Suddenly cannot peform batch plot or title-block updates...

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Out of the blue, a few coworkers' clients stopped functioning when attempting to perform titleblock updates or when publishing the project. It seems to be related to the scripting action performed behind the seens by ACADE...

For example, when attemping to do a Publish -> Plot Project, the client does nothing. In looking up a few lines through the command history, it looks like ACADE is using a command named "_ace_script", which then takes the name of a script file which is populated by ACADE with the various drawings to be processed for the particular project.

When attempting to manually exceute _ace_script and giving it the script file (following the example of trying to a batch publish, in this case it is "_WDPLOT.SCR"), the client simply does nothing.

On my client, everything is fine. I've even tried doing the manual _ace_script & selecting my own _WDPLOT.SCR (presumably generated after one of my recently plotted projects) file to see if this process worked, and it did. I thought there might be some project-related settings that could be the cause, so I opened up his project's .wdp and did a publish on my machine, it works fine.

What could be causing this to happen? We've already tried re-installing ACAD electrical on the individual's machine who's client first stopped working, and this did not fix the problem.

Using Version: AutoCAD Electrical 2007

[Anonymous]

I was hoping that a solution to this problem was found, as I am now expiriencing this issue. I am running AutoCAD electrical 2013, and whenever I run any command that requires the project files to be updated or the project files to be opened for data gathering (plot project, drawing list, bill of materials, etc) AutoCAD just waits and does nothing. After turning on the command trace, and MDB command trace, the command window is consistantly stalling/waiting when the following command is displayed:

IN:wd_proj_dwgdsplst
OUT:wd_proj_dwgdsplst

This stall occurs with all of the projects that I am working on, thus it does not seem to be project related. Any insight or fix for this issue would be greatly appriciated.

[zalant · Accepted solution]

From your descriptions, and from another recent Support case that I just closed, it very much sounds like the dialog box 'Select Drawings To Process' is opening, but off the screen.  You can tell whether or not this is the case if you can press ESC and get back working in the program again.  If indeed that is the problem, here is how to retrieve that wayward dialog window:

1. Issue any command which would invoke the 'Select Drawings To Process' dialog
2. Once everything else greys out, press the combination of the ALT key and the Spacebar together
3. Press the 'M' key
4. Press any of the four direction arrow keys (the grouping between the 10-key and the other keys on a traditional desktop keyboard)
5. Move the mouse around

At step 5, you should see the dialog moving with the mouse.  Park it anywhere you'd like and that should do it.  Please post back here and state whether or not this clears up the trouble for you.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Zac. That fixed it!

[Anonymous]

Hello Zac,

I have same problem. Your solution did help, but every time I need to print I need to go through 5 steps you just listed!

Is there a way to fix this permanently?

Thanks,

Davor

[zalant]

At this point, Development is looking into the behavior.  In the meantime, the only way to ensure that the dialog will come back up where you last left it is to leave it on the primary monitor.  As you've discovered, if it is last parked on a non-primary monitor, it will be missing again the next time you go to use it.  I should point out that the Surf dialog also behaves the same way as the "Select drawings..." dialog in Electrical 2013.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Zac!

[hbohm]

I just wanted to confirm that Zac's solution does indeed work. I had the exact same problem. Hopefully there's a permanent fix soon, I guess I'm too used to everything being on my secondary monitor. Thanks!

[zalant]

I'm happy to report that we just (in the past couple of days) released Service Pack 1 for AutoCAD Electrical 2013!  It fixes the issue of certain dialogs going off-screen if they're not left parked on the primary monitor.  Other issues are fixed, too, so please check it out.

Here is a link to the download location of the service pack:

AutoCAD Electrical 2013 Service Pack 1

http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=DL20545414