Constant Crashes

[Stuart Child]

I'm experiencing a variety of frequent crashes using Vectorworks 12.5.0(60762) with Architect and Renderworks on a PC running Windows XP SP2. A summary of today's are given below:

1. Vectorworks is idle and not being used. I'm looking at the screen, discussing a drawing with a colleague and the next minute the program locks up and displays the following error message, without a single key or mouse being touched.

"Runtime Error! This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information".

Clicking OK (the only option) closes the program and files without saving.

2. Periodically moving, copying, editing or pasting a symbol within a symbol causes the following message to be displayed:

"Vectorworks Application has encountered a problem and needs to close....Send Error Report / Don't Send".

Sometimes this will let you view the error report data but sometimes even this window will lock up requiring CTRL-ALT-DEL as the only option to close the program down again without saving.

3. Periodically at around 4pm in the afternoon (having been in use since 9am) Vectorworks will begin to slow down and eventually crash, usually without any further warning.

4. Periodically just before and or after an Autosave, Vectorworks will slow down, display the (Not Responding) text at the top of the window and will hang temporarily. The program will then appear to come back to life (ie. Not Responding disappears, control of the mouse is regained and the drop down menus appear to work). If I then choose any operation from the menus, usually File>Save, the program locks up and crashes.

5. Sometimes at start up after a crash, Vectorworks will display the various option info boxes and the main window in outline, but rest of the screen is just white. This sometimes hangs and displayed the Not Responding text.

There have been other crashes but these are just today's. I would be grateful for some advice.

Thanks,

SC.

[archy]

katie i just tried to continue to render in fast renderworks the drawing it stopped on - the program disappered without a dialogue or any sound. at this point i am going to re install 12.0 and see if it works. this is becoming a huge disappointment.

[Stuart Child]

Following up from posting on the 21st Nov 2006.

I'm experiencing similar crashes today.

Have stumbled on this sequence which leads to a crash everytime. Applies to VW12.0.1 and VW12.5.0 with Architect and Renderworks on Windows XP SP2.

1. Open New Drawing

2. Draw a 'C' shape using three walls.

3. Check the walls a linked using the join wall tool.

4. Check "Enable connected walls mode"

5. Click, Drag, Press Shift, and drop the middle vertical wall of the 'C'.

6. Press Shift, then try to Drag and Drop the middle vertical wall of the 'C'. This will normally draw a dotted fence as if you were trying to select the object.

7. Repeat 5 and 6 eventually the program locks up and crashes with either "Runtime C++ error" message or "Vectorworks has unexpectedly stopped" message.

Hope this is of some use and can be resolved.

Thanks.

SC.

Edited November 22, 2006 by Stuart Child

[Guest]

Stuart,

This error message is usually caused by the video driver. When was the last time you updated the video driver?

[Stuart Child]

Katie,

Thanks for getting back to us.

I have updated the driver today to following spec:

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400

Driver Provider: NVIDIA

Driver Date: 23/06/2006

Driver Version: 9.1.3.3

However the problem with the editing / moving the walls still causes VW12.5 to crash.

Stuart.

[Guest]

Does it happen in a new, blank document?

[Stuart Child]

Katie, Yes, the wall problem occurs when starting with a completely blank document, chosen via File > New > Create Blank Document.

SC.

[FCD_Cat]

I'm back again. I updated my video driver (ATI FireGL G3100, VW12.5, XP PC) to the most recent available on the ATI website. For one day approx. I did not have a problem with crashing. Today the problem has returned, a week later.

Problem presents thus:

In specific files, when I attempt to import a symbol from elsewhere (another self-created resource file and/or VW library resource files), VW crashes. There is no error message, no warning, just gone.

In a new file, this problem does not present.

In some other files (most often smaller), the problem does not present.

As I've updated the video driver, what else might I try?

Thank you!

[Guest]

Stuart - have you updated the video driver?

[Guest]

FCD -

Do you have any type of spyware or anti-virus software that is set to a high level?

[FCD_Cat]

Katie,

My anti-virus/spyware software are set to low. Could it be related file-size? The file it consistently presents in is 10megs, but there are no really complex objects - just lighting and truss equipment.

FCD_Cat

[ErichR]

Katie may be on to something, but none of the above posters indicated whether or not they were connected a network.

We had to stop using Norton's (at the network level) since VW pings the network for other instances of VW (so that it can detect unregistered users).

Contacting Norton's support system proves to be a waste of time (lots of time).

Try a differrent network-level virus protection, and see if you notice an immediate improvement.

As a test, you could unplug your network connection to see if it makes a differrence.

[Stuart Child]

Katie

The video driver has been updated as per my previous post on 11/22/06, and I have checked this again for any available updates.

Re: ErichR posting 11/28/06.

