Drawing Objects Not Fully Loaded

[neophoible]

Has anyone else noticed a problem like this? One of our AutoCAD drawings circa 1990 on only one of our machines (our newest, 64-bit, Win 7, see more specs in attachment) opened only partially in ACAD 2008. If saved in this state, the drawing permanently loses whatever information was not loaded, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a display issue. All of our other machines are much, much older, running Windows XP Prof, and AFAIK, none of them have exhibited this phenomenon. It happened regardless of whether the file was on the hard drive or on the server. There are some workarounds for this, but I see I’m going to have to warn folks around here to be careful, as we all use this machine from time to time. If anyone knows a way to fix this so that 2008 works correctly on this machine with all drawings, please clue me in. BTW, this did not happen with two drawings dated 1989. I work almost exclusively in 2012, but have the oldest, slowest machine in the department, which should give you some idea of my status.

[neophoible]

A little more research shows that opening this drawing in 2000i and 2012 (same 64-bit machine) does not exhibit this phenomenon. Also, re-saving the drawing on another machine (mine) to the 2007 DWG format eradicates the problem for that drawing, that is, once re-saved, it opens just fine in 2008 on the 64-bit machine. The concern still remains that someone will open a drawing in 2008 on that machine, then save it, even though it did not load completely. I’d like to say that the backup system should take care of such problems, but I’m not so sure that backups have been a high enough priority here. Maybe this will light a fire under the right person so that backups become the high priority they ought to be!

[nestly]

I just watched an AU class and the ADSK support tech said that problems opening older file formats is not because the new software is less capable, it's because the new software is more sensitive to problem in the drawing. It was suggested that the file should be opened/recovered/audited in the newest version, then saved back to the older format if possible. So my questin is, what happens when you use 2012 to recover/audit the drawing then save it? Does it now open fully in 2008?

[neophoible]

Also, re-saving the drawing on another machine (mine) to the 2007 DWG format eradicates the problem for that drawing, that is, once re-saved, it opens just fine in 2008 on the 64-bit machine.

Well, I didn't do any recovering/auditing, just saved from a different machine, but I was using 2012 to save to the 2007 format, which worked just fine. This does not happen in every old drawing. It's the first time I've ever seen it; but a co-worker mentioned that he had also experienced this same thing on this same machine, evidently before I came along. Thanks for the info.

[RobDraw]

Since it is not happening to all files of that sort, there is probably a problem with that file. An audit/general clean up of that file, as stated above, could fix the problem.

 

Could it be that there is an XREF in that file that is not getting found? Any proxy objects in it?

[neophoible]

Thanks for responding, RobDraw. No XREFs and no proxy objects in the drawing. It's one of our standard drawings and should be no different than the other old standards, which are pretty plain. It only uses Model Space, but does make use of some blocks & attributes. I'll run an audit on it just to see what happens. I was wondering if perhaps the OS makes a difference or the 64-bit machine. Since it only happens in 2008, not in 2000i or 2012, that perhaps the 2008 installation isn't perfect. Anyway, let me take another look at it.

[RobDraw]

I doubt it's the OS or the bits. What jumps out at me is that it doesn't happen with every file of that type. It could be the install of 2008 but I'm thinking there is something about that particular file that 2008 does not like. Your second quote came to mind before I saw you had it there.

[neophoible]

I ran RECOVER in 2012, 2010, 2008, & 2000i. All of them, except 2008, reported no errors. Here is the output for 2008 (I deleted a couple of blank lines):

 

Drawing recovery.
 Drawing recovery log.
  
 View table  Error in object: Bad entity header read, tcode: 54
   Next object could not be found.  Database truncated
   after the last valid object.  Approximately 39805 bytes were
   discarded at the end of the database.
 Objects recovered: 1 spans deleted due to errors,
   totaling 39805 bytes, or 65% of the 61201 byte entity section.
  
 Auditing Header
  
 Auditing Tables
  
 Auditing Entities Pass 1
  
 Pass 1 1100    objects audited
 Auditing Entities Pass 2
  
 Pass 2 1100    objects audited
 Auditing Blocks
  
  30      Blocks audited
  
 Total errors found 1 fixed 1
  
 Erased 0 objects
  
 Regenerating model.
  
 AutoCAD Express Tools Copyright © 2002-2004 Autodesk, Inc.
  
 Now LOADING Custom LISP Programs...Please wait...DONE loading 
 Custom LISP Programs.
 AutoCAD menu utilities loaded..............
 ObjectDCL2008.arx is incompatible with this version of AutoCAD.
 AcRxDynamicLinker failed to load 'C:\Program 
 Files\SoftDraft\SteelPLUS\VR2008C\SUPPORT\ObjectDCL2008.arx'
 C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2008\acad.exe 

I don't really know anything about the error, other than it ran into an entity it didn't like and said might it as well forget the rest. But all the other ACAD versions seem to like it just fine.

 

One interesting thing about this, though it is reported after the audit/recovery, is the incompatible ObjectDCL2008.arx. I'm not familiar with that at all. And I probably would never have noticed if it had not been for the problem cited, as that info doesn't show up unless you look at the Text Window soon after loading a drawing. I'm guessing that this particular error does have to do with the 64-bit system. It doesn't occur with 2010 or 2012, because we don't have SteelPlus for those. It doesn't occur with 2000i, because it uses a different version of SteelPlus.

[neophoible]

Your second quote came to mind before I saw you had it there.

You mean, don't use 2008? Yes, I agree. But it's still good for using SteelPlus, which we don't have for later versions--higher ups nixed upgrades, something about having already spent an ungodly amount on such software as it is, and this particular software is programmed to fail with future versions, regardless of how upwardly compatible it might actually be.

[SLW210]

The free Al's Steel Mill is a pretty good replacement for SteelPlus, give it a try HERE. Some other good downloads there, also.

[neophoible]

SLW210, thanks for the tip. I'm looking into it now and will get back with how it pans out.

 

...

 

OK. I got it loaded and working, then checked a few sections, mostly channels. Seemed to be as good as SteelPlus, even though it doesn't create blocks. If we decide we would like the latter, I think that will be an easy enough thing to add. Again, many thanks.

Edited July 12, 2013 by neophoible
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