrade again. That's a conversation I'm not looking forward to.

 

I'm no programmer so i don't know if this is feasible, practical or even possible but I had an idea for a workaround. What about having everyone do as you just described, saving thier work to a specific folder on a local drive and then have the system collect the files in these folders and update the server after everyone goes home? Have it work much the same way the automatic updates for windows or your antivirus software works. If it could be made to work, it would lighten the load on your server during peak hours and redistribute much of the traffic to a time of less demand.

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You are attributing the problem to a "slow" server?

 

How does one address a problem of that type?

 

Faster drives, more cores, multiple network cards, etc. We were tossing around ideas yesterday, trying to come up with the cheapest fix. We're still waiting for our IT guys to come back with suggestions. :roll:

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I'm no programmer so i don't know if this is feasible' date=' practical or even possible but I had an idea for a workaround. What about having everyone do as you just described, saving thier work to a specific folder on a local drive and then have the system collect the files in these folders and update the server after everyone goes home? Have it work much the same way the automatic updates for windows or your antivirus software works. If it could be made to work, it would lighten the load on your server during peak hours and redistribute much of the traffic to a time of less demand.[/quote']

 

Thanks for the suggestion, and in theory that sounds reasonable, but in reality I just don't think it would be practical or efficient. I can't speak for everyone in the office, but I work on dozens of things each day. Not only do I work on paying projects but I also maintain our drawing library, so every time I need to work on something, I would have to copy all the files to my desktop. And with our slow server, it can take several minutes to copy the files. I could end up losing an hour of my time each day just waiting for files to transfer.

 

And what happens if I have a folder saved out to my desktop, and then someone else comes along and saves some important information into the file on the server without telling me, (like my boss is known to do), and then that server file gets overwritten with the updated desktop files that I worked on that day. That important information would be lost.

 

Also, I'm not sure how the server would know where to save the project files back to. I would be afraid that files would get saved in the wrong place or possibly overwritten, which would not be good.

 

It's a good idea, but I don't think it would work for us.

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Here's some more information from that thread on the Autodesk Discussion Groups. It talks about how Autocad saves a drawing. So if the server is to slow for the fast workstation, I can understand why the error would occur.

 

Read-only problems: Read-only's are generally related to timing issues

between the server and the client.

The basics of the AutoCAD save procedure is:

1. AutoCAD verifies the file lock that it created previously (either at file

open or on last save)

2. AutoCAD creates a new temporary file, and locks it. The current drawing

information is written to the temporary drawing.

3. AutoCAD deletes the .bak file.

4. AutoCAD sends a remove lock request for the original .dwg.

5. AutoCAD tries to rename the .dwg to a .bak. General problem location:

Usually when a read only occurs the server has not

completed the remove lock request. The rename is then treated as a sharing

violation and the rename request is denied by the

server.

6. AutoCAD unlocks the temporary drawing.

7. AutoCAD renames the temporary drawing to the original drawing name. The

read only problem can occur here as well, as if the file

lock is not removed before the rename request is made, there is a sharing

violation and the rename request is denied.

8. AutoCAD then re-locks the original drawing name.

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Faster drives, more cores, multiple network cards. Yikes!

 

It's too bad the cost-per-gigabyte of solid-state drives is so high. I've read where they are wickedly fast. I guess IT would have to settle for something along the 10,000 rpm SATA II drives.

 

Maybe your department needs its own server. Would IT go for that?

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Well, we only have about 15 people in our office, so my department is the whole office. This problem just started since we got the 4 new computers, and the only people having problems are those of us with the new computers. Eventually, everyone will get upgraded though, so at some point the server will have to be overhauled. It's just a matter of when and how much will it cost. Those of us with the problem may have to just deal with it for a while, and work from our desktops, until the bosses give us the green light to upgrade the server.

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Thanks for the suggestion, and in theory that sounds reasonable, but in reality I just don't think it would be practical or efficient. I can't speak for everyone in the office, but I work on dozens of things each day. Not only do I work on paying projects but I also maintain our drawing library, so every time I need to work on something, I would have to copy all the files to my desktop. And with our slow server, it can take several minutes to copy the files. I could end up losing an hour of my time each day just waiting for files to transfer.

 

And what happens if I have a folder saved out to my desktop, and then someone else comes along and saves some important information into the file on the server without telling me, (like my boss is known to do), and then that server file gets overwritten with the updated desktop files that I worked on that day. That important information would be lost.

 

Also, I'm not sure how the server would know where to save the project files back to. I would be afraid that files would get saved in the wrong place or possibly overwritten, which would not be good.

 

It's a good idea, but I don't think it would work for us.

 

I didn't think about other people getting into the files while you had them out, that would be a problem. The last place I worked full time solved that issue by everyone having a project folder that no one but you, the IT guys and department super had permission to access. When the project was released, it went to a differnt network drive that was read only. Revisions were done by moving the project into the personal folder of whoever was going to work on it. Wasn't a perfect system, but it mostly prevented what you were talking about.

 

As for copying the files over to work on them, I wasn't seeing that happen. What I had in mind was that you would open the drawing like normal, but hitting the save button (or when autosave kicked in) it would write the file to the local drive. That wouldn't disrupt the operators normal work flow with stopping to copy files. Then at a preset time or interval, the server would poll the workstation, see if there were new versions in the folder on the workstation's drive and then overwrite the file on the server with the new one. For that to work, some way would have to be created to prevent more than one person from opening the file on the server.

 

Oh well, I just drive these things, I don't know what makes them work.

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As for copying the files over to work on them' date=' I wasn't seeing that happen. What I had in mind was that you would open the drawing like normal, but hitting the save button (or when autosave kicked in) it would write the file to the local drive. That wouldn't disrupt the operators normal work flow with stopping to copy files. Then at a preset time or interval, the server would poll the workstation, see if there were new versions in the folder on the workstation's drive and then overwrite the file on the server with the new one. For that to work, some way would have to be created to prevent more than one person from opening the file on the server.

[/quote']

 

Yes, I had thought about copying just the parent file to my hard drive, but then if I needed to Refedit an xref, it would be saved back to the server, which could cause the error again. Your suggestion is an interesting one, but I really don't want to use complex workarounds to solve this issue. I just want to be able to work directly from the server. But, if that's not an option, I may have to try something like what you've suggested.

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Cad64: That list you posted seems like good material for a "sticky" wouldn't you agree?

 

I'm not sure how I would turn that list into a sticky? What would the thread title be?

 

I need to keep working on this issue until I get it completely resolved. Then maybe I can create a sticky with all the pertinent information because surely I'm not the first, or last, person to face this problem.

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Hmmm....I'd have to give that some more thought. Nothing easily identifiable comes to mind. Your original post was about being unable to save a file. The passage you quote talks about how AutoCAD goes about saving a file and this thread has evolved into one about serves and timing issues. Should take 4 words or less to describe right? LOL

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  • 7 months later...

I have recently encountered this problem on one specific drawing, it it has an xref in it, and not sure if that is effected yet/the root of the problem. was there ever a solution discovered?

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