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xrefs on network

36 REPLIES 36
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Message 1 of 37
ryanwhitacre
7356 Views, 36 Replies

xrefs on network

I'm having a bit of trouble with AutoCAD for Mac and opening xrefs over a network.  Specifically, if I have a file open in ACAD for Mac on my machine and someone else using ACAD for Windows tries to open up a file that references the file I have open, that xref will not display on their screen.  If I close the file and they re-open the file that references the file I just closed, it shows up just fine.  It does the same thing in the opposite direction as well - if I try to open a file that contains an xref opened on a Windows machine, it won't show up either.  If I try to directly open up another file that someone else has open, I do receive the appropriate read-only dialog window.  We're using a MacMini Server w/ OS X 10.6 Server and running Windows with the newest version of Parallels if that makes any difference.  Thanks!

36 REPLIES 36
Message 2 of 37
alex951978
in reply to: ryanwhitacre

Hi there,

 

Same problem here.

So far I've managed to understand that this is caused due to the different path names that exist in the same network: e.g. (windows pc running in a windows server network) "\\server\projects\2011\xref" and (mac pc running in a windows server network) "volumes/server/project/2011/xref".

 

If the mac user saves his system path, all other users wont be able to open acad files with xref correctly attached and the same happens when the opposite occurs.

 

I still dont know how to solve this.

 

Any ideia?

 

thanks and best regards,

Message 3 of 37
maxim_k
in reply to: alex951978

Hi alex,

 

I have an idea.

You can use a Project name in your drawings.

From AutoCAD 2011 (for Windows) help:

"Use Project Names to Define Referenced Drawing Paths

Project names make it easier for you to manage xrefs when drawings are exchanged between customers or if you have different drive mappings to the same location on a server. The project name points to a section in the registry that can contain one or more search paths for each project name defined.

If the program cannot find an xref at the location specified by the search path, the prefix (if any) is stripped from the path. If the drawing has a PROJECTNAME value set and a corresponding entry exists in the registry, the program searches for the file along the project search paths. If the xref still is not located, the program search path is searched again.

You can add, remove, or modify the project names that exist in the registry. The folder search paths beneath the project name can also be added, removed, or modified.

The search paths beneath the project name can be added, removed, or modified in the same manner as the project name. The order in which the folders are searched can also be modified. Projects and their search paths can only be edited through the Files tab in the Options dialog box. You cannot edit project names at the Command prompt.

Once you have established a project name and the search paths you want associated with that project name, you can make that project name the currently active project. The program searches the paths associated with that currently active project for xrefs that were not found in the current folder of the host drawing, the full search path, the current drawing folder, or the program support paths."

 

So you have to add Project(s) in AutoCAD for Mac Application Preferences (1 Application Tab -> 2 Project Files Search Path -> 3 + (at the buttom of dialog) -> 4 name your project (or leave default "Project1") -> 5 Open "Project1" -> 6 Select "Empty" entry -> 7 Select "Change Path" and point to your "volumes/server/project/2011/xref" folder (in my case it is another name)

 

Screen shot 2011-01-09 at 23.10.14.png

 

So, on Mac side you have:

 

Screen shot 2011-01-09 at 23.10.24.png

Then open your drawing, open Application Preferences, select "Project1" and select "Set Current" from "gear" button. Now PROJECTNAME sytem variable in your DWG is "Project1", and it is saved with DWG file.

Then you can insert Xrefs in drawing (even with "No Path" option")

 

On Windows side create the Project in Options with the same name as in Mac and in you drawing ("Project1") and set the path for this project "\\server\projects\2011\xref" (in my case it is another name):

 

Screen shot 2011-01-09 at 23.27.47.png

 

Now if you open your DWG with Xrefs on Mac or on Windows - AutoCAD will search Xrefs in the Project Files Search Path, ie in "\\server\projects\2011\xref" on Windows and in "volumes/server/project/2011/xref" on Mac, in fact the both paths points to the same place, and we were"told" about this to AutoCAD through the Project feature.

