"OpenDWG Library Error 3" when trying to exporting

[alon.weinstein]

Hello.

We're using VW 9 (last patch, not 9.5) on Mac OS Classic running under Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Ever since we upgraded OS X from 10.2 to 10.4 we get the following error:

"OpenDWG Library Error 3"

I've looked it up, and found a few references to it in the forums. We've tried the following with no success:

1. Restarting the machine, restaring the classic environment.

2. Trying to export a very very simple file (just a square and nothing else)

3. Trying to copy/paste everything from the file we're trying to export to a fresh one

4. Praying to the DWG gods for help.

Nothing worked, not even that last one. Help us -- what the hell is going on? this file is _not_ open anywhere else (that's the meaning of the message); we know that because it's an _EXPORT_, not an import; it's not a filename issue, we've tried everything, right down to "a.dwg" and "1.dwg"; it's not the complexity of the drawing since we tried a very simple one as well.

We can't upgrade to VW 9.5, because that would mean upgrade to running natively on Mac OS X, and we can't do that because there's no Hebrew language support on OS X (not even on the latest and greatest VW).

So, what can we do?

Thank you.

[Guest]

Have you tried booting in OS 9 instead of running it in Classic under OS X?

[alon.weinstein]

No, haven't tried that, though I doubt that would do it. Also, if that were the only solution it's not quite enough -- we can't switch back to using OS 9 now. I'm sure a proper solution can be supplied from Nemetschek, this is hardly some obscure feature.

[Guest]

Can you switch back to 10.2?

A fix would more likely be adding Hebrew support in a future VW release than making a change in a program that's two major revisions below the current release. (I'm not saying it's impossible, but there would be much resistance, and easier solutions would likely have to be exhausted first.)

[alon.weinstein]

Hmmm, I'm not sure how simple that would be. Is this a known problem? last comment I got from VW about Hebrew support is that it _might_ be in VW 12, probably later.

[Guest]

The bug database doesn't currently have any entries for the error 3 on export. Hebrew support is a known problem, and it is being worked on, but it requires lots of work.

[alon.weinstein]

Lets keep this on-topic, Hebrew support is not my concern right now :-)

Any steps that I can take to hunt for the cause of the problem?

Alon.

[Guest]

The cause is probably a change Apple made to the file handling functions.

Wild guesses:

If you're not using an administrator account, try that. Check to see if you have write permission to the VectorWorks folder, and make sure the ADINIT.DAT file is present and not read-only or locked.

And as mentioned before, try OS9 and OS10.2.

[bonus]

I also had that problem with a large file.

I found a way around the problem by checking "exported as invisible DXF layers" in the export options.

It's a mystery why this works - probably lack of RAM memory.

Try this an let me know...

[alon.weinstein]

Thanks, but I'm positive it's a memory issue, even a blank document won't get exported.

Anyhow, I've tried exporting directly on OS 9, which works, so it's probably related to files permissions, so now I'm on the look for some utility to help me narrow down the specific problem (since Nemetschek, obviously, have no way of really helping to solve this issue.)

[Christiaan]

In my case I found the problem to be an errant dimension that was off the page somewhere, which I couldn't see.

To select it I had to 'select all' and then deselect everything within my page boundary. I then deleted the errant dimension and was able to export an uncorrupted DWG file.