R.K.-
My similar issue has presented itself in a drawing that I've been using for almost a year. AutoCAD is, basically, asking me to find "m_tics.shx" before it will allow me to proceed...clicking Cancel will make this message appear:
"The following error was encountered while reading in SHAPE starting at line 740032:
Undefined shape
Invalid or incomplete DXF input -- drawing discarded."
This AutoCAD request only comes after opening a DXFOUT-ed .dwg file. We're having to DXFOUT almost all of our files due to a nasty-contagious batch of linetypes that have found their way into our system as a whole and exponentially grows our .dwg files at will. Or at least we like to think so.. still no origin found for this bizarre occurance. It turns 2MB or 3MB site plans into 15MB or large site plan file sizes. No fun.
Any ideas? I'm about to WBLOCK the file to try and shave this nastiness off...
Unfortunately, opening a DXF fails when the referenced SHX file cannot be found (as you have seen).
If you do not have access to the SHX file, try making a copy of another SHX file and rename it to the name it wants.
I can't remember if this will let the DXF open or not.
Even if it opens, references to the shapes in the original "real" shape file will be missing.
But then I would be lying to AutoCAD... ;o) Great, thanks for the common sense. I will definitely try that, and, if I see something that looks big & nasty like Bigfoot in my .dwg file, I'll know to change the .shx to something less frightening. Thanks again for your time.