feature lines disappearing

[Anonymous]

Didn't know if anyone else has run into this in the past. Over the past 6 months we have had the feature lines just up and disappear from the drawing for no reason. They were not erased. They just went away for some reason but the surface created from them was still there. Does anyone know what might make this happen? It seems very random and can be very costly.

Scott

[Anonymous]

Since 2/07 I have had two files do this. I have seen a few post here with
the same. I don't have any real explanation but I have felt your pain.

--
John Mayo, PE

Core i7 920 6GB DDR3
Radeon 4870HD 1 GB
Vista64

[civildesigngroup]

So, does anyone have any suggestions on how to remedy this problem? We have had this happen on quite a few drawings lately and it's very time consuming to recreate the features. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[Bennos1]

Hi,

Anyone find a solution to this. I have 198 features line in a drawing that the quick select can find but no grips show and  I can't see them. I have every layer turned on but can't get them to show up?

any suggestions?

Thanks

Ben

[Bennos1]

I have just found out why I can't see then. I have 198 feature lines that are now zero length and zero height!!!!!!

The surface they were used in seems ok. Does any one have any ideas how I can get them back, I don't want to re draw them.

Cheers

Ben

[Anonymous]

Are you using an older version of C3D?  I found '07 to be horribly bad at losing things, and '08 still occassionally lost data.  In my mind '09 was the first version that was really "ready for production".

--Jeremy

[Bennos1]

HIi,

I'm using c3d 2010 sp3.  I was waiting till a few of the bugs were ironed out of 2011 before installing it. I see the irony in that now.

[Anonymous]

I have seen this on about a dozen drawings here in the last couple of years (feature lines vanishing - I think I even posted here on the forums about it).

The correlation that I make is crossing feature lines.  When I encounter a drawing like this, the user always has an over-abundance of features lines that cross each other and have an automatically added verticle vertex added to each feature line.

I recommend breaking features lines where they cross and having them terminate at the same point.

My theory is, although C3D is built to handle these crossing feature lines, it really doesn't handle them as well as we think it should and the drawing gets some sort of deep-funk corruption thus making the feature lines vanish.

My prognosis is totally anecdotal and unscientific, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Im new to civil 3D 2010 and have already had this problem within 3 months of using the software on 2 different jobs.

On one of them I have 4 surfaces in my drawing:

Existing toppo (Triangluation surface)

Proposed Levels (Triangluation surface)

Proposed formation (Triangluation surface)

Volume (Triangluation volume surface)

The existing toppo surface was created from a 2d toppo using text to point to generate levels.

The remaining 2 proposed triangulation surfaces were created using feature lines added to surface as breaklines.

The volume surface was a comparrisson of the above 3 to obtain cut & fill violumes.

The featurelines / points that correspond with a particular surface, are on a site designated to that surface.

I am now having the same problem as yourself. My drawing was fine when I saved it, all featurelines / breaklines were present. When I opened it one week later to revise some levels, all proposed surface was still there & looked fine, but the featurelines / breaklines have dissapeared. They are still showing on my toolspace prospector tab under the surface drop down. I have checked all layers etc as outlined above but nothing seems to bring them back.

Does anyone know of a solution to this? Are Autodesk aware of it?

[Anonymous]

Has there been any update on this?

I am new to C3D and this has just happened on my first big project. I am terrified to continue working in C3D for fear that it will wipe out my feature lines again.......... I am very close to going back to plain old drafting.........

[Anonymous]

I have found this happens more often when you have feature lines with arcs.  Especially if it is a closed feature line with an arc.

The other time I have seen it happen is when layer 0 is frozen.

I have not had this happen in 2012 yet.

Unfortunately, the only way I know of to fix this is find a backup of the drawing that still has them. 

We try to create a backup of each drawing we are working on regularly.  We keep a few days worth just in case.

[jporter]

I have a client to whom this has happened since 2012.  Now in 2014 the issue is still there.  However, for now i think I've isolated the issue.  It happens, and only on their systems, when they :

1.  Create one site
2.  Draw two feature lines on that site
3.  Create a new site
4.  Move one of the feature lines to the new site
5.  Your first site disappears
6.  Save and close the drawing
7.  Reopen the drawing
8.  The feature lines may/may not be there
9.  A PURGE definitely deletes them

And if there is a surface generated from the feature lines it either disappears or becomes empty.

Someone please tell me if they get this.  I've only been able to reproduce it on my client's computers.  My initial thought s "bad install", but several installs laterI don't think so.  Could something on their network be causing this?

