Slow drawing files

[Anonymous]

Hi

I am having trouble with one or two files i am working on and hope somebody could help me.  I mistakenly copied a cluster of lines from a file i had forgotten was annoyingly slow to another and that was enough to affect the second file with the same problem.  Prior to copying these objects accross the second file was quick/normal.  I cant remember when the first file started having this problem.  Neither files are particularly big.  

It was an elevation file i pasted the lines into.  I work with all plans and elevations in seperate files and at some point all model files have been xref'd into one another in the normal process of drawing up a scheme.  Now, even if all model files have no other model file xref'd in (be it the elevations file or another file that may have the elevations file ref'd into it) then the paper file will still take maybe 5 minutes to open and reload the xref if i make any changes to the model.  So basically the problem seemed to have started with one file within the job but now is effecting all of them.

Aditing any or all of the model files doesnt throw up any errors.

This is the message in the command box if this helps (this is when opening the paper file for the ground floor plan.  The model file will at some point in the past have had the elevations file xref'd in but doesn't currently) :

Opening an AutoCAD 2004 format file.
Resolve Xref "PROPOSED GROUND": Z:\COMPANY NEW\01-BJT PROJECTS\PROJECTS
2013\BJT1313 6 Shirley Road\DRAWINGS\PROPOSED GROUND.dwg
"PROPOSED GROUND" loaded.
"PROPOSED GROUND" reference file may have changed since host drawing was last
saved.

When I open the elevations paper file this is the message:

Opening an AutoCAD 2004 format file.
Resolve Xref "PROPOSED ELEVATIONS": Z:\COMPANY NEW\01-BJT PROJECTS\PROJECTS
2013\BJT1313 6 Shirley Road\DRAWINGS\PROPOSED ELEVATIONS.dwg
"PROPOSED ELEVATIONS" loaded.
Resolve Xref "PROPOSED GROUND": Z:\COMPANY NEW\01-BJT PROJECTS\PROJECTS
2013\BJT1313 6 Shirley Road\DRAWINGS\PROPOSED GROUND.dwg
"PROPOSED GROUND" loaded.
"PROPOSED GROUND" reference file may have changed since host drawing was last
saved.

Sorry for the long message, I really hope some CAD guru out there can sort me out.

Many Thanks

Dan

[pendean]

What LT version are you using?
Have you tried to PURGE and AUDIT all the files, including the XREF(s)?

May I ask why you don't fix the pathing on the Xrefs in the top file?

[Anonymous]

Hi

Im not sure what you mean by 'fix the pathing on the Xrefs in the top file' could you explain?

I am on AutoCADLT 2008

Thanks

Dan

[pendean]

Look at your last post, AutoCAD is 'resolving' XREF paths and talks about them moving since the file was last saved. This usually means the XREFs are hard coded in the top file to be somewhere else and out of sheer-luck LT208 is managing to find them by accident to load them.

I doubt it has anything to do with your issue, but you might as well fix a problem that may become critical later.

What about the part of my last reply on things to try and fix your files?

[Bob_Zurunkle]

OP I am curious as to whether your SAVEFIDELITY is on or off. Set it to zero if you have annotation objects and don't have anyone in your chain using 2007 or older.

[Anonymous]

Hi Bob

thanks for your reply

I am pretty sure I dont have any annotation objects in any of the files but in our office different people are on different versions of CAD pre-2008 (not ideal I know) so I am reluctant to change this if it is going to effect whether other users can work on these files.  To be honest I had never heard of the SAVEFIDELITY thing ... what does this do???

[Anonymous]

Hi

Ok, so by top file do you mean the original model files that I xref into the paper files?  anyway I have done as you suggested and both audited and purged all my model files and on a few of them there were over 100 errors which i asked it to fix. I dont like purging generally as it looses all my unused layers which I may come to use at a later date but anyway i thought it was worth a try.  However this doesnt seem to have resolved the slow loading and unloading of xrefs.  I have tried detatching all xrefs from my model files and detatching the xrefs from the paper files and re-xreffing the newly adited and purged file but I still have the same problem (even if that file now has no xrefs in it)

However, my elevations model file seems to be xreffed into itself and i cant get rid of it and the site plan file which has the elevations file xreffed in and i cant get rid of that from the list either.  I have attached a screenshot of the xref manager for both files incase it sheds some light on the situation????  you will also notice i have a file called CAR which is always there on the xref list on this and most other job files i work on.  it started appearing years ago.  I dont know what it is and it never seemed to cause any problems so I never investigated this further.  with the elevations file it didnt allow me to detatch the elevations xref saying there were multiple references. So i tried binding it and deleting it after some thinking it did this but left itself on the list as shown in the attatchment.

