AutoCAD for Mac

[#1]

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

[#2]

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.

[#3]

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.

[#4]

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.

[#5]

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.

[#6]

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. 

[#7]

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.

[#8]

Makes one nostalgic for the Blue Screen of Death 

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...