Error ...Autodesk\Acade 2008\Acade\acade.arx cannot find a dll...

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I have my custom arx and a VC DLL that I use in AutoCAD.

I load my arx via the following method

1) The path at which my ARX and custom DLL reside is appended to the support path
[HKCU\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.1\ACAD-6007:409\Profiles\<<ACADE>& #38; #38; gt;\General]
"ACAD"="existing_paths;mypath_added"

2) My arx dll is added to the startup applications via this
[HKCU\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.1\ACAD-6007:409\Applications\AcadAdapter] "LOADER"="mypath\myarxdll.arx"

After this when I startup AutoCAD 2008 or AutoCAD Mechanical 2008, everything works fine as expected

But whenever I load my custom arx in ACADE, upon startup I get the following messages at the command line

<COMMANDLINE_MESSAGES_BEGIN>
Customization file loaded successfully. Customization Group: ACAD
Customization file loaded successfully. Customization Group: IMPRESSION
Regenerating model.
Initializing VBA System...
Loading VBA startup file...
D:\CAD_Packages\Autodesk\Acade 2008\Acade\acade.arx cannot find a dll or other file that it needs
AutoCAD menu utilities loaded.
AutoCAD Electrical menu utilities ; error: no function definition:
WD_ARX_FORMAT_PATH
Command: COMMANDLINE
Command: acenav
Unknown command "ACENAV". Press F1 for help.
<COMMANDLINE_MESSAGES_END>

This problem is also seen in AutoCAD Electrical 2009

I see that in my custom arx, if I load my VC Dll via the follwing, only then the problem occurs. If I donot load my custom dll (only load arx) everything works fine.

I do the following in my AcRx::kInitAppMsg of my custom arx
m_libraryHandle = LoadLibrary(ACADCUSTOM_DLL);

Any help in this regard would be appreciated.

Following is my configuration
WinXP SP2
AutoCAD Electrical 2008, B.51.0 (UNICODE)
Service Pack 0

This problem is seen only in AutoCad Electrical not in Vanilla AutoCAD or AutoCAD Mechanical

Edited by: wgmdev on Oct 15, 2008 2:11 PM

[Anonymous]

> I see that in my custom arx, if I load my VC Dll via the follwing, only
> then the problem occurs. If I donot load my custom dll (only load arx)
> everything works fine.

It probably isn't the cause of the problem, but IMO you should never add
your application path to AutoCAD's support paths. Your .arx knows where it
is loaded from; it can use that information to specify a complete path to
any files that it needs in the same folder as the .arx file. Any additional
paths can be written to the registry and read from there when needed.
Otherwise you clutter up the user's list of support paths unecessarily, make
it easy for end users to break your application by making changes to the
support path, and potentially cause the paths to exceed the maximum allowed
length.

Does the problem DLL include a manifest? If so, remove it and see if the
problem goes away. Without knowing more about the DLL in question, it's
pretty difficult to guess what the problem might be. 🙂
--
Owen Wengerd
President, ManuSoft <>
VP Americas, CADLock, Inc. <>

[Anonymous]

Does the problem DLL include a manifest? If so, remove it and see if the problem goes away.
Yes the DLL did include a manifest, I removed it, but the problem still exists

I think the problem is the loading time of my arx with the acade.arx, both are loadeed on startup. since the value of LOADCTRLS is "2" for my application.

If I dont load my arx at startup. i.e. remove this registry entry and let acade load all by itself. and then from the command prompt load my arx, it seems to work fine.

[Anonymous]

Please find attached zip file containing the complete arx source code as well as the executable for which the issue is reproducible at my end

Please do the following
-Extract the contents of the zip file to a temp location (say "d:\Temp")
-now you should be having a directory named "TextArx2" in "d:\temp"
-you should find an arx at the following path "d:\temp\TextArx2\debug\TextArx2.arx"

To run/test the application do the following
1. add the following key to the registry
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.1\ACAD-6007:409\Applications\A cadAdapter]
"LOADER"="D:\\Temp\\TestArx2\\Debug\\TestArx2.arx"
"LOADCTRLS"=dword:00000006

2. append the arx path to the support path via registry
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.1\ACAD-6007:409\Profiles\<& lt;ACADE>>\General]
"ACAD"="EXISTINGPATH;D:\\temp\\TestArx2\\Debug\\;"

3.Launch Autocad Electrical 2008, watch the command prompt for error
"Customization file loaded successfully. Customization Group: ELECTRICAL
Customization file loaded successfully. Customization Group: ACAD
Customization file loaded successfully. Customization Group: IMPRESSION
Regenerating model.
Initializing VBA System...
Loading VBA startup file...
D:\CAD_Packages\Autodesk\Acade 2008\Acade\acade.arx cannot find a dll or other file that it needs.
AutoCAD menu utilities loaded.
AutoCAD Electrical menu utilities ; error: no function definition:
WD_ARX_FORMAT_PATH
"