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Opened files becoming read only in 2014

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Message 1 of 48
BrandonHarmon8165
7389 Views, 47 Replies

Opened files becoming read only in 2014

My team is using AutoCAD 2014 and multiple people have noticed that while they're working, when they try to save the file it pops up a message saying the file is read only.

 

Multiple people on our team has had this issue and it only started recently. (We've had it installed a few months now) Can someone tell us what is happening? Could it be the new file tabs feature in 2014?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

47 REPLIES 47
Message 41 of 48
KeithSWD
in reply to: rkmcswain

I wonder what the signficance is of my seeing the same file locking issues in Autocad 2014 for Mac?  It only happens when working on files located on remote share (in my case that is a Windows 2011 Home server (which has Server 2008 core), so it is an SMB share mounted as a volume in OS X).

 

I generally use SaveAs to save the drawing with a different name, and then immediately use SaveAs again to save back to the original name/location.

 

But it is a real PITA.

Message 42 of 48
danway
in reply to: KeithSWD

Along the lines of my theory that it has to do with the SMB2 protocol messing up on the server side, I would ask what version of OS X you are using. Lion and newer version support SMB2 and the server you are connecting to also support SMB2, so you would probably be working over a SMB2 connection. You can try reverting to SMB1 to see how it goes by connecting with cifs://servername instead of smb://servername. Also, you could disable SMB2 (you can reenable later if it doesn't help). Just follow these instructions: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20131122083837447

Message 43 of 48
walkermacy
in reply to: JJahn1


@JJahn1 wrote:
To recap:
The engineer new to our department, Robert, was opening AutoCAD files from windows explorer and each file he would open would become "read only".
This didn't happen in SolidWorks 2012, also on his PC.
He is working from the newest Win7 64bit desktop we have in the dept., and no one else had this problem.

Also the former user on this same PC didn't have this problem.
I remember a discussion with him some time ago, on why he didn't have the Preview Pane on when he opened files from windows explorer.
His answer was, "he didn't like that puny preview pane". So it wasn't on.
Robert closed the windows explorer "Preview Pane" and this problem with his PC stopped!

Yea I've been scolded already. I should open the AutoCAD files from the open program "Select Files" (Ctrl O), but reality is what it is, as stated above.

Just sharing!
J.Jahn


I will reiterate that the preview pane was not the cause of this on any of the machines in my network on which it's occurred. That was one of the first things I had users check and not one of them had it enabled. Also, whenever this happened, there were no existing .dwl or .dwl2 files associated with the files in question and using the "Share and Storage Management" console to check open files on the file server showed no one at all with the file(s) open.

 

The way I fixed it was full Windows reinstalls on all machines that were affected. One of them I had reinstalled four times over (for the same user) and could not get the problem to go away until that user left the firm. I re-imaged that machine again and set it up for a new user and have not had the problem since.

 

I honestly have no idea whether the problem is with AutoCAD 2014 or with Windows somehow; I'm just happy it's gone and I very much hope I won't ever have to deal with it again.

Message 44 of 48
walkermacy
in reply to: walkermacy

I found this in another topic, which outlines the complexities of AutoCAD's save process and might help others find a solution for this issue. I am now encountering a similar yet different issue due to recently implementing a second, remote file server and DFS replication between the two, where users are getting messages about drawings being "accessed by another session" when trying to save. I found this post while searching for a resolution to that issue:

 


@Anonymous wrote:
Hi Jeff -

This is a topic that's been discussed quite a bit in this news groups.
The following information is copied from an old post:


Read-only problems: Read-only's are generally related to timing issues
between the server and the client.
The basics of the AutoCAD save procedure is:
1. AutoCAD verifies the file lock that it created previously (either at file
open or on last save)
2. AutoCAD creates a new temporary file, and locks it. The current drawing
information is written to the temporary drawing.
3. AutoCAD deletes the .bak file.
4. AutoCAD sends a remove lock request for the original .dwg.
5. AutoCAD tries to rename the .dwg to a .bak. General problem location:
Usually when a read only occurs the server has not
completed the remove lock request. The rename is then treated as a sharing
violation and the rename request is denied by the
server.
6. AutoCAD unlocks the temporary drawing.
7. AutoCAD renames the temporary drawing to the original drawing name. The
read only problem can occur here as well, as if the file
lock is not removed before the rename request is made, there is a sharing
violation and the rename request is denied.
8. AutoCAD then re-locks the original drawing name.