We are connected to an internal office network which has Symantec Antivirus installed. I will try to arrange to work disconnected from the network to see if there is any improvement.

Re: My original post 11/21/06 + Post by Tully.

The 'runtime error' also comes up from time to time when deleting unrelated dimensions in a drawing.

Hope this is of some use.

We have also recently downloaded the updated version of VW12.5.0(61447) following advice on a separate issue but the same problems are occurring.

SC.

Edited November 29, 2006 by Stuart Child

[godfrey]

I am a new user and have installed 12.5 ona G5 Mac running 10.3.9.

I get crashes when I select the window tool in the " building Shell ' group of tools . The tool box fails to go grey and about 1 second later the programme quits with message " Application Vectorworks has quit unexpectedly "

Having read this discussion I have tried a number of fixes all to no avail.

1. Loaded on iMac running 10.4.1

2.disconnected machine from network

3.disconnected all other USB connections

Any suggestions

JG

[SteveK]

Problem presents thus:

In specific files, when I attempt to import a symbol from elsewhere (another self-created resource file and/or VW library resource files), VW crashes. There is no error message, no warning, just gone.

FCD_Cat, do you have any workgroup references in your drawings that on a networked server. If so, is the path to the referenced file a mapped drive such as; Z:\Folder\file.mcd? Change the path of any workgroup reference on a network share from a mapped drive to the full UNC path such as; \\Server\Folder\file.mcd.

I had a problem everytime I righ clicked a symbol or dragged a symbol from the resource browser, VW would go away as you described. My titleblock was refereced from P:\Projects\file.mcd. When I changed to \\Server\Projects\file.mcd, the problem went away.

[FCD_Cat]

Thanks, Steve! I will test this. Much appreciated,

FCD_Cat

[FCD_Cat]

Steve,

How do I change the path from a mapped drive to the UNC path? I understand the goal, just not where to change the VW preferences. I have the options of saving the absolute path (which references the mapped drive), or saving the path relative to the current document (which will cause the file to not be found if I need to share it with anyone who has not updated to 12.5). I don't find an option to use the UNC path. I do not have the option of renaming any mapped drives. Thank you for your help!

Cat

[Guest]

We had to stop using Norton's (at the network level) since VW pings the network for other instances of VW (so that it can detect unregistered users).

This can be resolved by setting a rule in Norton to ignore messages sent by VectorWorks.

[Guest]

Stuart,

There is a newer driver available:

Version: 93.71

Release Date: November 2, 2006

Download it from here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71.html

[ErichR]

I don't think Katie is correct that you can set the rule to ignore.

We could not make this work. Had to replace Nortons - it's too clever.

P.S. Ask NNA why they can't get Norton to recognize VW as valid.

Edited November 30, 2006 by ErichR

[SteveK]

How do I change the path from a mapped drive to the UNC path?

Cat,

In the Workgroup References window, select the ref that you want to change and click on "Edit". In the Edit Reference window, under "Source File" you should see the current path to the referenced drawing. Click on the "Browse" button and navigate to your network location by going through My Network Places -> Entire Network -> etc., instead of the mapped drive in My Computer. I ended up putting a short cut to our projects folder on the server in "My Network Places" to make it a little quicker to access.

I have never been able to set the "Path relative to current document" as it is always greyed out.

[Guest]

Erich,

We've been able to do this here. If you have a network implentation of Norton, then you will need to make the rule on the server side.

You can always contact Norton on how to set rules.

At home when I get the message, I have an option asking me what I want to do next time this message pops up. When I click into the box, there's an option for me to create a rule and set it to ignore VW. I haven't had to do it in a while, so I don't know the exact process, but Norton is usually pretty helpful with things like that.

Edited November 30, 2006 by Katie

[Kevin]

On the Mac, I use Diskwarrior. Every week or two I run it. I am often surprised that it finds problems when I am not experiencing any difficulties. From this experience I know that my hard drive becomes corrupted without my knowledge. I would assume that when enough corruption builds up, the computer will become unstable.

My advice is to run Diskwarrior to both address known problems and to prevent future ones. I cannot say whether it will help in your VW crashes, but it certainly might.

[Stuart Child]

Katie,

Thanks for the updated video driver. There has been a little improvement with the newer version of VW12.5.0(61447), in so much as the frequency of crashes has decreased but VW12.5 still crashes during editing:

1. Just before and after auto saves.

2. When editing the walls as described before.

3. Sometimes when deleting dimensions.

4. When editing and stretching polygons (similar sequence as item 2 when accidently pressing the shift key before trying to stretch the polygon).

Any suggestions?

Thanks. SC

Edited December 1, 2006 by Stuart Child

[Guest]

Stuart,

Does this happen in every file, or just certain ones?

Send one of the files having the problems (along with a description of the problem) to tech@nemetschek.net