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Please fix Vectorworks so it does not hang up.


Bruce Kieffer

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The most annoying events in Vectorworks is when it hangs up and you have to force quit. You see the spinning ball of death and all that goes through your mind is "Oh great, how much work am I going to lose." I just changed my auto backup settings from every 5 minutes to every 3 minutes, but the truth is you can't save often enough. I can't say with certainty the this is solely Vectorworks fault, but I can say that I don't use any other apps that hang or crash.

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B:

Right there with you. 2022 is a graphics card trainwreck. Freeze, beach ball, Crashes my entire OS. On Big Sur but terrified of moving to Monterey as it sounds like that's a whole host of other problems. Despite multiple submissions, no resolution from NNA engineers. Have tried reseting preferences, non customized workspaces. etc. Locks up. Wild guess is this is compiled for M1 chips, Intel be damned. meanwhile no desktop M1 option from the mothership.

 

2021 did not have this issue.  

 

How many hours of unbillable time does one have to incur? Makes me wonder why pay for service select when the software is broken?

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You have an M1 iMac ?

Cool !

(which color ?)

 

 

2 hours ago, Bruce Kieffer said:

I just changed my auto backup settings from every 5 minutes to every 3 minutes,

 

You could try to set Auto Backup from "minutes" to "Number of commands".

For me that is much more stable.

 

I have a 16 GB M1 Mac Mini.

I get lags only with very large files.

This is when Activity Manager > Memory, the curve goes from green to yellow.

As long as you are green, it should work flawlessly.

If it does not, it may be a problem for VW support.

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2 minutes ago, zoomer said:

You could try to set Auto Backup from "minutes" to "Number of commands".

For me that is much more stable.

This is what I do, and then set the number of Undos to match.  That way I can undo to the last saved backup.  I'm using 30 commands for both, which seems to be a good balance between using RAM and disk access.

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I couldn't agree more. I just upgraded to 2022 along with a new computer (can't seem to find signature editing option, so details added below). Any action dealing with site model editing or tree placement eats up ram and causes the program function to freeze as it devours memory in the background. It doesn't bottleneck my ram either, but the entire program grinds to a halt. Processor and GPU rarely exceed 8% load in task manager while memory will be at 30-40%.

 

What gives?

 

Intel i5-12600K

32GB DDR-3200 RAM

1 TB M2 Nvme drive

Nvidia Quadro K5200 8GB

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To access the Signature edit option - go to Account (right upper corner) > Account Settings > Signature

 

@inilegnamVectorworks 2022 SP3 will be released soon, and we are introducing multiple fixes related to the Site Model and plants/tree placements, and more. However, make sure you have installed the latest 2022 Service Pack in the meantime. 

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4 minutes ago, JuanP said:

To access the Signature edit option - go to Account (right upper corner) > Account Settings > Signature

 

@inilegnamVectorworks 2022 SP3 will be released soon, and we are introducing multiple fixes related to the Site Model and plants/tree placements, and more. However, make sure you have installed the latest 2022 Service Pack in the meantime. 

Thanks--the signature menu item wasn't showing until just now for some reason.

 

That's a relief. VW hasn't run slower for me on these operations since I upgraded both my machine and VW version. I am running latest Service Pack. It's dreadfully, work-haltingly slow.

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Currently waiting for VW to figure out how to move the corner of a grade limit--it literally freezes the entire program and clogs my RAM. See screenshot. Keep in mind, this is from moving on 3d point a few feet (in document scale).

 

The same project--200 acre property--runs seamlessly in QGIS where I do geospatial analysis. I can run any command in there and it is lightning fast, and we're talking very complex calculations like water flow rendering or aspect modeling. So, I'm wondering what is it about this new VW and the way it's written that causes it to bottleneck under the slightest process such as moving the location of a 3d point a few feet? It's very frustrating and costing me and my client. 

Screenshot 2022-02-28 144246.png

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I tried the above user folder trick outlined here:

It had no effect...

 

As an experiment, I opened a large file that I made originally on a 2012 Macbook Pro--2.6ghz intel with 8gb ram if I remember--which had no problem creating or editing the file, let alone doing complex cut & fill calculations. It got to 11% load and then crashed VW 2022 SP2.1...

 

This is unacceptable to me. To pay so much and be entirely stymied from performing critical tasks. When will a fix be delivered? My work on one of my projects is mostly halted. And here I was thinking this big upgrade would change my life for the better. Aye, aye, aye...

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inilegnam:

 

Tried the same user folder trick as well. No affect. Having the same issue on an iMac Pro vintage 2017. Large file no problem in 2021. 2022,2.1 an unmitigated disaster for me. Same behavior except its on a simple pan. Crashes the entire OS. 32gb 2.6 ghz. Makes me wonder why drink the service select koolaid. tech support is stumped, reports go to engineering (black hole). No other software on the machine crashes.  Costing me thousands in un-billable time.  My unsubstantiated theory is 2022 is complied for M1 chips, intel be damned. Somewhere in there it does not want to play with AMD graphics.  Perhaps SP 3 will address this, but not holding my breath.

ugh.

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I found the main conflict was when I was trying to work while the program was autosaving. Now, I have the "confirm before save" option checked - that allows me to stop working for the moment it is saving. I have not had issues since then. It's like the program can't handle saving in the background while I continue working.

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On 3/1/2022 at 6:30 AM, inilegnam said:

Any action dealing with site model editing or tree placement eats up ram and causes the program function to freeze as it devours memory in the background. It doesn't bottleneck my ram either, but the entire program grinds to a halt. Processor and GPU rarely exceed 8% load in task manager while memory will be at 30-40%.

 

What gives?

 

Hi @inilegnam, I provide Tech Support for Vectorworks users in New Zealand. I've been thinking about this thread and others like it for a while. In my work I've encountered many performance issues like the one you've described. The vast majority I encounter are not due to bugs or inefficient code and I'm concerned issues are often being misattributed to the Vectorworks software. So I've reviewed some of my historical cases to test my beliefs and will humbly contribute the following: 

 

The symptoms you describe remind me of an issue that was due to a bug, long since fixed. As it was a software bug, I received reports from multiple users and the problem was reproducible in a default/fresh installation of Vectorworks. As I have not received any reports of the issue you're experiencing from our users, this suggests the issue is not a software bug. 

 

Your case reminds me of another issue I helped resolve involving a site model that was incurring a great deal of processing with little to show for it. Evidently it was fixed by a process that will correct corrupt data/objects in the file. See this discussion. I've encountered imported SketchUp objects that induced similar problems and various other conditions too, such as 'far out objects' - a condition that can overburden even the most powerful computers and induce a variety of symptoms so broad I'm no longer surprised by any of them. It is quite often the cause of document-specific issues submitted to us. 

 

While the issue you're facing could indeed be due to a bug in the software, experience, symptoms presented and lack of other reports make me suspect something specific to your file (more likely) or perhaps something specific to your system (much less likely). Check out the first discussion I linked to above. Maybe it will lead you to a solution. 

 

 

Cheers, 

Jeremy 

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