VW 2017 will not open 2016 docs with mapped image textures

[rjtiedeman]

I have just updated my VW 2016 to VW2017 and I can't open Vectorworks 2016 documents that have textures or mapped images. VW 2017 will open and show vector 2d & 3d drawings. I have tested on documents with PDS images mapped and JPG images. Force quit will report VW not responding after some time. I am running Mac OS 10.12.1.

 

Mac Pro 2010 5,1, running Mac OS 10.12.1 with 32G Ram, GeForce GTX 680, Apricorn Velocity Solo X2 with 1 TB 840 EVO SSD, FASTA 6GU3 Pro USB 3.0 / SATA upgrade and 27" Apple LED Cinema Display.

Edited November 10, 2016 by rjtiedeman

[rjtiedeman]

I was mistaken. I attempted to load a VW 2016 file (with mapped graphics) again and walked away.. 5.5 hours later I came back and it had opened. SO VW 2017 will do what it's supposed to if you can wait. Since I am running Mac OS 10.12.1 I am hoping for a fix before my next project.

Edited November 13, 2016 by rjtiedeman

[John Lyons]

rjtiedeman,  I have also experienced something similar to this.  I have a favorites file with image-based textures that worked fine on VW 2016 through SP4.  When I installed VW 2017, the migration manager would not/did not convert the file.  I can no longer test the Migration Manager because all the files now have VW 2017 icons and MM won't let me open them (they are greyed out in the open dialog)  But if I try to open the favorites file with the VW application, it crashes the application... every time.  All this still happens after upgrading to VW 2017 SP1.

 

There is an odd but accidentally fortunate symptom associated with this problem... although it won't open the favorites file with the textures in it, I can open VW files (now 2017 files but descended from 2016 files) that reference the textures in the favorites file.  When VW starts up and opens the file, I get a three-line message about the fact that "One or more referenced files..." (see screen shot of warning message below). but at least it opens the project file. You would think that the that he referenced textures are not available but they actually are visible and available in the resource manager as if the library file had been properly converted!

 

Being limited in how much time I have to try and work around all the bugs that occur in VW, I just moved on.  But this is bad... the migration process is broken with respect to textures in VW 2016 files.

 

Vectorworks Engineering, please look into this and fix it.

 

 

PS,  A note to everyone at Vectorworks... Most of us love the program and we will stick with it, but you really have to do something about all the bugs.  As you can see by reading messages on this board, users are driven to distraction by the serious decline in reliability.  Regardless of the statistics that I have seen that say the incidence for crashes, etc, vs other programs is similar, our favorite Vectorworks needs to hold itself to a higher standard.  VW 2016 SP3 worked reasonably well for me.  VW 2016 SP4 damaged some things I used that worked fine in SP3.  Now, VW 2017 has hit a new low, and SP1 did nothing but make the problems worse.  And telling us to switch the 3d rendering preference to good performance/more compatibility is a very weak remedy and cosmetic only.  For instance, I have a pretty good rig and yet whole pieces of the rendered image are routinely missing after switching to a standard rotated 3d view with OpenGL on.  My hardware did fine with the same files in VW 2016.  You guys must have done something to hobble it, even if unintentional.  And the site modeling is a disaster... never did work well and now is almost unusable.  Please take this seriously.  Suspend or background introduction of new features and fix the bugs, please.

 

Edited November 13, 2016 by John Lyons
correction: resource manager, not browser

[rjtiedeman]

John Lyons, What OS are you using. I assumed my difficulties were caused by my unfortunate update to Mac OS Sierra. I have access to an older Imac running VW 2016 on Mac OS Yosemite and the files work fine and render render quickly.

[John Lyons]

Hi rjtiedeman, and thanks for your reply.  I am running VW Designer 2017 SP1 on a late 2012 iMac 27" with a 3.4Ghz Core i7 processor.  It has 32 GB of RAM, a 3TB Fusion drive with 128GB SSD, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX graphics subsystem with 2048 MB of video RAM.  I am running OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6.

 

I'm happy to hear that you were able to open your file with the textures.  Good Luck!

-John

[rjtiedeman]

IPhoneJohn, As noted I am running Mac OS Sierra 10.12.1 and as long as you save often and don't use old files with old textures it ran fine all day yesterday. If you create new textures in VW 2017 it seams to render slow but not as super slow as when I tried using old files. What ever is screwed up is a game changer for people using old versions of VW. I had allowed several old versions to stay on my CPU and now of them rendered with Apple's latest creation. So something rule was never adhered to or code changed that has made obsolete past versions of VW so get out your check book.

 

If you have an IPad, IPhone the new MAC OS system is handy to have. I am staying with 10.12. Ultimately NEMETSCHEK will fix the issue and VW 2017 will work. Plus I have to devote almost a day to erase my start up drive and reinstall from Time Machine since I lost my clone. OOPS

I Have Faith,

Bob

P.S. I agree with your comments.

[rjtiedeman]

Today I installed the lates VW 2017 service update and updated the VW libraries. Vectorworks now opens 2016 documents and renders them fairly quickly. I am now running well using Mac OS Sierra 10.12.1 using VW 2017. I would consider it fixed for now.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and thank you to the team at Vectorworks.

Bob Tiedemann

PS. Apple Safari is having more issues than VW.  

[Diamond]

I presume you are referring to the 2017 SP2 update?