Autocad freezes when opening a drawing

My computer is an Intel i7-6700 CPU @ 3.4GHz with 16 gigs of ram, and I'm running autocad 2017. I usually have quite a few drawings open - at the moment there are 10. My old computer handled all of this quite easily. I can't remember its specs, but it only had 8 gigs of ram, and was a much older computer.

Now, I'm finding that drawings open far more slowly than they did on my old computer (running autocad 2012), and I often start typing a command before I realise it hasn't fully opened (it takes so long). If I do this, I'm doomed. At the moment I have a drawing I tried to open just sitting there saying Regenerating model. It isn't showing in the Task Manager, and I've waited for at least 10 minutes in the hope that it will finally start working (it has sometimes done so in the past), because I have some complicated work I was doing which I hadn't yet saved. (It's amazing how much you can do in 10 minutes, the time I have set for autosaves.) I can see, though, that I'm going to have to close them all down and loose some work.

None of my files are very big - I'm extremely fussy about keeping drawings clean, and the drawing I was trying to open is tiny, less than .1 of a megabyte.

I've switched off graphics acceleration (or whatever it's called), and it hasn't exactly frozen, it will let me type a composition in the command line, but it won't let me do anything else, it won't enter the command, it won't switch to another drawing, or minimise, or close. The cursor lines are sort of flashing when I move the mouse over the drawing.

Has anyone else experienced this extremely frustrating behaviour? Can anyone tell me what could be wrong?

When did the first start to happen?

Have you tried running a REPAIR of the installation? Note: a REPAIR is not the same as an UNINSTALL/REINSTALL.

BTW...what do you have for a graphics card?

Is this a networked computer or a standalone workstation?

What other programs are running in the background?

ReMark,

I'm not exactly sure when it started - it may have been around the time I registered autocad (had been running with a trial for a couple of weeks). I haven't tried running a repair, not sure how this would be done, because I downloaded the programme off autocad's site?

The graphics card is a Gagabyte, I think. The CD says something about 12DC1-N00020-10CR - not sure if that is relevant?

It's a standalone workstation. My old one was struck by lightning shortly before Christmas at around the time my office closed for what we call Builder's Break in this country. I work for a fairly large architectural practice, but I work from home. The office closing was why I was forced to download the programme from autodesk.

Background programmes vary. Always Pegasus Mail and Skype, usually Firefox, sometimes Word and/or Excel, and I have a little navigator programme called Servant Salamanda.

The Repair option can be found via the Control Panel > Programs and Features. Scroll through the list of programs until you find AutoCAD 2017.

Re: graphics card. It sounds like you might have a Gigabyte nVidia GeForce 7600GS video card installed. That card came with either 256MB or 512MB of onboard videoram. That's a basic entry level card.

Re: background programs. What are you running for an anti-virus program? Some of them (ex. - Norton) have been known to aggressive scan AutoCAD .dll files to the point of choking a system.

Did this computer perform up to your satisfaction when you first put it into service?

What OS are you running?

Where are you located?

There is one other thing you can try before running the repair option and that would be to reset all setting back to their defaults via Start > All Programs > AutoDesk > AutoCAD 2017. Do you run any lisp routines?

You said you keep your drawings pretty clean. Can you tell us what you do specifically? Just curious to see if maybe you overlooked something.

Have you tried running only the OS and AutoCAD and shutting off all the other programs?

ReMark - wow, thanks for your time! I'm in South Africa. The OS is windows 10, and I have AVG as my antivirus. I've tried various other antiviruses (Norton, MacAfee, Alvira, Kasperski), and have come back to AVG.

Forgot to mention that I have two screens running. My feeling is that it has something to do with the 7 lisp routines I'm loading at startup. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when this problem started, but what I might do is remove the lisp routines and see if that makes a difference. The thing is, I only load a lisp routine when I know it's what I want, and I want all the ones I'm loading: flatten, block replace, dimension through lines, and a few others - nothing difficult, I think. I'd have far more, if I could find them or was able to write them!

To keep my drawings clean - there are no duplicate lines, I manage my layers very strictly, I never have layers I don't need, my blocks are always created on layer 0, I audit and purge regularly, I flatten my drawings often, if I bring a paste in from another drawing I make sure I either rename the block or explode it. I never bring anything into my drawings from other drawings without first taking the bits I need onto a new drawing and making sure everything is as I want it before I bring it into my drawings. If I think there's a problem with broken or duplicate lines I run overkill, but I'm a bit wary of that, it sometimes does weird things. My layer manager is always kept up-to-date. I can't think of more, but I am extremely fussy about my drawings - if I've overlooked something, I'd be glad to know.

Haven't tried only running autocad - I'll give it a go. I lost a lot of work this morning, and 2017 doesn't bring the backup files in the way 2012 did - I had to go and search for them, because when it restarted it had absolutely no backup files in the left hand panel. I have the path set differently, so I knew where they were. I've now set the autosave to 5 mins.

