James Carr

Nice workaround. I remember doing something similar once ...for a reason I no longer remember....:)

I have a different issue with Artistic Edges. When I combine VW built-in Turbo-squid entourage (in this case Gwen Standing Holding Paper Photo Front Right IP) with artistic edges set to on in the viewport I get this disturbing result - the entourage are transparent to the edges. I have tried editing the entourage transparency - can be done but is deep in the controls for the texture... but it doesn't help. I also tried recreating the mask component of the image and re-uploading into the texture as a .png with a transparent (not white) masked area... tried setting "alpha channels" different ways... nothing works... so I need to choose between having entourage or using the artistic edge option... anyone fixed this?

Thanks for this help, Piyush - This is very clear and aligns mostly with what tech support is telling us. We already started using VWCS but it didn't fix the problem yet. The solution may be in how we are storing and naming the files both in VWCS and on our workstations. A further question - were you able to make new .vwx (unshared) files from the compromised files using "save a copy as" and then successfully reshare them using the file storage protocol you describe above? This would be a big relief to us. As mentioned, Vectorworks Tech Support said that the issues "cannot be repaired", but we hope that doesn't mean we have to start all over from scratch. We have months of work into the project BIM model.

Hi Piyush - did VW Tech support ever resolve this for you? We are experiencing the same exact type of issues with Project Sharing. (VW 2025) For us this is very distressing, not only for the obvious reasons that it is not working but because project sharing worked beautifully for us for years, even though we were using it in a workflow that VW is now telling us is a no-no (we were storing all project and working files on Dropbox in the same location and working directly from that directory.) Vectorworks is now telling us that things we had been doing without incident for years are causing our issues, such as the file storage system described above and the renaming of archived copies of working files...not just the active copies). The latest from tech support (which I hope is a translation issue) is that if we change the name of a working file this will break project sharing for the project and it "cannot be repaired".... that would be bad if true. We are still working with tech support and they are being helpful and responsive but if you found a solution and a workflow that works please let us and everyone else know. Thanks so much in advance. (Hope you see this message).

Hi Piyush - did VW Tech support ever resolve this for you? We are experiencing the same exact type of issues with Project Sharing. (VW 2025) For us this is very distressing, not only for the obvious reasons that it is not working but because project sharing worked beautifully for us for years, even though we were using it in a workflow that VW is now telling us is a no-no (we were storing all project and working files on Dropbox in the same location and working directly from that directory.) Vectorworks is now telling us that things we had been doing without incident for years are causing our issues, such as the file storage system described above and the renaming of archived copies of working files...not just the active copies). The latest from tech support (which I hope is a translation issue) is that if we change the name of a working file this will break project sharing for the project and it "cannot be repaired".... that would be bad if true. We are still working with tech support and they are being helpful and responsive but if you found a solution and a workflow that works please let us and everyone else know. Thanks so much in advance. (Hope you see this message).

Responding to Ian - yes, thanks, we are working with VW Tech support. The team is being attentive and helpful but we have not solved it. We have reverted to 2025 but the project sharing issues persist.

We are having similar issues. This is new for us as we have used VW Project sharing (via Dropbox) without incident for many years. VW tech support is being responsive and are working hard to help us. However they are telling us now that if we change the name of a working file (for example to archive it) it will break the project sharing (if it is on the same machine, even if it is moved to a different location) and "cannot be repaired". We are continuing to work with Tech support to try to get more answers as to what this means for us. We have already tried saving as a .vwx (unshared) file and rebuilding the file (purging and copying model elements and re-building viewports) and re-sharing it, but the problems have recurred. Problems include missing elements in viewports, visibility issues that seem to be tied to class activity, crop objects disappearing, and general inconsistencies between user working file copies. Obviously this is making it impossible for us to continue with our work. We have asked what "...Cannot be repaired" means and are waiting for a response. If anyone has been down this road before and has a solution for us or can tell us what happened we would really appreciate it.

We are also experiencing major problems with VW 2026 SP 2, although we started to experience some issues under SP1 as well I think. Shared files do not sync correctly in Dropbox and flat-out crash out in VW Cloud services. Many other glitches. Elements such as detail callout crop objects are locking, uneditable. Detail drawing label objects jumping around. Crop objects disappearing. Working files showing at different stages on different workstations despite appearing to be fully synced in dropbox. This is disastrous. We may have to do an emergency switch back to 2025 until VW gets this under control. Right now we cannot work. We also just made the switch to Subscription from Service Select... hope that wasn't a mistake.

SOLVED: below is my question from earlier today. The solution is you need to click the gear icon to the Right of the database in the Callout Tool or Notes Manager. Then choose "relative path". Only works under certain conditions which are explained in the pop-up (and which anyone using file sharing on Dropbox or VCS should meet. Then, that ONE callout will have a relative path to the database that will be the same for all users. Be sure the database is in the shared folder that contains the drawings as well. Then, step two, for Keynotes, is to click on the LEGEND and you will see the list of callouts pop up and lo and behold there is a columns that says "relative" which will now have one checkmark, but you can select all and click in the column and now you have all checkmarks and all the callouts/notes in that legend have a relative path. Now you can get back to the business of editing notes and your teammates will be able to automatically load them in their edit windows without that pesky task of having to re-link them! Hooray! Definitely room for improvement in the documentation/FAQs etc.

@leecalisti Solved it - will update my post now.

Hi - we are struggling with this issue as well and don't see the solution above. We are using project sharing and dropbox. Files are synced. But the issue we have is that the path to the database is different depending on which computer is using it (same issue as SDLaw above) and so the callouts are not editable without re-linking each time, and then the next person has to do the same. Very cumbersome. There must be a way to link to the database that is uniform and can be recognized by each user but I am not sure how. We have tried this in both VW Cloud and Dropbox and have the same issue. For example our file path looks like: "/Users/[username]/Vectorworks Cloud Services/[shared folder]/[filename database.xml" But from a different computer the "[username]" is not the same so a callout created by user#1 will not find the database when looked at by user#2 until user#2 selects the user#1 database manually - at least that is what is happening to us. Any help would be appreciated hugely!

I am having the same issue. Only on my MacBook Pro. Not (so far) on my desktop. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I had this same problem on my 2019 MacBook Pro running Monterey 12.2.1. Turning off the automatic graphics switching under battery in preferences seems to have worked. THANK YOU!! It would be great if VW can fix the issue so I can use the automatic switching function again, as my battery life on this laptop is not what it was advertised to be so I would like to be able to maximize it as much as possible. But glad the problem seems to be resolved for now. thanks - James

in case anyone else is still having trouble with disappearing VW Libraries... click the little VW logo on the top Left corner of the menu bar in the Resources window - it toggles them off and on. Couldn't find that documented anywhere - just random clicking around and I found it.