Odd failure mode- lost all manipulators, components disappear randomly

[Oceanconcepts]

I tried a simple move of a body, and had the manipulator disappear in the middle of it. Since then the file has gone wonky, the view cube vanished (though it still orbits if I mouse in the area) and components randomly disappear if I click on or near them. If I try to extrude, I don't see a manipulator, and when I enter a numeric value it becomes clear that the selected face is nowhere near the area I clicked. Restarting Fusion recovered function for a bit, but as soon as I tried to move the object things went south again. Fusion appears to freeze, but if I go to the dashboard and return it becomes responsive again- still no manipulators or view cube, and none if I open a new file. 

I did export the archive as soon as I noticed things were going all odd. Maybe tied to Mac graphics issues?  Will back up and keep trying. 

Update: Confirmed that the problem appears linked to one simple block form (body 25 in the file) in the file. Every time I try to move it, Fusion goes into a tailspin. Everything else seems to work fine. 

[Oceanconcepts]

Chapter two- tried doing some Boolean operation on a component, and experience the same loss of function after selecting the align tool (model workspace, direct modeling). Components flashed in and out of visibility, switched to wireframe, manipulators and view cube disappeared. 

[Oceanconcepts]

 Another update- after a period of calm following a full system reboot, I had this come up again when in a sketch- most objects on screen flashed over to a wireframe display, then back- view cube was gone, and no manipulators appear when tools are selected. Graphics jump into and out of wireframe or just disappear altogether. Graphics apparently freeze, but if I switch to Dashboard and back I can see an updated view.

[joel.palioca]

Hi Ron,

Looking over your posts it doesn't sound like this is specific to a certain dataset is it?  Would you be able to share the .f3d file with me so that I can take a look at things on my end?  I have seen similar issues to what you are describing, but we were able to fix them recently.

Cheers,
Joel

[Oceanconcepts]

Joel,

This all happened within the same file, but at different points. Restarting Fusion always cleared up the issue for a while. I don't want to share the file publicly, but I have sent you an email with a link to it on Dropbox. 

[joel.palioca]

Understood.  Much appreciated, I just got the email and will start investigating.  Will keep you in the loop as I figure things out.

Cheers,

[Oceanconcepts]

Just as an update, this behavior is continuing in this file. As i work, I come across some point (extrude, push-pull) where the program seems to freeze. But I believe it is just the graphic display that is not updating, because if I try to zoom, for instance, and see no response, I can switch momentarily to the dashboard and come back to the file, and the zoom will have happened and I have graphic control back- but the manipulators and the view cube are gone. The only way to get them back appears to be to restart Fusion. 

[chengyun.yang]

Hi Ron,

When I looked into your video where you demonstrated the problem to us, I noticed that the ambient occlusion effect was still turned on. Can you please check that in UI(through navigation toolbar->effects)? This can help us narrow down if the problem is related to the ambient occlusion effect. 

Thanks

[Oceanconcepts]

Yes, I noticed that and I turned Ambient Occlusion off. I still experience the same issue, so i don't think that is it. 

[chengyun.yang]

Thanks for the info. I have found one possible reason that could cause this kind of viewcube missing problem and we are working on a fix. To verify if your problem reported here is the same one, could you please try to turn off the display of the grid lines(through navigation toolbar ->layout grid->uncheck the layout grid option)?

Thanks

[Oceanconcepts]

I have not been able to work on Fusion much today, but so far with the grid turned off I have not experienced an issue. I'll keep going without, as I don't actually use the grid. 

[Oceanconcepts]

And just to update, while I have not been able to work as much over the weekend, I have not seen the problem again while the grid was off. 

[Oceanconcepts]

I spoke too soon.  Just had the same issue pop up when using the extrude tool on a sketch profile. It was a bit different, at first the display stopped updating, not changing from Cut to New Body, for instance, then seemed to catch up and I was able to complete the operation. However after closing the tool and looking again, the view cube is gone. 

Closing and restarting I almost got through two press-pull operations, in the 2nd the program appeared to hang, the display got very slow, then non-responsive. Switching to the dashboard momentarily brought back the display, but no view cube, and selecting any tool causes major parts of the display to disappear randomly. 

[Oceanconcepts]

I'm continuing to have graphics type issues. After 10 minutes of use, or any time I start to work at a faster pace,I can tell Fusion starts to hesitate in performance. Then I see things like zooming creating a series of still images, and freezing the app for a time. The view cube doesn't always disappear, but visibility of objects is spotty- flashing on and off- and tools stop working. This file is not nearly as complex as others that worked well in earlier version of Fusion- it's making me wish I could roll back the update, as this is really killing any possibility of progress. 

[chengyun.yang]

Sorry for the trouble. We have been closely looking into the problem you reported on your machine. The difficulty is we haven't been able to reproduce this problem on our side so it makes it hard for us to debug the problem directly except for just analyzing the problem alone from the phenomenon itself. 

In the meantime, I believe the most likely reason for this problem is some Fusion graphics related feature is not well supported on your graphics card configuration. So we do need your patience and feedbacks to help us locate what it is. According your previous replies, it seems that you have already disabled all the graphics effects(ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing, object shadow, ground shadow/reflection). One more thing I want to know is what is your selection effect setting. This is controlled in Preference dialog->Graphics tab->selection display styles. Would you please try to use the "simple" style instead of "normal" style? In the same graphics preference tab, there is another setting called Transparency effect, please do make sure you choose "better performance", NOT "better display". 

Another thing that might be helpful for us is can you please reduce the Fusion window size a little bit to see if that is helpful for this problem? I understand you are having a 27 inch monitor so the screen resolution could be high. When running Fusion in high resolution window but on a low video memory graphics card, there is potentially a memory problem which is we are working on improve in our August release. 

Again, sorry for the trouble and please let us know your more feedbacks of trying the settings above.

Thanks

[sanguish]

That certainly looks familiar.

I'm going to try on a core 7 and see if it makes a difference.

[Oceanconcepts]

We are mostly embedded developers here, so I'm familiar with the problem of trying to debug an issue you can't reproduce.  I have never seen this behavior before myself. 

I will try using a smaller window for Fusion. I have changed the selection effect setting, for transparency I had always had "better performance" selected. I'll let you know what I see. 

[Oceanconcepts]

Reporting back on today’s efforts.  One of the changes- either going to a (much) smaller window or changing the selection settings- seems to have helped. At least I’ve gone several hours without seeing the same issue again. I suspect it's the smaller window, as Fusion is noticeably zippier and more responsive. However, my aging eyes really crave a bigger view, so I hope this can be resolved to at least the previous version’s functionality. 

It would be helpful to know (when there is an answer) if this is graphics card related/ graphics memory related, or what could be done on the hardware side to improve Fusion’s performance. 

I did not tag this thread with Mac originally, as I didn’t know this was a Mac specific issue- and there doesn’t seem to be any way to change the title. But it is apparent others are seeing the same issues: 

 http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Help-and-Support/Bug-3D-navigation-cube-disappearing/td-p/5148802

 http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/General-Discussion/Model-view-hangs-MAC-latest-version-of-Fusion/m-p/5...

 http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/General-Discussion/Significant-bugs-in-Mac-version/td-p/5150034