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2017 Crashes, laggy, screen refresh


Sky

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I've been using 2017 for a couple of weeks on a project and it's been a problem.

1. It crashes. A lot. Multiple times a day. 

2. It is soooooooooo laggy! Cutting and pasting. Panning. Everything. When I go back to 2016, it is noticeably different. 

3. Sometimes I do something (join walls, resize something, etc.) and it still looks like I didn't do it. But when I force the screen to refresh (zooming out or in) it shows correctly.

 

I don't think I have ever been so disappointed with a VW upgrade as I am now.

Are these known issues? Will these be fixed?

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You may want to check your display setting in Vectorworks. If it is set to Best performance you may want to try if Good performance but compatible works better for you. So far I'm not noticing major differences in overall speed between 2016 and 2017 other than 2017 being a bit faster in some areas thanks to the updated VGM.

Edited by Art V
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I'm finding VW2017 very mixed with performance. As Mark says, over time some drawings become very laggy. But I've also tried starting entirely from scratch and had the same issues with a very simple model. I've tried all three compatibility settings. I have a feeling my system is considered not up to par with the specs required for VW2017. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

 

NV has put all the eggs in the graphics processor basket. I have a processor monitor in my menu bar and VW almost never taxes the system processor at all unless Renderworks is working. Basically it means my current system, and the one it replaced, are far more powerful than VW can use when it comes to straight up processing power. I feel that focussing only on the graphics processor is short sighted and is going to force all users to continually upgrade their systems, systems that have other processing power that basically goes untapped. 

 

Kevin

 

Edited by Kevin McAllister
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19 hours ago, markdd said:

I have found that over the course of the day some drawings become very laggy. I just save and restart the program and that sorts it out. Not ideal but a work-around nonetheless 

 

Thank you! I will give that a try.

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I'm also having huge problems. Sudden crashes when zooming in or out, crashing somewhat arbitrarily (I wish it was consistent so I could post about it) and Crashing with the Align/Distribute tool (although that issues been posted already). Is there an time estimate for SP3? These issues are extremely inefficient.

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16 hours ago, echad11 said:

I'm also having huge problems. Sudden crashes when zooming in or out, crashing somewhat arbitrarily (I wish it was consistent so I could post about it) and Crashing with the Align/Distribute tool (although that issues been posted already). Is there an time estimate for SP3? These issues are extremely inefficient.

 

Agreed!!! Would love an ETA on SP3. There's still a lot of issues which are affecting our workflows and we're already now 5 months into this release cycle!

 

I was showing a software engineer friend of mine some of the simple, replicatable crashes and anomolies, and he said that some of them should be fixed on the fly with hot-fixes rather than waiting for a big service pack.

 

I've found that a few mature tools have regressed a lot, and the new tools are in some beta form. The structural member tool, as I've discussed within a fortnight of release is completely unfit, very buggy, not as discribed and dangerous in a production environment.

 

Although it's been tweaked a bit in the last two service packs it still needs a lot of work. 5 months and counting is a very long time to be waiting for adequate fixes.

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I'm not even 40 hours into Vectorworks 17, and struggling (mostly working on a large project imported from VW 2016):

 

2017 seems generally slower than 2016 when it comes to moving around in the 3D environment.  Whenever I activate the Orbit command (or otherwise go to a 3D view), it's necessary to wait a spell during which a "Geometry" progress bar makes an appearance. VWIS092

 

OpenGL rendering seems to take longer, especially when working with just a few objects within a group or symbol (with "Show Other Objects" turned off). VWIS092

 

Graphic changes, such as those made using the Eyedropper Tool, or after changing class attributes, aren't immediate: it's necessary to at least zoom, or otherwise change the view, before the screen regenerates.  It's taking a while to learn that, usually, while it looks like nothing has been accomplished, a change has in fact been made.  And (at least for a while), zooming in and out in a 3D view, especially in OpenGL, was very tedious.  I've got more than enough computing and graphics power for Vectorworks, yet I've got my "Navigation Graphics" set to "Best Compatibility" (though I'm not sure that that's making any helpful difference...).  VWIS093

 

Dimensions placed in 3D views disappear, and it's necessary go to Top/Plan view and then return back to a 3D view to get them to reappear.  VWIS094

 

 

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After using 2017 for a number of weeks now, we are also finding 2017 to be generally slower to work with than 2016 & 2015.  For instance, after selecting a 2D line and clicking the line type button in the attribute palette takes 3 seconds for the 'browser' type window to appear so a new line type can be selected. There are random crashes, not too often fortunately, but it's frustrating & time consuming.

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I too am finding 2017 a no go for our work and it's really frustrating.  I wonder if it is related to hardware and I have an older Mac machine, granted, I've updated it significantly in the areas of SSD and GPU, so well, well above minimum spec.  I find:

  • Slow to open the program and slow to open files
  • Crashes without warning (no hang) and behavior is not consistent or always reproducible.
  • Anything created in previous versions creates issues (and all of our stock symbols are older), but even files started from scratch in 2017 can crash.
  • New "improved" workflow for C4D transfer is a step backwards in options and choice of workflow.

