Autocad 2014: Files Renaming Themselves

[TristanDrake]

We are having a small problem, one person has her files rename themselves as she is using them.

She find that randomly drawings will rename themselves "Drawing1" and require a Save-As (always promts for this, quick saving or not) to point the file back to it's original location. The original file is not Read-Only and she can continoue to work fine before and after saving. This will happen multiple times a day with multiple files, and as far as she can see randomly. Each time a file is changed it will increment up (Drawing2, Drawing3, etc.). She is currently using Tabs without the ribbon on a Windows 7 Lenova Thinkpad (5 months old).

I have not been able to find anything about this exact problem online, and the closest I can see is where a file becomes Read-Only due to a slow network and requiring new save which does not sound right.

Thanks!

[rkmcswain]

Where are the DWG files saved? On a local drive or on a network share?

If the latter, give us some specs about this network location. O/S? Running a SAN/NAS?

Are your IS/IT people involved?

[TristanDrake]

The files are saved on our network storage (NAS), with no files being saved directly to the employees computer. The user has full permissions to use the folder location.

The server is running on Windows Server 2012. Not sure what else to tell you about the server.

We do not have an IT department, so it is left to me to work out what may be the problem (lots of Googling in other words). We can contact our network installers/managers, but we want to try and figure it out in house before that.

[rkmcswain]

I'm no network engineer but AFAIK, a NAS is a managed device, and has some layer of software controlling it. Most that I have seen/been exposed to are using some flavor of linux to do this. There are all sorts of potential file i/o problems between the way AutoCAD works and the way linux manages the NAS.

I have first hand experience with this here, and the answer we received from Autodesk was a simple "We do not support NAS, we do not support SAN, etc. etc." 

Your problem may be something different, but I wanted to bring this up in case you can't find anything else.

[doni49]

When you say someting like "rename themselves Drawing1", I envision opening MyFile.dwg and now acad is showing the name as Drawing1.  Is that what you're seeing?  And then when saving the file, it requires a Save-As?

If that's the case, it sounds like she's telling it to create a NEW file (File>New or Ctrl N) and instead of choosing a template, she's choosing her dwg file.

[TristanDrake]

As far as I understand it Microsoft Server is managing things without Linux, but I am no expert at all in what makes it function on a deeper level. If we feel it is networking issue I will simply take it to our offsite network managers and let them know we cannot work this problem out through Autocad.

The files simply change names while she is working on them (possibly when autosaves?) and when she goes to do a quicksave it asks where to save it and is already named "Drawing1". She is noticing this via the Tabs below her menu bars (not using the Ribbon).

The file opens as the correct name (via file->Open), and she is not creating the file as a New File.

[doni49]

So you're saying she Opens MyFile.dwg, sees MyFile in the tab but then when she goes to save, it's defaulting to a diff name?

That doesn't sound like a network issue to me.  I know that if I try to save a file and it can't due to whatever network issues it has, it just keeps telling me to save.  But the default file/path is still the same -- if I'm going to change it, I have to manually do so.

[jggerth]

What brand and model is the NAS you're using?  

[rkmcswain]

doni49 wrote:

That doesn't sound like a network issue to me.

One of the problems we were having on our setup was this: A user could open a file, make a change, Qsave, then close the file. Then immediately open the same file and the changes would not be there. However, another user could open the file and the changes would be visible.

It appeared that the NAS controller software (whatever it was) was doing some sort of built in versioning and when AutoCAD+Windows was requesting a file for open, the NAS was delivering one of any number of files it contained by that same name. Sometimes you would get the latest version and other times you wouldn't. It was quite random feeling and obviously not an environment in which you want to work.

[TristanDrake]

doni49: The file will already be named "Drawing1" before she does her manual save. When she saves it will prompt her to select a save location with this name. She can then point back to the original file and save over it, and the drawing will rename itself. The file may or may not change name again later on during the work session.

As you say one would expect still have the same name but the original file would be read only if there was a network issue. A manual name change would be required to save (FileName_02.dwg for example).

I will go take a look at the box and see what I can find for the NAS brand info and get back to you.

[doni49]

Do you have access a "regular" file server?  If so, try saving the file there just see if you can duplicate the issue.  If that test works fine, then it would have to be the NAS and in that case, I'd put this in the lap of your IT team.

If the test has the same results, then it's not a NAS issue and Adesk might be able to help (if you've got support on your subscription).

[rkmcswain]

doni49 wrote:

Do you have access a "regular" file server?  If so, try saving the file there just see if you can duplicate the issue.  If that test works fine, then it would have to be the NAS and in that case, I'd put this in the lap of your IT team.

If the test has the same results, then it's not a NAS issue and Adesk might be able to help (if you've got support on your subscription).

Good call. That is essentially how we diagnosed it.

[TristanDrake]

I am not sure what you mean by a "Regular" server (just a networked drive and not the main server save location?). I can get her to save to her desktop and see if this problem still happens.

I will also contact our network support company and see if they have any ideas on this issue. It is just strange that of 15 seats of autocad that only one is having this problem if it is network related.

[pendean]

have the user start and save the file to their OWN PC, stay away from the NAS. Then find out if the file magically renames itself or not.

I also recommend you sit adjacent the user and confirm the problem actually exists on the NAS, observe how it's triggered, and then stay ther during the ON-HER-PC test of the file.

[doni49]

By "Regular Server", I meant a full fledged file server as opposed to a NAS.