Thanks in advance,

Jason

[_Hathaway]

We had this happen in 2010 and when after we first encountered it made a practice of saving a copy of our finalized drawing (in case of future issues). Once we upgraded to 2012 this hasn't happened.

[jporter]

Mike,

Thank you for the update.

Jason

[jporter]

FYI - I figured out the issue on my end.  The user was beginning all his drawings using the ACAD.dwt.  If you begin with the ACAD.dwt and go through the previously stated steps it happens everytime.  Yes, I know. . .begin with some other template (like the NCS).  Well, the user has no need for all the Civil 3D layers and has no desire to begin a template from the standard Civil 3D template.  I'm looking for the setting (if any) that controls this awkward feature line behavior within any template. 

Hope this helps others,

Jason

[Anonymous]

Sorry to bring back an old thread but google lead me here.  Our company has been using C3D 2013 for about a year and I've lost the feature lines in 3 or 4 drawings over that time.  Luckily we have good server back ups and I've started wblocking my feature lines as an added protection.  Has there been any further findings on this.  I don't think the very specific example listed above is what I did.  I don't ever move or copy feature lines to new sites and I also never let feature lines cross one another without manually setting a elevation or break point.  I'll admit I do typically have a lot of feature lines and use arcs regularly.

I'm currently running:

Windows 7 32 bit

Civil 3D 2013 SP2

I've seen this happen to someone else in the office as well running 64 bit 2013 but that file did originate from my machine.

Our autodesk dealer/suppor suggested the following:

"C3D 32 bit - your screwed.

 For both machines make sure you are not running norton anti virus. It does not like earlier versions of Autodesk products.

Uninstall and reinstall all C++libraries. Run .Net repair tool. Make sire all service packs are applied. All of this with any anti-virus fully disabled."

Is this a legit answer or is he just shooting in the dark?  We are not running Norton.

[Kyle-Evans]

This has been happening since like 2006/2007 for me... I have had it happen in every version of Civil 3D... The tech support has no clue about it, or how to fix it... Only preventative measures can be taken by you... Back up your files often, if you are doing something you know might cause instability, back up your files...

All your feature lines do become 0 length objects, usually at 0,0 which is why they are still in your drawing...

Back up often is the only advice i can give.

[jporter]

Well, that's an answer for some issues in Civil 3D. I would have at least tried to let you down a little easier than that though. Norton antivirus historically doesn't like some items in Autodesk software. However I don't think this is the case on our end.

As I'm sure you read above, we were only finding the issue when someone would begin their drawings using the ACAD.dwt file or a template that was created beginning with that ACAD.dwt file. What template are you beginning with? Or was that template created from the ACAD.dwt file?

I too provide support for Civil 3D and this is the only instance of this type of issue I have seen on my end.

I have another client who also had disappearing objects such as points and surfaces, not feature lines though. We came to find out that it was a network issue. They had a DNS replicating device that was causing the loss of data. Do you have such device? I'm not at all IT person to give advice on that matter but that was the issue and we only realized it once the IT department decided to stop using it. Now that is my shot in the dark for this issue.

Other than that, I've heard no updates to this issue.  So to trouble shoot on your end:

• If this template you're using was created from the standard NCS template then we can rule the template out.
• It's only happening in specific drawings. What is common between those drawings (many feature lines? many surfaces from feature lines? many sites? feature line styles being used? etc., etc.)
• Have your run a RECOVER on the drawings (if your drawing has xrefs use RECOVERALL) to see if there are any errors it finds?
• Use the -PU command and purge out and Regapps in the drawing.  
• Do the feature lines disappear after a specific command or sequence of commands? If so, you may want to post the drawing here so we can test as well.
• Do the feature lines appear fine and then only when you come back the next day they are gone?  If so, that could very possibly be a network or system issue.  
• Do you reboot your system regularly?

[lambertb]

Had this problem also with a template we were required to use. Found out from Autodesk that if the template was created from acad.dwt, running an audit likely deleted your sites and/or feature lines. It would also delete your site if you moved or copied feature lines. My solution, report the problem to the template owner. And then I rebuilt our template from the NCS one through importing and merging and purging. I put all the standard styles on layer 0, purge everything and started bringing in my stuff. It was the best two hours I spent as now everyone can feel a little better about not having to watch for vanishing information.

civil 3d 2014 sp2

[aguyon71]

SAVE, SAVE, SAVE....AND SAVE AGAIN! We are currently using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015 and the issue/problem with feature lines disappearing still exists. The only solution at this point is saving your files at various stages. We will not voice our true opinion to this issue/problem, but I believe most in the Autodesk Community knows what entity is the main culprit/problem, since this issue/problem has been ongoing since 2007. and has never been addressed or solved in over 7 years.