DXF opens in 2014 for Mac, won't open in 360 for iPad...

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone!

The attached .dxf file opens in AutoCAD 2014 for Mac (SP2) all right. It contains a LWPOLYLINE in the shape of a square, with one of its sides bulging to about 2 units to the right, and it also contains the TEXT "Hola" at (roughly) its center.

The file, however, refuses to to open in AutoCAD 360 for iPad. I have no idea why, the message that pops up every time is "This file cannot be opened, please try opening it again".

Do you guys have any idea why? I've examined the file many times, and I still can't find out if I left something out that 2014 assumes as default, but 360 doesn't.

The attached image shows how the drawing looks right now in 2014.

[artc2]

When I open that dxf file in a debug version of AutoCAD I get a whole series of asserts because there are references to objects that are missing in the file.  Acad silently handles that.  I guess AutoCAD 360 isn't as forgiving.

[Anonymous]

Hey, that actually sounds like a good starting point.

Do you happen to have a list of the references that seem to be missing? Failing that, the log showing the failed asserts might help 🙂

[artc2 · Accepted solution]

Sorry, I don't have any list of the missing references and there is no log of asserts, nor would they be useful unless you have the Acad source code that they reference.

You can find some of the missing references by opening the dxf file in a text editor and searching for ACAD_XDICTIONARY.  I find three of these each with a group 360 entry right after and the line after the 360 is the handle being referenced (18E, E6, 15D).  In all three cases these handles don't exist anywhere else in the dxf file.

There's also an AcDbVariableDictionary entry in the OBJECTS section that is for a dictionary that isn't in the file.

And, the BLOCK_RECORD entries all have references to their layouts and the layouts are not in the dxf file.  For this version of dxf file, the layouts really should be there.

There are probably other issues, but I don't have time to look more.