 

HTH

 

Maxim


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Maxim Kanaev
Architect
MARSS

MacACAD | Linkedin

Etiquette and Ground Rules of Autodesk Community
Message 4 of 37

when referencing any data in AutoCAD its wise to use RELATIVE path rather than FULL path.

This way it does not matter what your front end path is

Message 5 of 37
alex951978
in reply to: ryanwhitacre

Hi there,

 

Thanks for your reply, it was very explanatory.

I'm trying to make it work but so far with no success and I'm still trying to find why.

 

Best regards,

 

alex

 

 

Message 6 of 37
miogas
in reply to: ryanwhitacre

I use 2 computers with AUTOCAD FOR MAC (MAC PRO and I MAC). 


I have two problems.
-When user NO.1 work on file "1.dwg", other user NO.2 open the same file "1.dwg" and he can work in it an save it. Normally user NO.2 can open file just read only.


-When user NO.1 work on file "1.dwg", other user NO.2 cant not see xref of "1.dwg" in the file "2.dwg".  If user No.1 close "1.dwg" and user NO.2 reload xref file it work perfect.

 

any solutions??

THANKS

Message 7 of 37
alex951978
in reply to: miogas

Hello,

 

From what I've experienced and read, your question is about a known issue, regarding file sharing/acess on MAC OS.

 

I think we just have to live with that... unless anyone knows it better!

 

 

Message 8 of 37
maxim_k
in reply to: alex951978

Hi alex,

 

I think you're absolutely right.

 

Maxim


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Have your question been answered successfully? Click 'ACCEPT SOLUTION' button.


Maxim Kanaev
Architect
MARSS

MacACAD | Linkedin

Etiquette and Ground Rules of Autodesk Community
Message 9 of 37
miogas
in reply to: ryanwhitacre

We have the same problem with 3 mac machines. We have mac pro and 2 I macs. One of the I macs is for file sharing. On this one we can work with xrefs and can open READ ONLY if somebody work on file.. If somebody work on the file other two in network cant see this xref except The machine where are files.

 

So we solve the problem with Automator. Automator duplicate project folder with dwg-s. So we link al xrefs on the duplicate, so now we can all use xrefs. Some kind Finstones solution:D.But we hope that will work in next version.

 

Second thing:

If I open file in the machine where files are, than other two users can in some time open the same file with "OPEN A COPY"---not READ ONLY.

If I open file on other machine, than I can open  "Read only" on machine where are files, on the third machine I cant open the file. I get mesage "The DWG file is in use. Unable to open Drawing". 

If I click in finder ob file and Get info there is everything OK "read & write"....But if I copy file in finder and paste it on the my desktop it say that I cant copy it. So I think there is problem with "dwl" file which is hidden and is near the file when its opened.

 

Whats depend that you get WOULD YOU LIKE OPEN READ ONLY or WOULD YOU LIKE OPEN A COPY window???

 

Some more ideas:D

Have a nice day.

Mitja

 

Message 10 of 37
HawkAIA
in reply to: alex951978

Full path, no path, relative path, makes no difference in my office.  I was just thinking that all of my files exist on my Snow Leopard Server and the windows machines have no problem at all.  They are all connecting with the SMB service on the server.  I wonder if mounting the server volumes as SMB instead of AFP will solve the problem?  I will try that and let you know.

Message 11 of 37
alex951978
in reply to: HawkAIA

Hi there,

 

I feel the same, the problem might be easily solved via OS.

I've tried winshortcutter, but haven't enough time to explore it = it's complex!

 

best of luck.

If you find the solution, please share!

 

thanks

Message 12 of 37
HawkAIA
in reply to: alex951978

My first try at the SMB mount worked half-way. That is, one of the xrefs came in but the other did not.  I think the problem may have been that I had the volume mounted twice at the same time - both AFP and SMB. This actually caused the Mac OS to append a -1 after some of the folder names on the SMB mount.  I'm sure there is an explanation for this behavior, but I don't know it.  Frankly, AFP on snow leopard server has been flaky on other programs, including Pages.  I need to check my SMB file locking settings on the server, as well.

 

I am going to play with this some more when I have some time to experiment and will post the results.

