Autocad 2009 Automatically Opens Duplicate Drawings

Greetings, this is my first post so I hope it's in the right place. I have an AutoCAD 2009 user who is having a very strange problem. He will open a drawing to edit it. At some point during his editing process the same drawing opens again in read/write mode. This causes problems because he has mistakenly saved over his edits with the old version that he did not edit.

I have tried googling this particular problem but have only found this forum and some other sites that suggest malware on the PC. I have ruled out malware and now I'm humbly asking for any advice/suggestions you can give me to fix this issue. Has anyone ever heard of this problem? I've found many sites that talk about "stealing focus" but not any mention of opening of duplicate files with read/write permissions.

Hi acumen,

Welcome to the forum! Thats a rather unusual issue with Acad. Has the user always had this problem or is it only recent? Does the problem happen randomly or using specific commands? Does the user have an custom programs -lisp, vba, .net etc?

-jammie

The user is working off a network?

Thanks for the replies!

Yes, it happens at a specific time. Here's what he told me.

When working with multiple files at once he will finish with one and close it. Then ACAD will open one of the files he has open again, with read/write ability. From here he can get confused and save/close the wrong one (the original) thus overwriting all his changes.

Also, I was mistaken, he is using AutoCAD 2011 not 2009.

This is from a network share that is mapped as a drive in Windows. It's a Windows 7 x64, 16 GB RAM laptop. I have a few of the exact same machines deployed with no issues like this.

edit: no special programs

If the user copied the file to his hard drive and worked on it from there does he experience the same thing happening?

When working with multiple files at once he will finish with one and close it. Then ACAD will open one of the files he has open again, with read/write ability. From here he can get confused and save/close the wrong one (the original) thus overwriting all his changes.

AutoCad is not OPENING a file, it is simply automatically maximizing the most recently used OTHER window. The file has been open all along.

I hope the operator is not opening the same dwg in two different windows, with one read only, and making changes in the other window. This is a recipe for absolute disaster, and should never be done for any reason. Each Open Session (window) keeps it own temporary and/or backup files in order to restore catastrophic run time failures, and will write these back to the file when asked to, or not prevented from doing so.

That is the only way I can re-create this incident. Files with different names CANNOT be forced to overwrite each other without the system complaining with various error message boxes, never mind AutoCad itself, unless a Save As is executed, and that takes conscious effort to accomplish. This is what makes me think the SAME file is in two different AutoCad windows.

Remember that part. ONE file, TWO windows.

Once the editable window is closed, the other one becomes automatically editable since the Operating System edit lock has been released and the operator has full read/write access, obviously. Even the simplest movement of the screen image, zoom or scroll will register an edit within AutoCad. Once the edit flag has been set, AutoCad will overwrite the last saved image, unless the NO button is clicked.

Also, the operator can make changes within the Read Only Window, however these changes will not be saved as long as the edit lock set by the first window is still ON. his is not a bug. AutoCad has to work within the operating system, and the operating system is designed to allow users to share files across the network.

Of course, the operator still has one safety valve. They can click the No button when asked if they want to save the previously read only window. I can forgive this one at least. How many of us have been conditioned to NEVER click that No button? There have been a couple of times the No button has cost me a week-end.

I think your best bet would be to see the problem as it happens. If at all possible try getting the user to recreate the error in front of you. You'll be able to make a better call on what the issue is

Welcome to CADTutor.

Are we talking Xrefs here?