Every command lags in only one particular drawing

I’m using Autocad Architecture 2011 – I created a sheet that has multiple viewports (elevations). It randomly started yesterday with a few quirks: viewport scaling would lag, dimensions and adjusting grips lagged. By the end of the day it was out of control. Dimensions would take a couple minutes thinking, viewports would freeze for minutes on end before finally catching up, etc. Most of the time the title bar displays “(not responding)”, but if I wait it out it catches up. This morning it took almost 9 minutes to plot. So thinking I could fix it, I created a new page for the xref and a new page for the xref’ed elevations to go on. Still not fixed. I just rebooted and it took minutes to load the drawing.

Any ideas??

So you immediately stopped what you were doing and ran the command line version of purge on the drawing followed by an audit.

yes, i've done a purge and audit.

Command line version of purge (Regapps first)?

yes, and that hasn't worked. I literally can't work in it, it lags badly if i switch between paper/model space tabs, copy viewports, resize viewports, xclip, etc.

Maybe it's time to WBLOCK out the entire drawing.

No go. super frustrated at this point.

Well unfortunately I am not using AutoCAD Architecture 2011 so I cannot test your drawing on my system. Would you be willing to share a copy with someone who could though (perhaps by email and not by posting it here)?

When you say "multiple viewports" how many do you mean?

Having lots of viewports does seem to affect performance - I assume because of a regen-related thing. Try turning off (MVIEW Off or using the properties box) any viewports you don't need displaying. Unfortunately that won't help you printing, though

dJE

The problem is probably in one or more of the XREFs. Detach all of them, making note of your insertion points and rotation angles before hand. You could insert them one at a time, and deleting the previous one until the problem comes back to figure which one(s) are giving you the problem. Personally I would go through each and every XREF give them a thorough cleaning and check for empty blocks and text, WBlock is a very good way to rid the files of that stuff. Complex or numerous hatches in XREFs can cause problems. A major threat to performance is orphaned attributes often caused by exploding blocks with attributes. Even just one can slow things down, a bunch of them can cause what you are experiencing. Another good one is MText that has been formatted in the editor. There is a LISP routine called STPMText that will fix all the text in a file very quickly. Check out those XREFs and let us know what you find.

Sorry for the late post, I got caught up with some other projects and due dates.

Regarding the sheet, I figured out which xref kicks all the lagginess into gear. So now that I have that figured out, I don't really know where to go next. I purged and audited. I don't really want to make a block, but maybe I'm missing something in that suggestion.

Thx ya'll.

I gave you several suggestions as to the probably cause. Have you checked them out?

Making a block of a drawing will strip out anything that cannot be selected along with any styles that are not associated with anything. It's a quick way to clean up a file of unnecessary stuff. Before making any changes, make sure you have a copy of the original file saved somewhere.

So if I block it out, would I then just reinsert it into a new drawing and explode it so I can work with it as an xref? There are quite a few hatches (small wall sections) but the problems started before they were added to the drawing. You mentioned a lisp routine called STPMText, I've scoured all the sites in google and on these forums but can't find the code. That is the last thing I haven't attempted that you suggested.

When you block it out, it is already a .dwg that can be used as an XREF.

You may not even need that LISP routine. Do you know if any of the text has been formatted (within the text editor) to be different from what the style calls for?

I'm almost positive some of the text has been formatted. I kind of got thrown this background that was a big mess and looks like it's been thru quite a bit of tinkering.

ok I see what you mean about blocking it out. I thought I was creating a block, but I created the new xref and am replacing all the sheets with it. So far it seems to be running quicker. I also noticed the file size was smaller than the identical original plan.

The original STPMText lisp routine by T.Willey (2007-01-09) can be found in post #2 in this thread at the AUGI forums via:

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?53180-Change-color-of-existing-MTEXT-Objects

Here is a thread with one by T. Willey (don't know if it's the same one) and others:

http://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=14764.msg178357#msg178357

I just noticed blocking out my xref got rid of all my layer states. Did I miss something there?

Layer States can be exported and imported using the Layer State Manager.