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XREF labels disappearing

63 REPLIES 63
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Message 1 of 64
seattlesurvey
8351 Views, 63 Replies

XREF labels disappearing

I have read a few posts about others having this happen.  I'm trying to get a handle on what should and should not be expected to work as far as labeling XREF'd entities goes.  I'm using 2011.

 

I have recently had bearing notes associated with an XREF'd line disappear, and I can't pinpoint the cause.

 

I had edited a couple of lines in said XREF'd drawing, but NOT the one that was associated with the C3D notes.  There are two C3D drawings that XREF this drawing and that have line labels applied to the same, unchanged, line.  Yet, all of those labels were gone (in both drawings) when I opened them this morning.

 

So, should labeling an XREF'd entity work?  Are labels predicably lost when a labeled line undergoes a known set of modifications (Sinc relayed his experiences here:  http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Civil-3D/Xref-labels-not-dynamic/m-p/2886718/highlight/true#M1...

 

What if the XREF'd drawing is simply saved, with no changes made to a labeled line?  Should that be okay?

 

If labeling XREF's is known to be unpredictable, it sort of puts us back to manual text labels and manual curve tables.  Is that really what people are having to do?

 

Thanks for your comments.

63 REPLIES 63
Message 2 of 64
dasindog
in reply to: seattlesurvey

Are you saying that you have problems if you open the xref'd drawing and then save it without changing the parcels? I personally don't like using labels on xrefs but I understand the value of it. Hopefully you are having an isolated problem, is it just for one drawing or is it a general problem you have with your workflow?

-Dustin
Civil 3D 2013 64 bit SP1
Windows 7 Pro 64
Intel Xeon 2.93GHz
24GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 580
explodetheblock.wordpress.com
Message 3 of 64

We have been testing this today, and we have found that the following scenario will obliterate all labels and table contents which reference an XREF'd source:

 

1.  Open an XREF source drawing (SOURCE.dwg) and the drawing which is sourcing it (WORKING.dwg) in the same C3D session.

 

2.  Create some line or curve tags in WORKING.dwg which reference entities in SOURCE.dwg, and then create a line or curve table.  Save WORKING.dwg.

 

2.  Modify SOURCE.dwg in any way, and save it.

 

3.  Make the WORKING.dwg window active, click the XREF message which appears which will reload the recently-saved SOURCE.dwg.

 

4.  Save WORKING.dwg.

 

This will return a error message upon Save, and all tags and table contents will be gone upon subsequent opening of WORKING.dwg.

 

Note that the changes made to SOURCE.dwg in step 4 need NOT be to any entities that are labeled in WORKING.dwg.  Note also that the important aspects of this scenario are two:

 

One is that the drawings are open in the same session, and the second is that a table must be generated from tags.  No errors in WORKING.dwg are seen if only labels are used and no tables are involved.

 

Hope this helps someone else with their troubleshooting.

Message 4 of 64

Clarification on the previous post:

 

The drawings in question do not need to be open in the same session, per se, the SOURCE.dwg only needs to being actively edited and saved while it is actively being referenced in an open drawing.

 

We first discovered this issue with a drawing which was open and being edited in LDD2009 at the same time it was being referenced in an open C3D2011 drawing.  We initially thought our problems might involve a version conflict, but were later able to duplicate our label/table contents disappearances as detailed above.

Message 5 of 64
gbondoc
in reply to: seattlesurvey

Anyone find what actually triggers the corrupt xref?  We recently had 2 files go bad and lose all of the labels.  We did similar process of editing the source file while having the working drawing open, re-load the xref, then while saving the working drawing it said we need to recover.  We were able to somewhat salvage the labels by exporting the file to ACAD before exiting.  They were no longer label objects, but at least we had static text labels.

 

While testing the same process on new working drawings with the same source xref we could not repeat the error.  We check to see if the "demandload" variable may help our situation but I could not get our test files to crash.

 

 

C3D 2011 ver. 2

64 Win 7

Message 6 of 64

Do you have any tables in your working drawing?  My recollection is that there has to be at least one table in the working drawing to have the symptoms start to occur.  Though, even without there being tables, we are now in the habit of never reloading an xref if it reports having been edited - if we need to see the edits we save work, quit C3D, and re-launch.

 

HTH.

Message 7 of 64
gbondoc
in reply to: seattlesurvey

Yes those 2 files did have tables.  OK.  Thanks for clearing that up for me.  We will start warning staff.

Message 8 of 64

Update:  still running 2011, and just had the disappearing labels phenomenon happen again. 

 

Upon executing a SAVE upon the working drawing, C3D recommended a RECOVER.  After RECOVER, all line and curve tags labelling x'ref'd lines and curves were gone, and (of course) all of their associated table entries.

 

In this recent case, XREF'd drawings had NOT even been modified since the last opening of the working drawing.

 

This is just bad.  I can't even predict now when this is going to happen, and it's not practical to block in all lines and curves that will require labelling (plus it also represents risky redundancy for us).

 

I'm not assuming anyone has any answers, but I think this should be looked into...

Message 9 of 64
gbondoc
in reply to: seattlesurvey

We recently upgraded to 2012 and my surveyors say the tables are fine after reloading xrefs.  I have not done an extensive review but so far no complaints from my staff.

Message 10 of 64

Just saw this thread from a couple of months ago:  http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Civil-3D/Curve-labels/m-p/3298335/highlight/true#M167782

 

Jeff M's explanation could be relevent to what just happened here today...