It's a shame as I spend all day in the program and have loved it.  I've gone back to 2016 for everything and just use 2017 to save client files down to 2016. The new features sound awesome and needed (improved 2D navigation speed, better OPEN GL performance, etc) but instability keeps me scared to use the program.  Reading this thread gave me some comfort as I thought I was the only one. 2016 works like a dream and is the best version of VW I've worked with.

 

I hate to just bitch about it, but I am at a loss for what to do.  Any time we try to jump back into it, the crashes drive us away before we can even generate bug reports.  @JimWHow can this get better?  What can we do to help? My business is invested heavily in this software and I'm losing faith.

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Since my comment earlier in this thread, I've done a full reinstall of VW2017. Overall my VW experience is pretty stable now, though there is still some weirdness in certain situations. Most of my performance issues were related to these items -

 

- VW2017 and Time Machine do not play well together. Often when things slow down, I check and discover Time Machine is backing up in the background. I walk away until its done. (I think this is a Time Machine issue, not a VW issue.)

- Dropbox syncing in the background can affect VW's performance.

- VW2017 doesn't like geometry heavy files.... not sure why, maybe just the amount of system memory they use. Its not about display, which is fine, but more about what's happening in the background. It happens even when the heavy geometry is on an inactive layer. I start to see things like the mouse cursor flashes when you roll over a field in the OIP, the mouse cursor gets stuck as the wrong pointer (usually an oversize arrow, like its been magnified). Pre-selection highlighting becomes unbearable, almost to the point of having to turn it off. Same can be true of snaps. Similar issues can happen if you import geometry heavy PDFs.

 

There are lots of things I like about VW2017 which have made sticking with it worth it.

 

Kevin

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On 2/8/2017 at 10:07 PM, Kevin McAllister said:

Since my comment earlier in this thread, I've done a full reinstall of VW2017. Overall my VW experience is pretty stable now, though there is still some weirdness in certain situations. Most of my performance issues were related to these items -

 

- VW2017 and Time Machine do not play well together. Often when things slow down, I check and discover Time Machine is backing up in the background. I walk away until its done. (I think this is a Time Machine issue, not a VW issue.)

Hi Kevin - Since these issue generally don't exist in R16 and earlier - why would you conclude that it is a Time machine issue?  I've never noticed a link, but I'll keep an eye on it.

 

On 2/8/2017 at 10:07 PM, Kevin McAllister said:

- Dropbox syncing in the background can affect VW's performance.

Drop box has become such a resource hog in general.  I'm currently looking at other solutions (sync, box, etc) to replace Dropbox.

 

On 2/8/2017 at 10:07 PM, Kevin McAllister said:

- VW2017 doesn't like geometry heavy files.... not sure why, maybe just the amount of system memory they use. Its not about display, which is fine, but more about what's happening in the background. It happens even when the heavy geometry is on an inactive layer. I start to see things like the mouse cursor flashes when you roll over a field in the OIP, the mouse cursor gets stuck as the wrong pointer (usually an oversize arrow, like its been magnified). Pre-selection highlighting becomes unbearable, almost to the point of having to turn it off. Same can be true of snaps. Similar issues can happen if you import geometry heavy PDFs.

This seems like a major issue for a CAD program to have though as I would think the majority of the user base in all fields have heavy files. And again - not to beat a dead horse, but R16 and earlier didn't suffer like this (outside of normal software development and hardware improvements over time).

 

On 2/8/2017 at 10:07 PM, Kevin McAllister said:

 

There are lots of things I like about VW2017 which have made sticking with it worth it.

 

Kevin

I think I could handle a performance hit if that was it, but the problem is really about instability for me.  I also don't like the change of workflow for exporting to Cinema 4D, but I realize that is just my preferences and specific workflow and I am probably in the minority on that one......Zoomer is ecstatic :)

 

I realize how hardware setups can really play into these issues, and it must be hard to keep all parts of the software flowing nicely.  Cinema 4D has spoiled me as it is just the most stable piece of software I've ever used.  I really don't want to complain, I truly love what you can do with this software, but I am concerned about where this goes moving forward.

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One of many problems with this particular set of symptoms is that their causes aren't confirmed. I even have two test machines here with IDENTICAL hardware that were both clones of the same install of macOS and one exhibits problems while the other doesn't at all, even in the exact same file. 

This isn't intended at all, but this weird redraw lag and intermittent nonresponsiveness is new. There are things you can do to mitigate it and things that may exacerbate it (both categories discussed in a few posts above) but so far I haven't been able to cure any machines completely that have hit significant problems. I'm still on it, but it's slid up the ladder quite a few rungs now and I'm awaiting testing results. 

