We keep loosing our profiles when we start acad in the mornings

[jaboone]

More often lately we have have several people who keep loosing profiles when we start machines each morning.  What could be causing this?

[p_mcknight]

If you have information stored on the network and have issues with the network connections or drives when you store AutoCAD then that is probably why you are losing them.  I know this is an issue with '14.  I'm not sure about 13 or 15.  We have the issue where people will putAutoCAD in their startup menu and it will open before the right network drives have initiated and as such, lose their profiles and support paths.  I made an app that they run instead that looks for the mapped drives and only starts AutoCAD if they are found and functioning.  Personally, I just check the drives before I start AutoCAD.  It is my guess you have a similar issue.  If it is not this, then you might just need to add the profiles to the application shortcut you use to start AutoCAD.  There's lots of information out there on how to do that.

[Volker_C]

Hi,

P_McKnight made a very good point. If that is not the scenario in your work environment, please provide some additional information as to how you are launching AutoCAD at the beginning of the day.

What settings are lost?

Are you using a startup icon with a profile specified in the path?

What type of Workstation Operating System are you working with?

What type of server are the network paths being pointed to?

Any additional information will assist in us helping you.

Volker

[jaboone]

This has happened more recently.than any other time.  Not sure why.  The people around me loose toolbars more than I do.  This has never happened before 2014.

Every day our civil guy looses all toolbars like positions and visibility and such.  I set up a permanant profile in startup icon properties and we will see if that works.  It has seemed to have worked on the few people I have done this to.

We have never had to create profiles before but has now become a neccescity.

Somtimes i start acad with a icon and most of times I start with windows explorer.

Dell T3600 i7, Guadro video, 16gigs memory, 250 solid state drive

Win7

Not sure what type of server but is local and linked to Atlanta office too.  Path names never change.  We loose what ever causes this when we close for overnight.

Vipre antivirus 6.2.5530.0

[jaboone]

Our network is very realiable and has only been down 2 or 3 times in 10 years.  Network paths are just as reliable.

[p_mcknight]

I am not saying that the network is the issue, but if it is it has more to do with how quickly you start AutoCAD after you start your machine than how reliable you network is.  In XP Windows completed and tested all network connections prior to loading the desktop screen which caused the computer to start slowly.  With the advent of 7, Windows loads the desktop and then continues setting and testing network connections.  This makes the computer appear to start faster but is just a lie.  If you start AutoCAD immediately when you see the desktop, your drives might not yet be mapped or available and you will have issues with AutoCAD.  Per my experience this wasn't an issue prior to ACAD '14 as the bug didn't exist on previous versions that would cause the files and etc to 'unmap' from your profile.  With the issue in '14 these paths and files dissassociate from your profile if they are not found. when AutoCAD starts up.  That is why our guys were told to take AutoCAD out of their Windows Startup menu and to wait a bit before loading AutoCAD to make sure all drives had a chance to get mapped and connected first.

[pendean]

FYI, screen menu items are saved in the workspaces of the loaded CUI files. A user must actively save their workspace after making changes. WSSAVE command: if the CUI isn't getting replaced then simply reselecting the workspace should fix the problem.

[Mike.Lapinski.SG]

Could this a potential workspace issue? You mention staff are losing toolbar views and such. After they arrange the toolbars and such to their liking are they saving the workspace view? If it was a profile issue, I would think users would get an error at startup stating the current profile could not be loaded.

Just a thought.

[jaboone]

These people know about the time it takes for windows to boot up and don't start acad for at least 5 minutes.  I never log off my machine at night and mine will remain running for at least a month at a time, short of a reboot.

I had one user this morning complain about the missing profile as you mention, buit come to find out, it was a missing profile was was easy enought to fix.  They must have deletd it somehow.

I know my comments are a shot in the dark, but I really have no idea where the problem is or what causes it.  Just trying to explain what the problems we are having.  I have just started saving the profiles (with backups) and making sure those are saved now, more than ever before which has elivated the problems thus far.

[dgorsman]

Any chance you are using roaming Windows (not AutoCAD) profiles?  I've seen a few posts with users having problems with that.  Profiles are stored in the HKEY-CURRENT-USER portion of the registry, so if anything limits access to that or modifies/restores it profiles can go *poof* afterwards without any warning.

[Jay_B]

We have been seeing a lot of lost profiles with Civil 3D 2014, we switched from Civil 3D 2012 and almost never lost a profile in 2012.

The majority of users that have been having issues are running Laptops which are often taken home to work over vpn.

IT was thinking the profiles were getting reset due to users launching AutoCad prior to the vpn being connected so it wasn't finding the network drives.

I have a desktop & use many versions etc. and I haven't had any issues. Something definitely changed in 2014.

We were already on Win 7 back to  2011 version and it just became a problem with 2014 here.

[jaboone]

Thanks for reporting that Jay.  I can say it goes to acad core, because we have been loosing them like never before too.

Are you by chance using Vipre antivirus?  I would guess it would be more of a registry issue not writting corerectly or something in the core that writes default registry values.  I can't prove it though.

[Jay_B]

We're using McAfee VirusScan Enterprise.

[Volker_C]

Dean had mentioned previously that this may be an issue with Workspace settings not being saved. Try the following:

Verify that the Registry for the user has appropriate permissions and then try the following settings to save a workspace. If you have already done this please confirm the results.

Registry Permissions:

You may have to ask your IT department for assistance if you are unsure or uncomfortable working with the registry.

Please verify the permissions for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Autodesk

Are set to: Allows full control and read for Administrators, the User and System

Procedure:

Windows + R key, type REGEDIT32.EXE

Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk

Select and Right-Mouse click Autodesk, select Permissions...

In the Permissions for Autodesk dialog, verify that Full Control is checked for

• System
• Administrators
• The User

Repeat for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Autodesk

If changes are made, please reboot the system.

Saving the Workspace:

1. Set the Workspace used in the Main CUI current
2. Rearrange palettes and workspace to your preferences
3. Then type WSSAVE   at the command line. Type a unique name in the "Save Workspace Dialog Box" to save the workspace.
4. Once the workspace is saved type WSSETTINGS to open the "Workspace Settings Dialog Box".
5. In the dropdown list set 'My Workspace = "to your workspace name"'. Make additional modifications if you wish.
6. Verify that "Do not save changes to workspace" is selected.
7. Select OK
8. Modify the workspace by moving items around. Do not save to the workspace.
9. Close and Restart AutoCAD.

Cheers,

Volker

[jaboone]

After holding the settings for some time, something clicked, like the reboot that caused havic again causing not total caos, but enough to make me bless it out some more.  As usual after a reboot, the layer xref and properties were on monitor one.  Also noticed the printer settings of my filters had also reset themselfs.  This is all frustrating.