topic Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting in AutoCAD Forum

AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Jason_Peckovitch — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 22:14:18 GMT

I do not know how to explain this, or what the cause of this would be. We upgraded our office to AutoCAD 2017 last week and now when we plot, publish or PDF, we found that random layers are getting switched from plottable to non-plottable and will have to manually change them to plot for each and every sheet. They arent always the same layers either. This is very frustrating and time consuming.

Has anyone else run into this issue before?

Thanks.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

pendean — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 13:03:40 GMT

What's common with these layers?
Are you running an add-on?
Are you using predefined pagesetups that may be "helping"?

There is no feature in AutoCAD 92017 or lower) you autoset layers to noplot with any of these commands no matter how hard you try.

Show us a DWG file with this problem with PLOT or PUBLISH: identify what these layers are in the file.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

jk1173 — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:51:20 GMT

I am having the exact same issue. At least I'm not the only one. There is not a specific layer that is being changed, just whichever one it wants. I have only noticed this since I upgraded to 2017. I thought there was maybe something changed in an updated block that I brought in but that wasn't the issue. Nothing has been changed in our blocks / drawings since I upgraded.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

pendean — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 21:33:44 GMT

>>>...just whichever one it wants...<<<
Or you're missing a layer setting in a viewport perhaps.

Show us a DWG file with the problem: figure out how to identify the layers in the file that do not plot in the file so we can test it. We all have 2017s and layers are not plotting on their own without our input here.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 21:13:46 GMT

I am having the same problem since up grading to 2017. Please see the attached files.

The LG-STEEL layer was randomly turned off and I did not notice it until plotting to pdf.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 21:31:41 GMT

Here are some more .dwg files with the issue.

The LG-STEEL layer again (seems to be this layer often)

As well as the Rebar-1 layer (also seems to repeat in other files)

Please let me know what you find.

The only layer that should be non-plot is the Z-Layout layer.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

pendean — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 17:58:04 GMT

You have those layers set to noplot

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 17:58:54 GMT

Exactly, but what I am saying is that I did not change them to non plot, somehow there were changed after upgrading to 2017. Before that they were set to plot.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 00:14:55 GMT

It appears that at least three of us are having this issue.
Have you made any progress figuring out what causes it and how to correct it?

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

pendean — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 18:12:42 GMT

Sorry but there is nothing built into AutoCAD that auto-sets layers to noplot: and simply opening the files in R2017 does not do that either. If it did there would be hundreds and thousands of posts about it. You either have a customization running or you are clicking on settings inadvertently. Or you keep opening a file and not saving it after you make the correction.

Are you able to replicate the problem on demand? Anytime you want? Or everytime you repeat a certain action? If not it's going to be a challenge guessing at your problem unless you can dig a lot deeper at your end.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 23:35:10 GMT

I found this other post:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-2013-2014-2015-2016-2017/2017-blocks-inserted-using-tool-palettes-create-noplot-layers/td-p/6357376
which actually fixed the issues I had.

My issue was that brining in a block from a tool palette that was imported from a previous version would set the layers to "non-plot" if they were not already defined in the .dwg file.
Like the person in the link above, I have several files that contain all of my dynamic blocks.

A good number of the blocks are created using layer 0 so that I can assign different layers to them when needed.

After dragging them onto tool palettes I had changed some of them via right clicking the block on the tool palette and setting it's layer for example from layer 0 to layers named STEEL or WOOD.

I found that the layer assigned to the block, if not already defined in the drawing, would come in as "Non-Plot".

After following the steps in the post linked above my problems were solved.

Hopefully this helps someone with similar issues.

Thanks to Tekcon13 for following through and posting their success.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

jk1173 — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 23:57:01 GMT

Thank you for posting that info. I have been so swamped I haven't had a chance to look into the problem. After reading the thread, I did notice I had the same issue. I went through all of my tool palettes and no longer an issue.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

jk1173 — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 14:41:43 GMT

For some reason one of my tool palettes changed back to false. Maybe I didn't hit save when I edited it. I have changed it again - hopefully it will stay.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 15:54:13 GMT

It may be pulling from the default tool palette files upon startup.

You could check in options to see if you have more than one directory in the "Tool Palettes File Locations" section.

With ACAD open type OP into the command line and hit enter.

Scroll down to: Tool Palettes File Locations

You should only have the one directory listed, the one where you actually made the False/True changes.

If you have:

...\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2017\R21.0\enu\Support\ToolPalette

listed as well as your custom location ACAD will pull by default from the location it shipped with.

If you ever need this location back you can just delete all locations under Tool Palette File Locations and it will automatically place it's default location back in there.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 20:34:01 GMT

It also seemed that when a new layer was copied into the drawing drawing it would be set to non-plot.

So I am testing the system variables:
LAYEREVAL from 0 to 2

LAYEREVALCTL from 0 to 1

Does anyone know if these settings would cause the issue.

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

pendean — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 21:27:19 GMT

Any chance you've read all the other replies above your post and tried he ideas being posted yet?

Re: AutoCAD 2017 - Plottable Layers now not plotting

JarleVelle1442 — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 08:21:31 GMT

There are two ways of picking blocks from the tool palettes. Either by drag and drop or by click to select and place.

One of these methods turns off the plotting for the layer on the selected block.

The layer must not be present in the drawing from before.