PDF batch plotting in background does not work - PLEASE HELP!!!!!

[linnea.lukic]

Hi,

Don't know if anyone is having the same issue, batch plotting in the background used to work when we had AutoCAD Electrical 2013 installed on Windows XP 32-bit machine.  After haivng AE 2014 installed on Windows 7 64-bit OS and the background plotting has STOPPED working.  On right hand corner of the screen will stay "Job in Progress" for hours and nothing is printed.  Please see attached image.

As we don't have any spare stations to manage the PDF batch plotting (I'm talking about more than 200 sheet per project) therefore the background plotting is very important to us.

CAN ANY EXPERTS HERE PLEASE HELP???  The issue is drivng us crazy!!!!! 

Thank you!!

[Wheelie22]

Can you test plot a few sheets on the foreground ?

Does it give errors ?

[linnea.lukic]

Hi Wheelie22,

Thank you for your reply.

Yes the foreground plotting works but unfortunately if I chosen foreground plotting it means I am not able to use AE during the plotting, as I mentioned that background plotting is very important as we do not have a spare workstation to do this.

[Wheelie22]

How about these settings :

 

This is the BACKGROUNDPLOT but I guess you have it on 1 or 3. This command does not mention SDI but I think this has to be on 0.

[Wheelie22]

You can try the Acad log file and AcadE has it's own log file for some more info.
- logfilemode 1

- Project
- Extras
- command trace mode

[linnea.lukic]

Hi Wheelie22,

Do you mean I need to uncheck both boxes? plotting and publishing?  I've the publishing box checked at the moment.

Thanks!

[Wheelie22]

Both on !

[linnea.lukic]

Hi,

I have just uncheck the 2 boxes plotting & publishing and I think all this does is uncheck the box for you when you first select publish project (please see image attached).

Unfortunately the background plotting still not working it got stuck on "Publish Job in Progress" and does not go further.

As for the "logfilemode", I'm not sure what I need to do.  Set the value of logfilemode to 1?

Thanks again!!!

[Wheelie22]

Both checked ! 

But I think AcadE does this if you check it in your example dialog box.

The logfilemode makes a logfile, with logfilename you can see its save path and name.

 And just for info, you can type the command on the command line, give 1 enter, than press F1for info on this command !

[linnea.lukic]

Hi Wheelie22,

I don't want to look really silly but what do the log files do?  Do these help resolve the background plotting issue?  At the moment the log file path is set to our network, does it matter where the log files save?

Thanks!

[Wheelie22]

I set the logfile on but there is no more than normal plot info but maybe your has errors !

And it does not matter where as long as you can check it.

If you put the AcadE check on (command trace mode) you get a lot of extra info on your text screen (F2). But I don't think this is an AcadE problem but a normal Acad thing.

[linnea.lukic]

Hi Wheelie22,

Thanks for your help.

Do you know if anyone is having the same issue?  Our softward support has taken this to Autodesk but were told they could not reproduce the same error and there is only one company (in USA) has got the same issue as well as us.

[jim_gibson]

I just started to use electrical 2014 and can not plot PDF batch in background either.  Works in foreground but not background. 

[testsubject]

I also have the same problem since I installed 2014. It used to work in 2013. I have been plotting in foreground because my packages are small enough ( <50 pages ) and I do not have a lot of time to devote to troubleshoot it.

[anthonyadams]

this may sound like a really really stupid question, but why won't autodesk fix this problem??

I have the same problem, including not being able to plot a 100 sheet schematic to one PDF

file. when i print the drawings, i have to go back and assemble all 100 sheets using acrobat

to get them all in one file.

[linnea.lukic]

Hi anthonyadams,

I've been told that this issue is not big enough for Autodesk to take action, apparently there are only my company in the UK and another company in the USA who are having the issue but sounds like there are more than 2!

I was told they were (may) include this fix in the SP1 because my support company hassle them on the daily basis but sadly it was not include in the SP1.......... I have literally tried everything but no luck.  

Funny enough I have installed Inventor suite 2014 to a few workstations (and AE 2014 is included) recently and tried background plotting PDF and it worked!!!!!!  But only works on a couple of the workstations, this is driving me insane!!!  I have no idea what's going on, why does it work on the Inventor version of the AutoCAD electrical????

[mathalekar]

Guys,

We are trying very hard to reproduce this issue at our end and continuously following up at various levels to find the root cause. On our systems it works perfectly fine so as you are seeing a case where it works as well on few other systems but not in some cases.

We are open to receive all clues which can lead us to find root cause of the same.

Just a few question.

Do you find AutoCAD batch plot having same issue ?

Any specific workflow that AutoCAD Electrical bundled with Inventor has but Standalone AutoCAD Electrical doesnt have ?

Can you send a sample project to my email address mayuresh.athalekar@autodesk.com  to try with  ?

[haiqing]

Hi all, 

We are really sorry to hear that you have problem doing PDF publishing in AutoCAD Electrical. And as mentioned by Mayuresh, we have a hard time to reproduce your problem in our environment, so it is a bit difficult for us to help you out. 

I hope to get more information from you so that we can try to move closer to the root issue of this problem.

A ) Could you please try AutoCAD Publish on any machine has the problem you mentioned?

1. Launch AcadE.

2. Open several project dwgs you have problem using AutoCAD Electrical batch plotting. 

3. Type command "PUBLISH", you will now enter the AutoCAD publish dialog (Batch Plotting), and it should include the drawing sheet you have opened in step 2. 

4. Remove any unwanted sheets (such uninitialized layout) and keep the sheets you intend to publish during ACE workflow

5. Choose publish to PDF using Background plot to see if this is work. 

The purpose of this workflow is to let us know if this problem an AutoCAD publishing problem or AutoCAD Electrical problem. It can help us to get a bit more information about where to look for. 

B) Is this reproducible in all projects in the machine you mentioned?

Another information will be helpful is that please let us know if this problem happens only in your project or any other sample projects. If it only happens in your project, it will be very helpful to send us a small copy to try out.We understand that if you do not want to send us the whole project, we only need the minumum set of the project which can reproduce this problem.  

The purpose is that there could be a subtle difference in your project settings that we are not aware of. So if we can compare the settings, maybe we can find out where goes wrong.  

Please help to note down your observations here, email to Mayuresh or email to me at Haiqing.Wang@autodesk.com.

Thank you for your valuable time. 

Regards

Haiqing

[jim_gibson]

I did as asked and the publish icon at the bottom of the drawing is still active (has been over 3 hours).  When I typed publish again this box came up showing the current job.  It looks like the program is also trying to publish the layout which I do not have.  Could this be part of the issue?  If so how do we publish without the layout publishing also?  Never had this issue with version 2010. 

Thanks,

Jim

[DaisySunday]

Strange question that will probably seem totally unrelated unless you have used it - is anyone else using Vault in conjunction with AE 2014 and getting this error? I saw someone mention Inventor which is commonly tied with vault so I just thought I would ask.