Things that can cause these problems are as follows:
Very fast workstations and a "slow" server.
Network saturation
Excess server workload
Virus protection on the client
Virus protection on the server
"Misbehaving" network drivers on the client or on the server.
Bruce McCallum indicates updating his video drivers solved a problem that he
was having with this, which doesn't make much sense,
but as dependant as AutoCAD is on the video interface, is a possible
candidate.

This problem isn't necessarily an AutoDesk problem
retardant suit>, but a network timing issue. The fix for
this problem is illusive and sometimes expensive (new servers, additional
servers, faster networks, more isolated (switched)
networks, etc). Autodesk people that I have spoken to have indicated that
every time that they've seen this (actually seen it, at a
customer site) the solution was to increase client to server throughput.
Without fail, that's been the solution. The problem is more
evident with AutoCAD, because of the complicated write. There are more
chances for things to fail with so many file locks, un-locks,
and renames. Autodesk's file write method is completely compliant with
Microsoft's API requirements, but when the server doesn't
respond within the designated period, the write fails (actually the rename
fails) and the user is left with a temp file.
(snipmode=0)

hth

jason martin


"jeffva" wrote in message
news:f0fe21d.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> I'm using AutoCAD 2000 on an SBS 2000 network. My workstation is a win '98
and I'm trying to find out why I sometimes have issues saving drawings up to
the netowork. I now there are some issues of losing permissions on the
network (verified this with MiscroSoft) but this time all my mapped drives
are OK and other applications can save. The message that I recieved from
AutoCad is:
> Unable to save to drawing x:\Cad Files\2524 as it is being accessed by
another session. Drawing saved to x:\Cad Files\sav27ba9.ac$.
>
> I have had this error in the past and assumed that it was a network
problem. It is odd however because if someone else is trying to access the
same drawing they would be forced to open it as read only?
>
>

 http://forums.autodesk.com/autodesk/board/message?board.id=24&message.id=2593#M2593

Message 45 of 48
AlThorp
in reply to: walkermacy

I recently encountered this problem, and couldn't figure out a solution, except to "Save As" the file to a new file name.

 

On a related note, I keep my files on Dropbox, and I wonder if any of the other users reporting problems here do the same or similar (Google Drive, etc.).  I encountered a problem with signatures in Adobe Acrobat 9, and the solution (for me) was to disable (pause) syncing in Dropbox when adding the signature.  I tried disabling Dropbox to solve the read only problem with my DWG file, and it appeared to have no affect.

 

Al 

Message 46 of 48
mroyes
in reply to: rkmcswain

Just open the file, copy and paste the drawing into a new file. Temporary fix.

Message 47 of 48
johnthoreson
in reply to: AlThorp

I've run into the same issue and found the "save as" option to be the most straight forward solution as well.

Message 48 of 48
walkermacy
in reply to: johnthoreson

We found the source of the problem.

 

We have a previewer for Windows Explorer installed, called the "Longbow Previewer". This allows seeing previews of DWG files in Explorer. One major flaw with third-party previewers is that they use the actual application to "open" the file without actually opening the application, and that locks the file just as it would if it were open in an application. This is an issue we've known about for years with PDFs, and it's also the cause of our problem with read-only DWG's in AutoCAD. However, it never crossed my mind that this could be the cause until one of my staff mentioned it as a possibility.

 

I didn't roll the previewer out to people until after we started using 2014, which is why we never encountered the issue in previous versions. It has continued in 2015 and 2016, so that ended up ruling out an bug in 2014 as the sole cause.

 

Needless to say, I will be uninstalling it from all the workstations going forward.

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