Jump to content

VW Crashes - Why Do We Put Up With Crashes?


Recommended Posts

I too have been experiencing many more crashes on 2016 than on 2015. Too busy trying to slam out projects to do a detailed analysis - although one thing I experienced today was multiple crashes on hitting "undo" while editing a symbol.

I'm just trying to hit the Save button basically every time I make any significant edit. These crashes are on two different machines (in fact, two different licenses, my personal VSS license and the one at work which is educational), and all on files brought in from 2015.

PS - Admittedly I have not been following Jim W's advice, even though I know better, to re-start my machine after any crash. Might explain some of the multiple crashes. I know that is recommended practice and I'll try to be better about it. (just re-started now for instance!)

Edited by Jeff B
Link to comment

2015 was a real joy, it did crash but probably only once or twice in the year, 2016 crashes at least 3 times every day and it is driving me crazy.

I know I am on windows 10 and that may be a contributory factor, however I was using 2015 on 10 as well with no problem at all.

I have to work on converted drawings from 2015, a lot of my work is altering and modifying schemes which were conceived and commenced during the previous versions and it would be hard to find any architect that could start new projects that coincide with Vectorworks release dates.

I have also noticed that text creation or alteration within a drawing is so slow it seems to take seconds to delete or add characters, I am sure that this programme can not be so memory hungry that it can not cope with simple text editing within a drawing.

(This is the case with fresh drawings as well as legacy)

I have updated graphics drivers as per the recommendations of the knowledge base.

Has anyone else noticed the text problem?

Roll on SP1!!

Link to comment
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
I have also noticed that text creation or alteration within a drawing is so slow it seems to take seconds to delete or add characters, I am sure that this programme can not be so memory hungry that it can not cope with simple text editing within a drawing.

(This is the case with fresh drawings as well as legacy)

I have updated graphics drivers as per the recommendations of the knowledge base.

Has anyone else noticed the text problem?

Roll on SP1!!

Does the problem occur even in brand new documents with any font? Or is there a particular font that exhibits more/less slowness than others?

Standard system fonts behave the same as any additional fonts you may use regularly?

Link to comment

Hi Jim

Just set up a new drawing in 2016 and it is faster (not as fast as 2015)

It happens in legacy drawings with any text at any drawing size.

Most of my work is with drawings which were created in previous versions, so it is no help to me if this is the reason for the slow text response.

Could it be a bug in the migration, or has text changed in some way to make this a problem?

Thanks Jim I do appreciate your quick response.

Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

Crash after Crash after Crash - for the Latest Designer VW2016 on Mac latest OS 10.11.1

16GB RAM.

Examples are plenty: simple crash on one blank document with one letter while trying to Export to DWG.

Other times get some message such as "Operation aborted due to lack of memory".

Link to comment
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
Crash after Crash after Crash - for the Latest Designer VW2016 on Mac latest OS 10.11.1

16GB RAM.

Examples are plenty: simple crash on one blank document with one letter while trying to Export to DWG.

Other times get some message such as "Operation aborted due to lack of memory".

Make sure you've gotten in touch with support directly, Memory errors are nowadays often hardware or file specific.

Link to comment
  • 11 months later...

I don't mean to bring up an old topic....I am doing research on the stability of the program/crashes/updates etc.  With the new 2017 release - I am experiencing 5+ crashes per day.  The program is taking 30+ mins to import a cad file...then after that it will crash within 2 mins of trying to work in the file.  I am very frustrated right now (not to the point of injecting my eyeballs with bleach) but I have thought about throwing my keyboard across the room.  With the autosave feature set at 10 mins - I don't mind crashes cause I can open it back up - but AutoCAD crashes on me 1 time per month on average.  When I run VWs I only have that program open (and Outlook and excel).  That's it.

 

We have 2 seats in our office - we both are experiencing the same thing.  After reading over a post by JimW above - do I STILL have to restart my computer after every crash, wipe preferences?  Should I reinstall?  I am looking for suggestions or direction.  I will also reach out to tech support.  I want this program to succeed here in our office - I am not giving up yet!!!  Thanks

Link to comment

The more we work - we find that crashes are, as Jim says, file specific.  Older files, files that have been upgraded, larger files, files that have lots of references and dwg imports, files that use plan rotation all seem to add up to a file that can become fragile and crash prone.  Other files, seem to be solid.  An old trick I used to use was to back save the file to an earlier version then upgrade it.  An old colleague of mine said that would cause VW to rewrite the object list which can sometimes help stabilize a problem file. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Thanks for the info - but my question to you is - is someone keeping a running log of all these little tricks and work arounds?  As a relatively new user to VWs (little over 1 year) I find myself becoming more and more frustrated with the program.  I am not a software engineer - so I am not going to make a blanket statement "can't they just fix it"......   I work on large sites daily - the most current project is a new high school.  The campus is on 100 acres.  I cannot get VWs to handle the cad survey.  I have submitted a tech support request.  

Link to comment
35 minutes ago, Tom Klaber said:

The more we work - we find that crashes are, as Jim says, file specific.  Older files, files that have been upgraded, larger files, files that have lots of references and dwg imports, files that use plan rotation all seem to add up to a file that can become fragile and crash prone.  Other files, seem to be solid.  An old trick I used to use was to back save the file to an earlier version then upgrade it.  An old colleague of mine said that would cause VW to rewrite the object list which can sometimes help stabilize a problem file. 

I tried this - the file still crashed once the xref for the survey was imported.  Saved back. and then reopened.  Then when i went to import the building xref the program crashed.  Just an FYI.

Link to comment

This sounds like one for the techs.  It probably is just VW struggling to deal with a large non-VW file.  

One thing to check to see if is if the lines are actually lines and not splines or other more data heavy objects.   When you import - to a large convert - and then purge to shrink the file to the needed info. 

Link to comment

I'm getting crashes while working in 3D on relatively small files, especially when playing with Renderworks textures. It also seems to crash when updating referenced files, importing vw2016 files (some), working with smart objects (some) and sometimes for no apparent reason at all. Luckily the backup files seem to work, but it's still annoying. 

 

Bottom line: set the autosave to a time frame short enough where you don't have too much déjà vu redoing things, save often and backup everything... and hope the Sierra compatibility update makes VWX 2017 more stable!

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...