MEP 2012 right click menus not available at all

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have a rather new installation of AutoCAD 2012 MEP and I have been having several problems getting it to work properly, #1 the right click menus are not working at all, they started out working then after tweeking my user interface they stopped working all togethrer, I have done a repair and a re-install and still no luck, so I was wondering if one or more of you good people have any Ideas or possible soulitions for this issue?

Pete

[CADmonkey_UK_Building_Services · Accepted solution]

"The caps have nothing to do with shouting" - Don't worry, it's only me and the rest the internet that disagrees with you.

" a Nvidia quadro fx1700 with the latest 64bit driver" - don't risk using this driver until everything else is stable. Use whatever Autodesk advises here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/cert?siteID=123112&id=16391880

Tip: don't go looking for a Suite, if you have one. Just look for plain AutoCAD and fx1700

Also, looking at your system specs, they look rather outdated. Even a couple of years ago they would have been decidedly minimal. This may not be a problem, depending on your usage & requirements. In my case, my Construct files are about 1-10mb each, but i use a lot of Xrefs, with anything up to 45 loaded at once. Everything's very stable in these conditons, but I usually crash when the Undo history gets too big after about 6 hours non-stop. My task manger often tells me I'm using all 8gb of my RAM, which is why I'm upgrading to a system with 16GB in a couple of weeks. I've had a core2 quad (3ghz), 8gb ram and a 8800GTX vga card for the last 4 years. Do you want to buy it? It's better than yours.

"I do not know anything about what it is running that is the IT stuff we aren't allowed to even mess with it." Talk to your IT dept. and gently try to explain that the CAD department is not some glorified typing pool. Running CAD systems well requires getting under the hood from time to time. IT doesn't always understand or appreciate this. If you explain about slow Qsaves, etc. they might give your connections more priority or better permissions or whatever it is they do. Dedicated server sounds like a good idea.

Is acad configured for networked support files (ie in Options>Files) ? These could be badly out of date. Keep everything local whilst you are troubleshooting. Run projects from local copies if possible (but be careful)

I think your biggest problem is trying to use 2009 data in 2012 projects. Templates, system definitions, etc. just aren't happy being updated. Cutting & pasting everything into a new drawing based on a 2012 template sometimes works, but it's a bit of a blunt instrument. My advice would be to run MEP2009 on your 64bit system until your current projects are completed. Any new projects will use 2012 templates, etc. It's more than likely that a lot of your 2009 data can be satisfactorily updated but each information type (libraries, styles, layers, etc. etc.) will have to be individually assessed on it's own merits.

Altenatively, you could just recreate your project from scratch within the new system. A good draughtsman shouldn't be afraid of some dull labourious Tracing. And all the thinking and design work has already been done.

"send me an official email" Shall I enclose an official Invoice?

[info]

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Joshua.Benoist schrieb:

Perhaps if we had a better idea of what customizations you made, we could perhaps make some suggestions.  Did you use a different CUI?  Load toolbars?  Dis you add Partial CUI's?  Is the Acad.Cuix loaded?  What template and profile are you using?

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Hello Joshua, I've read a lot about difficulties with the installation after using the "migrate" option. Here in Germany we're telling everyone not to use this option, and do the customizing of a new Programm Version manually. Nearly the same advice, you give to the users..... But I wonder, why this option still exits: Can anyone from autodesk explain, why you still offer this option, although it causes such a lot of pain? Joeycool

[Joshua.Benoist]

It's a feature from Core AutoCAD that works great for Core AutoCAD users.  We are trying to get better integration between the wizard and MEP, but *IMHO* stay away till it is solid.  The wizard was intended for users getting their feet wet and who have minor changes between releases.  Most experienced CAD managers are going to *manually* make migration changes between releases and avoid the wizard.  The MEP options menu and CUI has additional settings, tool palette and catalog file paths that change each year.  You don't want to migrate an old profile that points to old content catalogs or tool palettes. 