Message 11 of 64

With regard to the link posted above (note - still running 2011):

 

We have found that ATTACHing an xref (as opposed to OVERLAYing it), and then applying C3D labels to objects within the xref, results in those labels being lost upon a SAVE action (a notice to run RECOVER on the drawing results, and then the labels are deleted).  This makes ATTACHing an xref for labeling purposes a non-starter.

 

For OVERLAY xrefs, we are able to initially label entities within, and, it seems, the problems arise when the working drawing is, itself, used as an xref.  Following that, the labels will disappear with the appearance of a notification to run RECOVER).

 

Therefore, we have still not found any way around the disappearing labels issue.

 

YMMV, I suppose.

Message 12 of 64
ssomers
in reply to: seattlesurvey

I have (not for the first time) encountered this very same problem today. Four days ago I opened the WORKING drawing and the line and curve labels (and table) all displayed properly. They had been labeled months earlier and we never had problems. Today, all the labels were gone. What's more, the pipes which had also been labeled from the xref were also missing their labels.

 

This has created a major problem because of another issue we've had when labeling data shortcuts. Namely, when wew have a pipe network and surface data shortcutted into the WORKING drawing, the surface will not auto-sinc on drawing open and all the surface labels on the sortcutted surface show up as "???" This created a Publish problem because we had to manually print every sheet in a sheet set where a pipe network and surface were shortcutted together.

 

As a workaround, we started labeling right from the xref, and that seemed to work fine until today when all the pipe labels vanished. Now we're completely stuck. We can't data shortcut entities in and label the shortcuts because of labeling problems, and we can't label the xref. So we're back to putting all of our labels in the SOURCE drawing itself. This is EXTREMELY inefficient and frustrating.

 

Has anyone yet found a consistent cause for the dissapearing labels or a viable solution or workaround (besides labeling in the SOURCE drawing) to either of these problems???

 

-Thanks

 

P.S. Recover did not help - nor did it return any errors.

- Shawn
-------------------------------------
Running Civil 3D on Windows 10 Pro
Custom PC with: Intel i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60 GHz (8 core); NVIDIA Quadro P1000; 64GB RAM
Message 13 of 64
Civil3DRonster
in reply to: ssomers

We have started seeing weird behavior with labels as well. No rhyme or reason that we can find. Even had someone loose alignment labels after detaching an xref that.........get this..........had no alignments or d-refs of alignments in it!!!!???? Anyone else find any solutions? Autodesk? Is there a solution for the disappearing labels act?

Message 14 of 64
jmayo-EE
in reply to: Civil3DRonster

Personally I have only seen this when an xref is detached and this makes sense since there is nothing for the labels to label. Unload xref's vs detaching.

John Mayo

EESignature

Message 15 of 64
gregsmith56
in reply to: jmayo-EE

Same problem here... just lost a huge amount of work. (autosave didn't work even though it was turned on. DOES ANYONE FROM AUTODESK READ THESE FORUMS ??.. THIS SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN HAPPENING FOR ABOUT 5 YEARS.... GUYS, IF IT DOESN'T WORK DONT TELL US IT DOES. (sorry about the caps, but truely frustrated).

Message 16 of 64
cvc-it-mb
in reply to: seattlesurvey

Has anyone submitted a support request for this? I just did through our Subscription portal, so hopefully I get some response. Not hopeful of a solution, but perhaps a +1 that this is an unacceptable problem.

 

I have found these things must be true for the condition to occur (as others have stated):

  1. Both Tags and Tag Tables must be in the working drawing.
  2. Reloading the Xref triggers the issue. Doesn't matter if the lines that are labeled have been changed or not.
  3. The issue is not apparent until you reopen your working drawing.
  4. Reloading the Xref by means of closing the working drawing and opening it again does NOT trigger the issue and is the only workaround. DO NOT RELOAD Xrefs that have Tags!

I'll report back what Autodesk responds with in the next few days.

 

Jim

Message 17 of 64
cvc-it-mb
in reply to: cvc-it-mb

Also should note we are using Civil 3D 2015. From what I recall, this was not an issue in Civil 3D 2013.

Message 18 of 64
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: cvc-it-mb

Maybe these will help:

XREF lbl-00 (you might want to read this one first)

XREF lbl-01

XREF lbl-02

XREF lbl-03

Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS
Message 19 of 64
seattlesurvey
in reply to: Joe-Bouza

Joe,

 

OP here...those are helpful links you provided.  I want to be clear, though, that this issue of disappearing labels occurs in XREF reloading instances where it shouldn't (according to the sources you provided, and my understanding as well).  As Jim has just re-iterated, this happens when tag labels and tag tables are present, and a labeled XREF is reloaded live.  The active drawing will then begin to report errors, recommend a Recover, and then (either upon subsequent opening or running Recover) will lose all XREF-associated labels.

 

Jim, I first saw this with 2011, and ran into it again, just yesterday (doh!), with 2013.

 

Thanks all.

Message 20 of 64
Joe-Bouza
in reply to: seattlesurvey

Thats not good. I missed the part about tags. I rarely use them so have not encountered the issue.
Thank you

Joseph D. Bouza, P.E. (one of 'THOSE' People)

HP Z210 Workstation
Intel Xeon CPU E31240 @ 3.30 Hz
12 GB Ram


Note: Its all Resistentialism, so keep calm and carry on

64 Bit Win10 OS

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