I was wondering if there is a tool to assist in troubleshooting [day-to-day] Navisworks problems. We have been using Navisworks for many years, but recently we have had quite a few small issues that have been immensely difficult to troubleshoot.
Thomas Nielsen
Ramboll Oil & Gas
Hi thniels,
What issues are you experiencing?
Here are some tools/processes for troubleshooting issues you may be experiencing in Navisworks.
KNOWLEDGEBASE:
You can find many answers to issues by searching this Navisworks discussion group or running a search in the Navisworks Support Knowledge Base:
- http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/index?siteID=123112&id=11621361&linkID=10382101
SCENE STATISTICS:
Click the Home tab and slide out the Project Panel. Then click Scene Statistics. The scene statistics window will open and state if you have any missing object along with the manufacture and name of the object enabler. It will also state the bounding box of the model, which can be helpful to determine if any of your models have extra geometry in the outskirts of space.
FILE UNITS AND TRANSFORM:
If you find that your models are oriented incorrectly or have the wrong scale, in the selection tree, right click the model and select File Units and Transform. You can set the units of the file, transform the origin, rotate, or rescale the model.
SYSTEM INFORMATION:
To find out your system information, in the InfoCenter box, click the down arrow next to the Help button > System Info.
For example, if you suspect a graphics cards issue, the window will state your graphics card and driver version, which you can check to see if it the latest one recommended for the card on the manufacturer’s website.
APPLICATION LOGGING
By running the options editor in Advance/Hidden mode, you can turn on logging in the software. The contents of log file may shed light on an issue that is occurring:
To turn on logging:
1. Click Start > Run and type "CMD" and press enter to open a command prompt.
2. Use the change directory command “CD” to change go to the directory of the Navisworks Program Files folder. For example, for Navisworks Manage 2011, you would type the following command:
cd C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Navisworks Manage 2011\
3. Type the following to open the Options Editor in the hidden/advanced mode:
OptionsEditor.exe –a
4. Expand General > Logging
5. Mark the "Enable File" checkbox and set the "Logging Directory" field to an existing temporary directory, for example C:\temp.
NOTE: THIS MUST BE AN EXISTING DIRECTORY THAT YOU HAVE WRITE PERMISSIONS TO
Each time you open Navisworks, a new .log will have been created in the temporary directory. You can view this log file in a text editor.
In the General > Logging panel of the options editor, you can also check the “Enable Console” box and a console window will open along with Navisworks. The console window will display what is being written to the log while you operate in Navisworks.
You can turn off logging later on by unmarking the "Enable File" and "Enable Console" checkboxes when you are done troubleshooting.
PROCESS MONITOR
The following Process Monitor application can be used to monitor the roamer.exe process for errors. The roamer.exe process is the Navisworks application.
Process Monitor v2.93
- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645
NAVISWORKSERRORREPORT.DMP
As pointed out in the discussion post “Navisworks Manage Crashing” by contributor arkhefieldonline, you can download and use the Windows debugging tools to read a NavisworksErrorReport.dmp file if you experience a crash in the software:
- http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Navisworks/Navisworks-Manage-Crashing/td-p/2661444
When Navisworks crashes, you should be given the option to send an error report to Autodesk. At that time, an error report named NavisWorksErrorReport.dmp should be generated and saved in your systems temporary folder.
You can easily find this .dmp file through the following:
1. Click Windows Start > Run
2. Type %TMP%
Your temp folder should open and within that folder you should find a NavisWorksErrorReport.dmp file.
Once you have located the .dmp file, you can open it using the Windows debugging tools as explained in the following article:
How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging
- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315263
As described in the article, use either the “kd” or “windbg” commands from the Windows debugging tools to open the dmp file. At the bottom of the report it creates, it should state a module where Navisworks crashed.
Regards,
John Lipp
Product Support Specialist
Product Support
Autodesk, Inc.