Crashes making the package unusable

[steve.murphy]

Over recent months I've been getting multiple crashes each day, making the use of the package intolerable!

I've submitted multiple crash reports.

I'm on OSX 10.11.4

iMac 3.2 GHz i5

32GB Ram

NVIDA GeForce GTX 675MX 1024MB

I've turned off gesture controls (as suggested in another post)

I've selected Open GL (as suggested in another post)

I've tried changing from shaded to wire frame

I've tired reducing the window size

None make any difference

Sometimes, but by no means always, I get a system message that graphics memory is low

The crashes always seem to happen when attempting actions such as extrude or fillet

I have used Autodesk for many years, so have invested a lot in learning the package, but this is untenable and I'm already trialing several alternative CAD packages.

[Phil.E]

Sorry to hear this.

Looking at your crash reports, the last three are crashes are directly in the geforce driver code. Unfortunately OSX does not allow independent updating of the graphics drivers.

• Is your display retina? If so I'll show you how to turn that off for Fusion.
• Have you turned off all graphics effects such as anti-aliasing?

On my side, I'll pass this on to the graphics team in the mean time to look for a fix.

Thanks for your patience.

[steve.murphy]

My iMac is a late 2012 model, so not retina.

I do turn off the effects, but they default back when I restart!

I have also tried to get a driver update from NVida, but there doesn't seem to be one.

[Phil.E]

Thanks.

To be entirely clear about it:

Yes, as I said, OSX does not allow update of graphics drivers. That is all handled in OSX updates.

Have you tried using this control to turn off graphics effects? And if yes, you say this becomes "unchecked" and all the effects are back on if you restart Fusion?

How often do you restart Fusion?

[steve.murphy]

I don't recognise the dialogue box you included?

I user the menu's from the icons at the bottom of the screen?

At the moment I'm restarting Fusion about 20 times a day, but when it's stable I'll normally close it at the end of the day, but I rarely restart my mac.

I am in a bad habit of leaving multiple tabs open in my browser, which I guess will also be consuming VRAM, but I've even tried running Fusion with everything else closed and it doesn't seem to affect stability.

[HughesTooling]

To get the graphics diagnostics dialog shown above click the question mark top right of screen.

Mark

[steve.murphy]

Mark,

Thanks for the tip - I didn't know that menu existed!

The check box was unchecked - I've corrected that, so let's see what happens on a restart

[TrippyLighting]

Just as a point of reference, my iMac is almost 6 years old and runs Fusion smoothly

[steve.murphy]

Yep,

Mine always did too.

Not sure if these current problems are:

The upgrade to El Capitan - though I guess more people would have the issue

An Autodesk upgrade - though, as above

A hardware fault on my machine, though I've run every imaginable diagnostic

Or just a particularly difficult model. It's not really a very complex model, although it does have a few imported models and components

Thanks though for the reassurance that this is not a universal problem - that means there's hope of a solution.

[Phil.E]

@steve.murphy

It's quite possible it's the model. Sometimes things in Fusion crash at this level, although it's more rare. (generally graphics crashes are just that, and model independent) 

Can you narrow it down to a repeatable set of steps? Such as editing anything particular. If so, and I can repeat the crash (using your data), we can probably fix it.

Thanks,

[steve.murphy]

Phil,

Sometimes it will just crash when I'm moving round the model, but more often than not I'm either extruding a face or adding multiple fillets. It has also crashed when adding a new body or editing a sketch.

Are you able to acccess my model from your end or do I need to share it?

Today, the most frequent crashes have been:

1) There's a famework made up from Bosch Rexroth extruded profile. I've imported a 3D model of this from the BR website and you'll note I leave various bits floating around. When I need to include some, I'll extrude the end face to draw it to the correct length. I'll often establish that length by snapping to the face of an existing object.

The crash will sometimes occur when just selecting the face, but most often when I either try to enter the extruded dimension or snap to another face.

2) This framework is then covered in 2mm plate. I fillet each of the corners, 1 or 2mm radius, so my laser cutter doesn't leave sharp edges. If I do each edge one at a time I'm usually ok, but this is a really poor workflow - however, if I select multiple edges, even on a single plate, but especially if I do it for multiple plates, then it will crash when right clicking to get the menu or once I've selected fillet, but before I've entered a dimension

I can reduce crashes by constantly forcing saves, so it seams to be a problem that builds up the more operations I do between a forced save, an autosave or a save and close.

After a crash I can always complete the operation I was trying to do when the model crashed - so it's not some fundamental no-no that I'm atemplting

Also, the crashes always seem to be worse when I'm working with bodies that are in contact with other bodies. So, for example, I find it best to stand the plates off the extrusions if I need to manipulate the length and then snap them back in to place, but again this is a poor workflow.

[Phil.E]

@steve.murphy

I'll send you a private message so you can add me to the project.

Thanks,

[Phil.E · Accepted solution]

The model itself is 38 MB compressed. There are 700+ bodies in it. Windows can handle the model, OSX cannot. This has been sent as a  high priority case to developers.

I've sent you an email to cover this all in depth. Just to close the loop here, from the email:

Conclusion:

1. A possible memory leak is causing trouble here. Appears to be Mac Only.
2. Graphics are extremely heavy for your hardware. Reduce the load by shutting visibility of parts while modeling.
3. Parametric history is extremely heavy. Use DM features where possible. Fix errors in the timeline if possible, as they occur.

[steve.murphy · Accepted solution]

Phil,

Thanks for your help and for taking the time to look at the model.

It's clear I need to be more discplined when building my models and more careful when importing stuff from GrabCad and similar!

I did suspect a memory leak of some sort, as the problem seems to get worse with time. hopefully you guys can find that.

Your third point is that I should use direct modelling rather than parametric modelling - while I understand the differnece between the two, I wasn't aware I had the choice in Fusion 360? I've always built stuff by either pulling in items from the create menu or drawing them on to a sketch? Can you point me to something to help me understand how to do DM instead?

Thanks again for your help

[brianrepp]

@steve.murphy I'd suggest taking a look at the "Learn" tab at the top of this site, there are a number of tutorials and videos that should be helpful.