Our MEP.cuix file has items specific to MEP and you don't want the wizard to mistakenly see an old MEP or "Core AutoCAD" version and grab the MEP.cuix or Acad.cuix for migration.  So it takes some experience and judgment to know if it is migrating the appropriate material.  The old wizard would not tell you what files specifically were being migrated.  For example:  Grabbing an Acad.cuix instead of an older MEP.cuix.

Users want to use TRIM and FILLET and similar Core AutoCAD commands, typically on Architecture and MEP Walls, sometimes duct or other objects.  The native AutoCAD commands from Acad.cuix do not work with the MEP and Architectural objects.  So in the MEP.cuix and the Architecture.cuix, we overwrite *a few* core AutoCAD commands with our version so they work with our objects.  So it's important to have the MEP cuix file and not use the Acad.cuix file with the MEP.cuix file.  Once the Acad.cuix file is loaded, the MEP version of those commands have the potential to get overridden by the core version of those commands.  If you need to use the Acad.cuix. launch MEP as Core AutoCAD from the desktop icon.  One of the posters mentioned that we keep these in the "basement."  They are not as easily discovered that way.  In some cases, that's probably not a bad thing, right?

[Anonymous]

9"Perhaps if we had a better idea of what customizations you made"

Ok I shut off the ribbon, and activated the tool bars by getting them from the main autocad CUI files down in the basement, I am using the MEP imperial profile set to electrical and I changed a few key board commands that I use all of the time like PL now p and p now pn and LI (line)is now L and List is now LI it is a bit early so I just can't think of what else I tailored to my liking. That is about all I have done oh yes we as a group use our layer key styles which is just a modified mep object style we just added our layers to it. But it resides in a dwt we created in 2009 but since then I have up-saved it to 2012 mep would that be a problem? If so I will just start out fresh but if not we would just rather keep it and save the time of creating another drawing template file.

Right now we have a couple projects that were started in 2009 MEP we have migrated into MEP 2012 there are wires and devices created in 2009 mep but I have up-saved all of those in 2012MEP do I need to recreate those as well? God I hope not but if I do I do and we have an extensive library of devices.

[Joshua.Benoist]

Up-saving a 2009 layer key style drawing does not add any new keys from newer versions.  You are better off starting from a 2012 layer key style drawing and adding your custom keys.

[CADmonkey_UK_Building_Services]

"a dwt we created in 2009 but since then I have up-saved it to 2012 mep"

Personally, I wouldn't trust it, but I could be wrong. Because the DWT is the foundation of everything produced, I would prefer to take a fresh 2012 template and modify it to suit, rather than trust an upgraded 2009 template. Indivdual styles, libraries, etc. can be introduced in a controlled way and you can see what will work and what won't.

In the past I've had all sorts of fun and games that were all traced back to obsolete definitions. Example: MVparts become unselectable, or all 2000 pipe fittings in a system decide to disconnect due to a revised definition, or you cannot change the diameter of a pipe. Very odd behaviour that is pretty obvious once you've dealt with it a few times.

I think the key word is Trust.

Just to make things even more interesting, the chances are that Acad 2013 will change the DWG format again (they generally do this every three releases). Acad 2013 is probably out in the next 3 months.

[Anonymous]

Ok I will do it thanks

[Anonymous]

CADmonkey,

Thanks for all of your suggestions that are well worth the looking into I am going to start by creating a new template from the "basement files" in 2012 but it doesn't sound like any fun trying to explain this to my supervisor as he is rather locked into his old ways old blocks from long ago and won't quite understand that we should not use any of them at all and re create them new but I will do my best to ease him into it my brain is just crammed with what is next? Along with all the work that I have to do already and this all on top of it, yea I'm whining sorry.

[Joshua.Benoist]

You don't need to get rid of old blocks.  Just copy them into a new 2012 file.  It's the 2009 file that has issues, not necessarily the blocks inside.  Styles is a separate issue, and most can be transferred using Style Manager from a 2009 file to a 2012 file.  Layer Keys are an excpetion because you can transfer the whole style, but not individual keys.  So you end up creating any custom keys over again in a 2012 style.  The ability to transfer individual keys would make a great suggestion to post at the feedback site.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1109794