2013 LT Mac Potential Purchase - Problem Loading Existing Drawings

[rs-eng]

At present we have a large number of drawings created in Autocad LT 2002 (Windows). We are making a change to all OSX programs. 

I have installed the trial version of Autocad LT 2013 on a brand new MacBook Pro Retina (mid 2012).  It runs ok, but freezes with the spinning wheel when I open one of our LT2002 drawings.  To recover I have to force-quit Autocad LT Mac.

I searched for an answer on this but no joy.  Any suggestions out there?

Thanks

Rick 

[maxim_k]

Hi Rick,

Do you have such issue only with one file?

Is it complex enough? What kind of data it contains?

Maxim

[rs-eng]

Hello Maxim

I had some time this morning to do some more testing.

- A very simple drawing from our archive loads and runs ok.

- Anything even moderately more complex loads but when I move the curser it freezes with teh spinning wheel and then I have to force quit.

- Can I send you a file to see if you have the same problem?

Regards

Rick

[maxim_k]

Yes, you can - post it here or send to mkanaev at yandex.ru

Maxim

[maxim_k]

Hi Rick,

I received your file and after some research I have found the problem.

I opened this file in AC 2012 for Windows and get this alert on opening:

File corrupted with acad.vlx virus? Maybe, I thought.
 I opened this file anyway. The next alert was about rich amount of layers filters in this file. At first I decided to retain all layer filters and at this moment I discovered that your DWG file has filter names in almost all over the world languages:

I can not even to count the number of filters.

After I purged them from drawing I was able to open your DWG file in AutoCAD for Mac. BTW - the size of cleaned drawing became only 777 Kb, instead of 4.3 Gb before cleaning.

About virus - I think that you should check this on Windows machine from which you received the file.

After purging filters I don't get any more alerts about language packs.

Maxim

PS: I've sent purged file back to you.

[rs-eng]

The dwg file with purged layers that Maxim returned to me now runs successfully on my Macbook Pro.

Thanks Maxim!

I did not for a moment suspect a virus.  It will be an exercise to track the pesky varmit down and eradicate it.

Just goes to show how easy it is for a system to become infected when files are shared amoungst numberous orginizations.

Now I can get back to my evaluation of LT for Mac.

Rick

[maxim_k · Accepted solution]

Hi Rick,

After further investigation I have found the way how to cleanup filter list using AutoCAD LT for Mac (2013).

I was aware, that 2013 versions of AC for Mac (both LT and full) have internal tool for removing large filter lists. According to Help documentation the system variable LAYERFILTERALERT  should be equal to 2 (default) or 3, to allow AutoCAD to show alert about deleting layer filters. And it is set to 2 "out of the box".

But it appears, that there is a bug in functionality of LAYERFILTERALERT, in fact it should be 3 to work properly - this is the first condition. The second one - you have to enable "Show layer groups" in Layer palette.

The third is that in order to see alert dialog with ability to delete excessive dynamic layer group filters, you have to open the file you want to cleanup from AutoCAD itself (not by double- clicking on DWG file in Finder) and there should be some file already loaded in AutoCAD (even new empty).

With such conditions when you open your drawing, you can see an alert from AutoCAD:

with ability to delete all layer filters before they are loaded into Layers palette, and after you confirm deletion of layer filters - AutoCAD doesn't freezes any more, just save the file and it is now clean.

Maxim

[rs-eng]

Hello Maxim

I was able to open the file in Mac LT after following your instructions.

I was dreading having to open the any file with this problem in LT (Windows), purge the layer filters and then save the file and open in LT (Mac) to work on it.

It's great that you have come up with a procedure to do this all in LT (Mac).

Thanks again Maxim for your super assistance.

Regards

Rick

[maxim_k]

You are welcome, Rick.

Just want to add that the same procedure for enabling layers filter cleaning feature applies to the full version of AutoCAD 2013 for Mac.

Maxim