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New information:

 

Engineering is fairly confident that while the symptoms appear similar, according to the crash log reports there are a number of different causes for the issues discussed in this thread. They believe that fixes are on the way (meaning, planned for a service pack for 2017, but no date set yet) for a significant majority of these issues but that if we end up with any stragglers, it will be much easier to narrow down the causes after most of the symptoms are cleared away. There was absolutely an uptick in instability and crashes in SP2 compared to SP1 according to our new tracking system, and engineering is working to find and fix them all.

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@JimWits great to hear the analytics are paying off already.....

 

2 hours ago, EAlexander said:

Hi Kevin - Since these issue generally don't exist in R16 and earlier - why would you conclude that it is a Time machine issue?  I've never noticed a link, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Drop box has become such a resource hog in general.  I'm currently looking at other solutions (sync, box, etc) to replace Dropbox

 

Perhaps its a VW issue. Not sure. There's definitely a correlation of some sort. Maybe its related to network or disk access. Both Time Machine and Dropbox use both of these system resources.

 

2 hours ago, EAlexander said:

This seems like a major issue for a CAD program to have though as I would think the majority of the user base in all fields have heavy files. And again - not to beat a dead horse, but R16 and earlier didn't suffer like this (outside of normal software development and hardware improvements over time).

 

No question that this is an issue. My files are geometry heavy as I tend to model everything from scratch. I don't make much use of the built in PIOs and there are a lot of curves. My conversion resolutions (2d and 3d) tend to be set to high because I like to see the proper geometry.

 

2 hours ago, EAlexander said:

 

I think I could handle a performance hit if that was it, but the problem is really about instability for me.  I also don't like the change of workflow for exporting to Cinema 4D, but I realize that is just my preferences and specific workflow and I am probably in the minority on that one......Zoomer is ecstatic :)

 

I realize how hardware setups can really play into these issues, and it must be hard to keep all parts of the software flowing nicely.  Cinema 4D has spoiled me as it is just the most stable piece of software I've ever used.  I really don't want to complain, I truly love what you can do with this software, but I am concerned about where this goes moving forward.

 

I agree that C4D is very stable and hardly every gets challenged by the geometry. I find Rhino is the same way. C4D is definitely geared towards production heavy industries so it needs to be in order to be competitive. Its hard to compare VW while its a mix of old and new code.... its held back by a lot of legacy aspects.

 

VW has been continually improving which is great to see. It sounds like analytics will help target the troublesome areas....

 

Kevin

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why is 2017 SO LAGGY!? I can't work in 3D... it takes forever. Just really frustrated. There is absolutely no reason simple models are taking minutes to refresh. Every move I'm waiting & waiting.

FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!! YEA, IVE TRIED THE SETTINGS, NO CHANGE.

After many years, it's time to look for another solution for my CAD needs, cuz this is ridiculous.

Edited by crosetti
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3 hours ago, JimW said:

New information:

 

Engineering is fairly confident that while the symptoms appear similar, according to the crash log reports there are a number of different causes for the issues discussed in this thread. They believe that fixes are on the way (meaning, planned for a service pack for 2017, but no date set yet) for a significant majority of these issues but that if we end up with any stragglers, it will be much easier to narrow down the causes after most of the symptoms are cleared away. There was absolutely an uptick in instability and crashes in SP2 compared to SP1 according to our new tracking system, and engineering is working to find and fix them all.

Thanks for staying on top of this Jim!  It is greatly appreciated.

 

e.

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Thank you! After adding the designer tools and updating to SP2, Vectorworks has been all but unusable for me (my PC has 16gb system RAM, an additional 6gb of video RAM, and an i7 processor). Looking forward to getting back to drafting with a program that doesn't lag so far behind. Sometimes I have to hit TAB for 5-10 seconds before I can enter dimensions. So frustrating...

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48 minutes ago, crosetti said:

Really?? Seems ass backward.

I'm waiting forever for the program to respond while all these gigs of processor power are just sitting there useless?? ... what an awesome plan!

 

 

The slowness you're seeing (as long as your graphics hardware meets min specs and you aren't actively encountering a bug) is because neither the CPU nor the GPU is doing that operational math yet, they haven't yet been made multithreaded at all. CPU will be relied on to calculate geometry and math and GPU will be relied on to handle screen redraw once all the upgrades are complete.

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On 08/02/2017 at 10:48 PM, JimW said:

I hate responding when I have no new useful info, but I have no new useful info.

 

I have however scheduled a meeting tomorrow with a few managers to draw more attention to this thread and the associated issues.

How did the meeting go? Do you have useful info now?

 

been checking for sp3 twice a day hoping that it would land soon!!

 

 

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On 2/10/2017 at 10:55 AM, JimW said:

New information:

 

Engineering is fairly confident that while the symptoms appear similar, according to the crash log reports there are a number of different causes for the issues discussed in this thread. They believe that fixes are on the way (meaning, planned for a service pack for 2017, but no date set yet) for a significant majority of these issues but that if we end up with any stragglers, it will be much easier to narrow down the causes after most of the symptoms are cleared away. There was absolutely an uptick in instability and crashes in SP2 compared to SP1 according to our new tracking system, and engineering is working to find and fix them all.

 

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