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Inventor 2012 loses focus, can't save

16 REPLIES 16
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Message 1 of 17
IS200
1625 Views, 16 Replies

Inventor 2012 loses focus, can't save

I am using Inventor 2012 on a high-end PC with dual monitors.

Sometimes the program loses focus within Windows and I can't do anyhting. It loses the big 'I' button and won't respond (see attached)

Inventor still shows up on the applications list in Task Manager with a status of 'running' but I am unable to return focus to the program. I have also noticed that when this happens Inventor is missing from the Alt-Tab or Windows-Tab menu as if Windows has forgotten that Inventor is running.

At first I thought this was only happening when running multiple sessions of Inventor, but today I have the same problem with only one session open.

The only solution is to kill off Inventor from the Task Manager and lose any work I haven't saved. Very annoying 😞

 

16 REPLIES 16
Message 2 of 17
Maxim-CADman77
in reply to: IS200

Some of our PCs suffer the same from time to time.

Message 3 of 17
IS200
in reply to: Maxim-CADman77

!!! BUMP !!!

I need an answer to this problem as it is occuring on a regular basis, and on multiple PC's.

Been hanging for the last 20 minutes. Inventor displays "Saving <path name>" in the status bar but nothing is happening. Task manager says Inventor is "Running", Process is using CPU, but no action whatsoever from Inventor, the window is dead. Not greyed out, all icons are in place, just can't click on anything. Inventor is missing from the Alt-Tab menu... again. Can't save my work, time to kill the process again and redo my work.... again.

 

REALLY FRUSTRATING!

 

NEED A FIX FOR THIS BUG!!!

 

 

Message 4 of 17
IS200
in reply to: IS200

Hello, is anybody there.....

 

I would REALLY like an answer to this problem.

 

Any developers out there who could look into this fro me please


Message 5 of 17
mistergoodwin
in reply to: IS200

It sounds like inventor is trying to show a dialogue prompt which is stealing focus but is stuck in the background or off-screen.

 

Next time this happens click on your inventor window then press [alt + space] and without using the mouse use your cursor (arrow) keys to select move, press a few cursor keys again (any) and then move your mouse this should unhide the window that is taking focus and follow your cursor until you click to place the window.

 

I've had this situation happen a few times before, it will even send my inventor into a not responding state. If this is the problem the above fix should work, and windows should remember the position of the window for next time.

Message 6 of 17
IS200
in reply to: mistergoodwin

Doesn't work sorry, tried the alt+space fix as you suggested, but no effect.

I don't believe it's another window taking focus as it doesn't happen during a command which would launch a window.

Seems to happen mostly when I'm saving a file.

Inventor shows saving "filename" in the staus bar and never comes back.

Also, when it does happen I'm always left with a .newVer file in my directory alongside the one which crashed Inventor.

Do you think this could be network related maybe?

Message 7 of 17
gerhick
in reply to: IS200

We get this from time to time, in our case it's (usually) a vault dialogue behind a VBA macro dialogue.


Sounds like your's is something else, but give this a shot anyway. Right click on an empty space on the windows start bar, and click 'Cascade Windows', or 'Tile Vertically' etc... this will re-position all windows whether they show up with Alt+tab or not.

 

Worth a shot.

 

Cheers

___________________________________________
Gerrard Hickson
Inventor CAD Administrator || Autodesk Inventor 2012 Certified Professional
Autodesk AutoCAD 2012 Certified Professional|| Bachelor of Technology (Mechanical)

PointZero Design and Drafting
Message 8 of 17
IS200
in reply to: gerhick

Thanks for the fresh suggestion. I will give it a try next time 🙂

Message 9 of 17
IS200
in reply to: IS200

Sorry Gerrard, this didn't work for me.

 

I have found that there is also a problem when Inventor comes back from doing a lot of work (i.e; a big rebuild) sometimes the big "I" button (Ad Application Button?) is unresponsive. All others icons/commands work, but the big "I" button is dead.