Message 13 of 37
HawkAIA
in reply to: HawkAIA

Well, the SMB was a bust.  This is definitely not a path issue.  I opened a drawing referencing multiple xrefs (I call this the discipline drawing), with all files residing on an Xserve running Snow Leopard Server, having the share point mounted to the client machine using SMB.  On the server sharepoint, SMB is configured to enable both OpLocks and Strict Locks.  Unopened xrefs are found and loaded into the discipline sheet on the client.  If another user on the network has an xref open, that xref is not found in the discipline sheet on the Mac Autocad platform.

 

Just for kicks, I tried this:  opened an xref on my computer; then successfully opened the discipline sheet into which that xref and several other xrefs had been inserted with "No path" option selected.  No problems.  Opened the exact same xref file on another client machine running Autocad 2011 on Windows, then opened the discipline drawing on my Mac.  All xrefs found except the one which was open on the WIndows machine, and received the message "XrefName not found."   Tried the same thing, only this time opening the xref on a Mac client running Autocad with the sever volume mounted as an AFP share.  Same result.  Went back to the Windows client and tried again with OpLocking and Strict Locking both off on the server (and yes, I stopped and restarted the SMB service on the server).  Tried different combinations of OpLocking and Strict Locking on and off.  Same result every time.

 

Bottom line:  I don't see how this has anything to do with anything that we mere users, or even server administrators can affect. I am guessing that there is a programming issue having to do with OpLocks and how they are handled (or not) with the different network protocols.   Sorry I could not come up with a work-around.

Message 14 of 37
william.costine
in reply to: HawkAIA

I would like to resurect this thread because we are having similar issues and I am wondering if anyone has found a solution in this last year.

 

We have a brand new set of iMacs and a mac mini server. the OS is lion 10.7.2 We are running AutoCAD MAC 2012 (up to date). The problem occurs in each of our 3 offices with separate servers.

 

When user 1 has a file open and user 2 has that file xrefed into his drawing the xref does not show up. Related, I believe, when a user has a drawing open and another tries to open it, one does not get the prompt to open as read only. it just says file is in use and it can not open.

 

The very curious thing is that if I create a share on my local machine instead of the server, there is no problem.

 

I have had a ticket open with Autodesk for at least 2 weeks as we have tested evey which way. We checked permissions, we checked smb vs afp, we checked RAID vs. no RAID. Autodesk thinks it is our server, Apple thinks it is AutoCAD.

 

Does everyone with a similar setup have this problem? Is there anyone that does not have this problem. I need some help in figuring out if there is something odd with our server configuration or if this is just an application bug.

Message 15 of 37
HawkAIA
in reply to: alex951978

We still have problems in 2012.  I'm running Snow Leopard Server.  I will say that 2012 is better in that it won't let another user open my xref, whereas in 2011, they could open it and overwrite my file while I was working on it.  

 

With 2012, it kind of works in our mixed platform environment.  If a Windows Autocad user has the xref open, the Mac user gets the proper read-only error, and the xref file does properly appear in files opened on the mac which reference the opened xref (that's a mouthfull).  From the Mac machine, though, it doesn't work correctly.  If I have an xref open on my mac, and a windows user opens the file that references it, the xref is not visible on their machine, and the windows user sees the message "file sharing error" in the xref manager.

 

The other thing that happens is that the longer that the mixed platform user opens and closes files that the mac user is also opening and closing, the more likely the mac user is to get "false" read-only error messages - the read-only dialog pops up on the mac trying to open the file, even though the windows user no longer has the file opened.  Very bizzare behavior that seems to clear up if I quit autocad for mac and re-open it.

 

If there is an Apple problem, it is one between Autodesk and Apple, and is definitely not something that I have the ability to solve on my server.  I have tried everything I know to try.  It seems like since it works as expected if the Windows user is the one with the xref open, that the problem has something to do with how Autocad for Mac is locking the open xref file.  Under my old Tiger and Leopard server software, I had choices in the SMB service about how to set oplocks.  My guess is that since Apple got into SMB licensing issues and wrote their own implementation of SMB for Snow Leopard, that this is an SMB problem in Apple's implementation.  That is just a wild guess, though.