Any further suggestions?? thanks for your time! 

[Bob_Zurunkle]

Ahhh a quick lesson in annotation objects. These can be hatches, linework, blocks, text, and/or dimensions. In 2007 and older, these don't exist (except perhaps linework). Say you have several paperspace viewports at different scales, but you want a duplex outlet symbol and some dimension to show the same on each. Pre-2007 you'd need a different dimension style for each scale, a different scaled copy of the symbol and a different layer. For 2008 and newer, if you use annotation objects, one dimension style will work for all scales of viewports on the same layer (as will symbols). However, to allow that drawing to be read by 2007 or older, SAVEFIDELITY needs to be set to 1. This is a built-in translator that separates objects, and makes copies of their layer (with the scale as part of the layer name). If your drawing made in 2008 is saved backwards this way, when you open it on 2008 it can rebuild the annotation objects back into one object/one layer again. The downside is this back-and-forth process adds considerably to save times. Therefore if you aren't using annotation objects, set that to zero!

Another thing related to this is CANNOSCALE. In modelspace on the bar at lower right you may see something saying 1:1. Modelspace is 1:1 so that is the default CANNOSCALE. Basically for those using annotation objects, say you think your plan will be showing in a 1/4" = 1'-0" viewport. You can change CANNOSCALE to that, and while modelspace remains 1:1, your annotation object will insert already corrected in scale to display properly for 1/4" scale. Want to detail at 3" scale? Set CANNOSCALE to match. Modeslpace is still 1:1 but CANNOSCALE affects how it displays annotation objects. You might not see a need for this since you're working with several older AutoCADs. But what it can do for you is show your linework properly. Set LTSCALE, MSLTSCALE, PSLTSCALE & CELTSCALE all to 1. Set CANNOSCALE to 1/4" = 1'-0" for example. Now draw a room-sized box in HIDDEN2 linetype. Next, go into paperspace and create a viewport also at 1/4" = 1'-0" viewscale. It should show the box with the exact same linetype scale! Imagine, no more overriding linetype scales so they show "properly" in modelspace!

A lot of folks used to have issues especially in the first few years after annotation objects were introduced. One of the big overlooked culprits is always CANNOSCALE -- they'd wonder why their hidden lines look continuous. This won't help those on 2007 or older, but it might be of some use to you when drawing in modelspace. Good luck! 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hi Bob

Wow!  Thanks for that.  Ok, thats a bit different to the way we work.  By the sounds of things, as we have various machines with older licences than 2008 it might be better off not moving over to that way of working although I can see it has big advantages.  Yes, its a pain when your model space isnt viewing as it will print out but we get around that now (in relation to dashed lines/insulation hatch etc) by having LTSCALE set to 1 in model and your PSLTSCALE set to either 1 or 0 i cant remember which, so that it viewed the model exactly as it appears when you are working on it.  As for dims and text, we have a 'style' for each.  So say we are producing a 1to50 plan all text and dims are assigned the 1to50 dim/text style which scales them correctly for that drawing.  In most instances we dont produce drawings where we dont already know what the output scale will be and it generally doesnt need to be in more than one scale.  Would you say the annotation method is a much better way of working to the way we work?

I have never had formal training on CAD, just picked it up as I go along and you inevitably get stuck into certain ways of working which arent perhaps the most efficient or best.  I aapreciate your advice,  thanks for your time.

I still havent resolved the issue with the slow drawing files. I gave further details in my last post.  did you have any thoughts on this?

Many thanks

[Anonymous]

I'm having the exact same problem and was hoping to find an answer here. The drawing takes a full 3 minutes to open and also has the resolving xref messages. But when I detach the xrefs, save and open the drawing again, there is no problem at all. Opening the xrefs themselves, I don't see any issues - they are purged and audited with no errors and the files are not large (less than 1MB). They are not hard pathed - their paths are relative to the current directory.

Any thoughts?

[pendean]

"Resolving" is lingo that means AutoCAD and/or Windows are searching and hung up.
Try hard pathing the XREFs to see if your startup slowness goes away instead of leaving them as "relative" paths.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the suggestion, but changing the paths to hard paths did not work.

Any other ideas?

[Anonymous]

After some more experimenting this morning, I believe I found the problem!

One of the drawings that was being xreffed was using some annotative blocks. The drawing I was having problems with has multiple viewports in it, of varying scales. Each time a viewport was created and a scale chosen, it seems that Autocad was stalling as it was trying to resolve the annotative block for each viewport.

When I went into the xref and edited the annotative block to change it to a non-annotative block, the problem went away!

I hope this solution works for others. Thanks to all who posted here.