The only fix is to restart inventor...

 

Also, another "bug" is that if I ever have to switch users on my PC, which I do from time to time for IT reasons, Inventor behaves really badly when I return. The only way to make it behave is to do a full reboot.
No other program I have ever used behaves this badly in a windows environment.

 

When are Autodesk going to make Inventor interface properly with Windows?

 

Message 10 of 17
SBix26
in reply to: IS200

I don't have anything very specific to offer, but if this is an Autodesk bug, it is a very odd that nobody else is seeing it.  The hang on Save, coinciding with the .newVer file appearing indicates that something external to Inventor is going wrong with the save operation, possibly a network issue.

 

I also agree with what others have suggested: it sounds as if a dialog has focus but is not visible when this occurs.  This has happended to me on rare occasions with a custom add-in that we use, but in this case, since I know what is open and what input it is asking for, I can satisfy it and move on.  You can't do that if you don't know what's taking focus.

 

Or, there is also the possibility of graphics issues-- are your drivers up to date?

Message 11 of 17
IS200
in reply to: IS200

I have seen the taskbar icon change to 2 icons during these times, one says 'Autodesk Inventor', the other says 'Ad Applicaion Button' then, when Inventor comes back to life, the button is dead.

 

I don't think it is a graphics issue as I have the latest drivers installed on a Quadro 2000 card.

 

Could this be a problem associated with having multiple displays?

 

I have also noticed that Inventor now 'steals focus' from other programs. If I am on my 2nd monitor with another program as my active window and I mouse over Inventor it steals the focus away as soon as the stupid 'part number eye-candy box' pops up. Is there any way of stopping this from occuring as it is really annoying when I am typing an email and Inventor pulls focus away from my typing. If I don't notice straight away I am running all sorts of commands in Inventor.


I don't recall previous versions of Inventor having this problem. Is it a bug which has added with the new popup eye-candy?

Message 12 of 17
SBix26
in reply to: IS200

Sorry, I'm out of ideas.  I've never experienced anything like this in any version of Inventor.  The multiple displays angle sounds the most likely, but someone with more experience in that area will have to jump in here.

Message 13 of 17
nstalker
in reply to: IS200

just wanted to let you know that you're not crazy.  I experience the exact same problem.  The only solution I have is to wait and eventually Inventor starts working again.  It just does a really poor job of communicating with Windows.  Windows thinks it is not responding but it's just thinking.  I would appreciate if Autodesk made a progress bar or something so you can tell that the application is not frozen.

Message 14 of 17
swhite
in reply to: nstalker

Yes, this is an issue that needs fixed. Usually a response window tries to open then goes to the background where it cant be accessed. This leaves you stuck and unable to respond to the querry you can't see. It does not always work, but if you double click where the I icon should be it will close the program and save a temporary rescue file. As I said, this does not always work, but beats redoing work if it does. Best of luck 🙂

Steven White
Lee C. Moore, Inc.
www.lcm-wci.com
Inventor 2011
Intel Dual Xeon E31225 @ 3.1 GHz CPU
16 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 600 GPU
Windows 7 - 64 Bit
Message 15 of 17
nstalker
in reply to: IS200

where is this temporary save file located?

Message 16 of 17
JDMather
in reply to: swhite

This doesn't solve your problem of why and how to fix, but I can tell you that I save often enough that I am never concerned about retrieving any lost work.  I can quickly recreate 5 minutes of work.  Not that I save every 5 minutes, but that I don't not save anything that would take me more than 5 minutes to recreate. Not saying that I never crash.

 

If loosing work in the next second would be a significant hassle to recreate, I save.

I have never opened an oldversions file, except when helping others.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Message 17 of 17
Jacob
in reply to: mistergoodwin

This helped with my issue. I routinely go back and forth between docked dual monitor and undocked laptop screen. When undocking and using Inventor the program would not display at all except on the preview. Acting like the program is on another display that doesn't exist. 

 

Thanks.

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