HUGE File Size For No Obvious Reason...

An unexplained autocad problem has surfaced once again... this time it has created quite a havoc in my office!

I would like to appeal for all autocad experts to help solve the mystery please...

Here's the problem description:

The autocad file size is unreasonably huge (eg. 20MB) even after I've deleted all elements in the drawing and purged. Tried performing audit and recover but with no results. If I try copying a single line from this file into a new drawing file, this new file "gets infected" and became huge in file size as well... and once again deleting the line will not reduce the file size. There's no xref, hidden or freeze layers.

One thing I do noticed is when I Purge>View items you cannot purge> Linetypes, it contains loads of unknown linetypes which I don't understand why. Not sure if this is linked to the problem...

Hope I can get some help on this... many thanks in advance! ; )

This problem has been discussed before. One option is to use something called SuperPurge by manusoft (there's a free trial). There is a second option but it takes some work.

http://www.manusoft.com/software/superpurge.html

Thanks a lot Remark! Just tried the SuperPurge you mentioned, deleted most of d unpurgeable but it only reduces less than a MB size.

If i try purge every item it will delete my drawing elements as well. Do u or anyone knows which items i shoyld not select to purge so that my drawing elements will not be deleted??

It will b a very great help is someone can offer a solution...

Many thanks!

I think you are confused on what is being purged. Any object that is "unreferenced" (i.e. - not being used) will be purged. If you want control over each and every object there is a provision for doing so during the command sequence. Be forewarned that in some cases, like yours, you could easily be making a "yes" or "no" decision on hundreds of objects. My advice, should you choose this option, would be go to the bathroom first, turn off your cell phone, grab a hot/cold drink and a bag of chips, and have an ice pack ready for your sore wrist. You're going to be staring at your screen and punching the "Y" or "N" key for quite some time.

The latter that you mentioned is definitely not what I'm trying to do as I know that's quite close to insane. I just want to purge whatever is needed to do the job i.e. reduce the file size to normal.

Below is the printscreen of the SuperPurge for easy reference. Here's what I've tried:

1. Checked Only Purgeable; Purge Type - normal; Select All : 14 objects purged.

2. Uncheck Only Purgeable; Purge Type - normal; Select All : 0 objects purged.

3. Checked Only Purgeable; Purge Type - hard; Select All : commandline shows "SuperPurge Error ['eNullObjectId' in Spurge.cpp", line 1249]"

4. Uncheck Only Purgeable; Purge Type - hard; Select All : same as 3 above.

Kindly enlighten me exactly how should the correct way be done please...

Any help is greatly appreciated~

Thanks!

The procedure I used previously on a problem like this is explained in post #6 of this thread...

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?78944-Bogus-Linetypes-unable-to-purge&highlight=purge

If you can't get it to work your only other recourse is to post the file to a site like Dropbox so those of us willing to take a shot at it can download the file that is causing you such a problem.

Thanks for the info ReMark!

Can I ask you in your appended thread you exported the cad dwg to V8 Microstation .DGN file. I tried that and in the pop up dialogue box there's a section "Specify seed file" where I'm suppose to select a DGN file. And if I don't select any it can't proceed.

What is this seed file exactly? Any DGN file? As I only uses autocad I will not have a dgn file, unless I try download one maybe...

Btw I've just learnt of another solution to the problem and would like to share here:

1. Open the heavy cad file;

2. DXFOUT;

3. Open a new cad drawing, DXFIN;

4. Purge, -Purge (Regapps), audit and saveas.

The file size was reduced tremendously! ; )

I never specify a "seed file" and the procedure still works for me. Glad to hear you found an alternate solution. So what is the file size at the moment?

Have you tried resetting the drawing scales list? In AutoCAD on the top (classic, I hate all these new ribbons) go to Format/Scale List.../ and reset to imperial or the other if it's what you're use to. The problem is; if you have xrefs in the drawing, this will need to be done in all of the xrefs as well. This is something very commonly overlooked and will bloat a drawing file ungodly and cause very slow load, save and working environments. Give it try and see if it helps.

In some cases the files can have nothing more than one line but have hundreds of unreferenced entities. Scalelist bloat is usually not the problem.

thanks remark, I have encountered these files and have been in need of a fix, pisspoor on autodesks part for not giving us a fix ......