You're running two screens? Could you verify the graphics card for me? You'll have to go through the Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Display adapters.

Re: clean system. I commend you on your vigilance as it appears you are doing everything right.

Re: Backup files. Are you referring to .BAK files or .SV$ files? There is a difference. Perhaps you have read this?

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Understanding-AutoCAD-backup-and-autosave-files.html

At the moment I think the problem may be the graphics card but it is really just a guess on my part.

Can you do me one last favor? Open a problematic drawing and check what linetypes are loaded. Do any of them look unfamiliar (non-AutoCAD related)?

Final thought. Sometimes a Windows update will cause unexpected problems. If you can pinpoint the exact day/date the problem started you could check for a Restore point that predates it and roll your system back.

Why does it get more and more difficult to find anything on each new windows OS? On Windows NT networks were a breeze, now you have to be a genius just to link two home computers together... Anyway, sorry, the video card says it is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960.

As to my vigilance - I'm a touch OCD about it. I have been known to spend hours tracking down an elusive layer or block that wouldn't purge when I knew it wasn't (obviously) in the drawing.

The .sv$ files, not the bak files. My old autocad would bring up a list of those in the left hand panel when autocad was started after crashing. This one doesn't. I had to go to where the backup files (sv$) are kept and rename them before I could open them. (Mind you, I have a feeling I could have just clicked on them without renaming them. I'll try that next time.)

The thing is, it isn't one (or two, or three) drawing that's problematic - it's whichever drawing I open, if I start typing a command before it's fully open. The little drawing I had trouble with this morning is an old detail, and I opened it a few minutes ago with no problems. I create a lot of my own linetypes and hatch patterns, and nothing in it was unfamiliar, or anything I haven't been using for years.

The GeForce GTX 960 is a much better card than the 7600GS. It shipped with 2GB of videoram. Do you work in 2D or 3D?

At this point unless you suspect the problem is related to a Windows update I'd run the REPAIR option and see what happens. A REPAIR will fix/replace any corrupted AutoCAD files and will not harm your .DWG files.

Okay, I'll try running the repair option. I'm a tad wary of those, too. But if it will leave everything as it is, I'll run it. First I'll remove the automatic loading of the lisp routines and see what that does. I can easily replicate the problem.

I work mostly in 2D. Having learned through the years to think in 3D, I find 2D suits me when it comes to getting information across. 3D is great for presentation and co-ordination, but I work in a lot of detail, and I find 3D gets in the way. Which probably sounds strange - but mostly I just don't need 3D - I can picture it in my mind. However, I have been working on Revit for a while (it isn't loaded on this computer yet, after the lighting strike), and I can only say that the shortcomings I'm finding in autocad 2017 explain why I find Revit so very cumbersome. For me, instead of making Revit more logical, they are making autocad more illogical. I can't stand ribbons. I don't use a lot of the commands they have on them, and they take up too much space, and mean I have to keep searching for the commands I want. I'm trying to get used to them, but for me they are a step backwards.

There are actually three things one can do to fix a problematic installation of AutoCAD. They are Repair, Reinstall and finally an Uninstall/Reinstall. None of these will do any harm what-so-ever to your drawing files. Consider Repair to be the least disruptive as it goes very quickly. Once you move to the other options there will be an increase in time spent executing the procedure and may lead to some additional steps when executing an Uninstall/Reinstall to ensure a clean environment for AutoCAD to be installed once again. All three procedures are explained on the AutoDesk website in case you have any doubts.

When troubleshooting it is always wise to start with the least disruptive procedures then work your way up the list should the problem persist.

I have no experience with Revit but I do have a lot of experience with AutoCAD and with computers in general. I've suggested the Repair option many times in the past and of those who took my advice none posted any unforeseen consequences.

I agree that the Repair option is probably a sound first step to resolving this.

And given your computer's memory capacity and background programs, I doubt it's running low on memory unless it has to do with your LISP routines.

Also, if this was the case Autocad would typically give you an error message saying something like "Out of memory - shutting down" and it would happen without warning.

When that happens, it's clear what the problem is because of the error message.

It probably wouldn't hurt to check your options and see what the period is for the autosave function too (if you use it). Having that set too frequent with 10 drawings open could definitely chew up some memory. Given your 16 GB memory, it might not chew up enough for Autocad to crash but definitely enough to slow things down to a crawl.

A few years ago, I ran Autodesk Architecture 2008 on a Windows Vista machine.

I made the mistake of running CC Cleaner app because for whatever reason it wiped some of Autocad's files from my C drive. It just happened that those were files needed by Autocad to display 3d objects and hatching properly.

So anytime I would try to hatch or draw 3d objects, Autocad would lock up and crash. But the repair option was able to resolve the problem by recreating the missing files without having to completely uninstall/reinstall.

Good luck!

-ChriS