Corrupt Autocad File Article

[christopher.l.evans]

A coworker and my self have noticed slow performance but mainly file hanging when trying to editing and manipulating a drawing created from templates.  So we did some searching and I came across this recent article.  I asked him about the drawing templates we use and he said they've basically evolved from older templates and originally drawings, so going back 20 years or so.  So in regards to this article I'm interested if anyone can explain what happens to the file when old drawings used repeatedly over the course of years and more depth in general of the causes. 

We looked at setvar in the template and just a new drawing and copied the command history to a txt file.  Then we did a file comparison to see the system variables differences, there's quite a few in the 725.  I would want to eliminate corrupting a new template from scratch by copying these so I'm holding off on starting fresh until I can get a better understanding of what is possible going on.  My coworker found a sort of trick that seems to get rid of the hangs by just inserting a new layout tab.  In the scheme of things I don't know why this would provide a temporary fix or is it just allowing more to be done before the file hangs.

Currently using Map 3D 2010 64bit on Win7 Pro.

[pendean]

A DWG file gets updated when you open it in a new AutoCAD version: there is very little "old stuff" to break the file.

Template files are also not used or referenced once you save/rename it to something else: unlike say MSWord that seems to tie it's existance to template files. So there is really no relationship there either.

However, your file could contain "junk" that probaly needs to purge, or a corruption that finally needs to be addressed. Your linked article explains the processes used to clean up troublesome files. Corrupt layouts, or layouts with outdated PAGESETUPs can also add to the slowness (you stated a new layout solves a lot of problems).

Note: AutoCAD settings, as well as size, plus your PC specs and OS choice may also be contributing to slow performance. Sadly there is no magic bullet fix.

Consider posting in the MAP 3D forum for peer support with that variant if you think it might be variant specific, otherwise we all here would love to get a look at one of your troublesome DWT file and see where the issues may be located if they are file related.

[christopher.l.evans]

Yes I've gone through the applicable ones in that article.  The drawing still hangs, our test was drawing a rectangle and repeatedly moving it around in ms and ps.  Typically within 7-14 moves it will hang for approximately 5 seconds then completes the last move command.  Your response leads me to believe it is a corrupt layout.  I'm not certain what you mean by outdated pagesetups unless it is a reference to a plotter no longer there.  In the case of it being the layout what is recommended to fix that?  I couldn't find a definite answer googling it.

Our workstations have 2 - Intel Xeon X5450's, NVIDIA Quadro FX3700 and 8GB RAM, see well over the minimum system requirements.  Only possible thing would be perhaps the OS being Win7 and not Win Vista but I believe they are of the same architecture.

I would like to share the problematic DWT's but unfortunately they aren't for public release.  So I'm just going to have to see if I can figure it out with some help from the forums.

[jggerth · Accepted solution]

the fix for a corrupt layout is to delete it, and then create a new one with similar settings, eg the associated pagesetup.