Message 16 of 37
william.costine
in reply to: HawkAIA

It looks like our issues are related in some ways and different in others due to your mixed network.

 

Update:

We updated the server and workstation OS to Lion 10.7.3 which just came out. Supposedly they did a lot of work on file sharing.

 

Now it is worse than ever. If you try to open a drawing which has an xref in it and that file is open by another person, you get the spinning rainbow beachball from hell. The only recourse is to force quit.

 

Is there anyone out there in an all Mac environment that can use xrefs on a team in a manageable way? If so I would love to hear from you. Equally if you are having the same problem.

 

This is bringing our office to a standstill. We can print a set of drawings unless everyone stops work. We can't work on elevations is someone is working on plans. I don't want to say that Autodesk has delivered non-functioning application when there might be something wrong with our network setup. It seems as vanilla as possible though, that I am beginning to wonder.

 

So if anyone can make this work, please let us know. 

 

 

 

Message 17 of 37
HawkAIA
in reply to: william.costine

I call that the spinning beach ball of death. On Windows 7 it is the spinning donut of death.  🙂  My plan xrefs are separate from my elevation xrefs, which are separate from my section xrefs, which are separate from my site xrefs. On multi-floor buildings, I have a separate xref for the column grid, and separate floor xrefs.  They are all referenced to each other through circular references and overlays (instead of attachments).  This is how we have set up our work flow to allow multiple people to work on big projects (our big projects are from $10M to $50M).  If you are hunking everything into one xref (as I know some firms do), I can see that you would be going crazy with this problem.

 

Regarding Lion Server 10.7, I have not jumped on that bandwagon and have stuck with 10.6 (Snow Leopard Server).  It seems like Mac server software has taken a step backwards with Lion Server, and it is more geared to a home / hobbyist use.  I have read of problems with Active Directory, which I would not be able to tolerate.  I'm going to try and set up a Mac Mini with Lion Server as a separate test on my network.  It will take me a few days. If you have a backup of your old server software, you might think about restoring it.  I'm sorry I'm not more help to you.

Message 18 of 37
william.costine
in reply to: HawkAIA

Makes one nostalgic for the Blue Screen of Death Smiley Wink

 

If I understand what you are saying, I think we us xrefs similar to the way you do. The sheet file for printing would be composed of several xrefs, floor plan sheets around half a dozen. Of course elevations and sections would have the floor plans xrefed for reference. I don't think there is anything special here. 

 

Our servers are brand new so we don't have Snow Leopard for comparison.

 

Thanks for the time you are willing to invest in this issue, it is more than i could have expected.

 

P.S. Although the Autodesk Support person I have been dealing with on this ticket for the past several weeks has really been trying to help, I just found out that they don't even have a Mac Server to test this problem...

Message 19 of 37
chris
in reply to: ryanwhitacre

Hi Guys,

 

has there been any movement on this issue or has it been addressed by Autodesk at all? im suffering from a similar problem.

 

 I have a small network of 1 x Mac Pro acting as a server with 2 x imacs reading off of it.  it was working very nicey for a while until.....  I had a new girl start with me 2 weeks ago and set her up as a separate user on the Mac Pro.  Now she cannot open drawings from the shared directory without 'read only' warning message coming up.  Then if i try to open the drawing from the server log-in, none of the xrefs have retained their paths.  the two imacs seem to be able to read and write fine to the mac pro and they retain their paths - its only when drawings are opeded on the Mac pro things get weird.  I have had all of my shared preference looked at and they are all ok.  I can only think its a OSX / Autocad / sharing problem.  It seems to be only a problem with drawings containing xrefs (most of them) and ones that have been opened at some time on the Second user log in on the Mac Pro

 

Any advice greatly appreciated as its casing sleepless nights!!

Message 20 of 37
wei503
in reply to: chris

First of all, the xref missing issue should already be fixed in AutoCAD for Mac 2013 version. Please reply if anyone see any issue about file sharing on 2013 version.

 

Chris, can you please provide more details as the xref path changed from what to what? I hope you are using relative path type for the xrefs in your system, as it is much compatible for sharing drawings.

 

Thanks,
Wei






Wei Ma
AutoCAD for Mac QA Manager

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