Revit BSODs during print preview - cdd.dll

[Orpheon]

I am contracted IT support technician, and recently I've come across an issue with Revit that's giving me quite a bit of trouble, so I was hoping I might get a little insight into this problem here. Several users at one of the companies I do work for are having an issue using print preview in Revit. It seems to affect multiple versions, as this has happened in at least 2011 and 2013, and possibly 2010 and 2012 also. What happens is that when doing a print preview on certain files, the PC will blue screen with a STOP error 0x0000050 (PAGE FAULT IN NON PAGED AREA), and it always references cdd.dll as the probably culprit (this is part of the Canonical Display Driver, that is, it's part of Aero).

The common factors are: 

-They all use HP z200 series workstations with Quadro 2000 graphics cards and 8GB of RAM

-They all run Windows 7 64 bit

-It happens mostly when they preview the entirety of a file

-It happens on certain problematic files

It seems strange to me that the files themselves could make a difference, but after testing on multiple machines, I can verify that some files can be previewed as many times as you like, while some files will crash the computer in 1 or 2 previews. It seems to have nothing to do with the size of the files, as a 99 MB file can be previewed just fine, while a 21 MB file will cause a crash. I can work around the issue by switching to a non-Aero theme, and if that's all I can do then that's ok, but I'd rather fix the actual problem, as some users work with a number of files at a time, and having Aero's ability to preview the contents of an item in the taskbar is quite handy for them.

I'm figuring that some strange combination of hardware and software, when used to preview files with certain elements in it, is causing some kind of strange exception. As far as I can tell all the hardware is good, I've run stress and memory tests and gotten no errors. Video driver version, motherboard BIOS version, video BIOS version, none of that seems to make a difference. It seems to be related to the graphics card, as replacing the card with an older one eliminated the problem for one user, but obviously it's not the only factor as some files work just fine with the Quadro installed.

I know this is a strange problem - I haven't encountered much information while scouring the web - but if anyone has any idea what might be happening, please let me know. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Searching for the answer here too. The workstation I am on matches the computer description you've given almost exactly (HP w/8gb RAM, Windows 7 64bit). I have gotten the blue screen during print preview several times in Revit 2013. Interestingly, the first few were before my machine was upgraded to 8gb RAM and 64bit (previously had 4gb and 32bit). Thankfully, the most recent crash occurred when I was testing a new title block. Thus, I didn't lose anything important.

If you've found an answer since originally posting, I am curious. Thanks!

~Sarah

[DarrenP]

blue screens are usually hardware or driver related: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2026248/can-a-bsod-hurt-my-computer-.html

[Orpheon]

Hi Sarah, glad to know I'm not the only one with this issue. Unfortunately I have not found an answer...this was sort of a last ditch effort, and when I posted this I'd already more or less given up trying to find a solution. The users have just sort of accepted the current workarounds, and since there were more important and pressing issues, this problem was mothballed. If ever I do come across the answer, I will post it here.

@DarrenP: I'm fairly certain the hardware or drivers are part of the problem, but what the exact conflict is, that is what I can't determine and what I'd like to know, so I can address the true problem, whether that lies with Nvidia, Autodesk, HP, or our users. Because at the moment, it really seems to be a combination of factors, and while maybe it wouldn't happen on different hardware, there's the question of why should this happen on this particular hardware that apparently has no other issues.

[Anonymous]

Agree - it would be nice to know the cause. For now, also just dealing with it and hitting save frequently!