topic Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered. in AutoCAD Forum

Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

peterK93BS — Wed, 03 May 2023 14:04:48 GMT

Program is Full AutoCAD 2023.

Drawing: A site plan that used a drawing with contours/buildings/hydrology/power/community map/etc. as the base(the contour lines are 3D technically). It has worked fine up until this point, and others for other sites are also fine.

Problem: I can only seem to get a couple commands in before the drawing complains that it needs to be recovered.

- Yes I have audited it, no errors found.

- I also tried to to copy linework into a blank drawing. It gave the "cannot save to specified format" error. Every time I used AUDIT it found and "fixed" four errors. I could use AUDIT a hundred times and it would always find and "fix" four errors.

- There was an Xref I couldn't detach so I bound it. Still can't find it though apparently there are 2 instances, can't purge it, and the purge window claims that it's in a layer that doesn't exist and is frozen and locked even when I hit "thaw all". The layers are: *ADSK_ASSOC_ENTITY_BACKUP (frozen, locked) and *ADSK_CONSTRAINTS (on).

- That block that can't be found came with the drawing when I copied everything over to the blank drawing. It is not nested according to the purge window.

- I've recovered the stupid thing dozens of times now. The recovery always claims there were no errors to be found. Recovery always appears shortly after the last recovery and usually once I click on something, sometimes caught up to where I just was and sometimes it's right back to where I started.

- I keep finding those *U### blocks everywhere and their thumbnails just show random things like dimensions or Mleader arrowheads.

- I even deleted almost everything in my /temp folder because someone said that might help.

I have no idea what to do. I'm just getting more and more behind schedule because it takes 15min just to make a single command stick.

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

pendean — Tue, 02 May 2023 21:35:53 GMT

Is this a problem with only this one single DWG file? Share it here if you can.

ALSO... share with us screenshots of your ABOUT and GRAPHICSCONFIG command pop-ups please, and confirm your OS version when you get a chance.

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

peterK93BS — Wed, 03 May 2023 14:10:14 GMT

I probably can't share the file, unfortunately. I'm using AutoCAD 2023.

Something I noticed lastnight, and again this morning, is that if I get the file to behave itself for any amount of time it's usually, not always, because I dared to use an aligned dimension.

The big difference/line in the sand between the file as it is now and how it was when it was working is, I think, the fact that I changed UCS so that I could draw perpendicular to the building. The original pointer was the 3D one with all the colours and was on a serious angle. I can't guarantee that that is the actual issue.

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

dflorezXFJYU — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:58:32 GMT

Im having a similar issue too.

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

pendean — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 21:20:47 GMT

@dflorezXFJYU wrote:
Im having a similar issue too.

do you just need to set RECOVERYMODE system variable to 1? Look up what that means in HELP.

Then explain where you store your files, what your year-version of AutoCAD is, and what changed all of a sudden with your setup or files locations to create this issue (or have you been suffering in silence for years)?

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

tim_crouse — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:26:31 GMT

I would suggest using Lee Mac's Delete Block Lisp to delete the block from the drawing.

I would spend some time (sounds like more time :)) tracking down orphaned items doing things

like running overkill, purge all and migrating sections over to a clean file and cleaning the sections.
Throughout this process, perform file saves to see if the file size is shrinking.

You'll have a pretty good idea when things are clean by the file size.

One technique is to divide the file into quadrants and paste each quadrant into a clean file.

Save each file and compare the file size. This could lead to an idea of where the trouble is.The goal here is to split the file into equal drawing object content.

You could also use some object trace lisps to recreate clean objects then use laydel to rip
the layers out of the drawing, that is usually a pretty good way to clean stubborn garbage out of the file.

If this is an xref that will be used on multiple sheets it may be worth all this effort.

otherwise, grab the PDF and use it as an underlay, or convert the PDF to a new xref and start with that.

Good-Luck

-Tim C.

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

Joshua_Szafranski2 — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 12:56:10 GMT

I am having the same issue. I have now noticed it in two different files. Both of those files had XREFs that I bound and exploded. Even once I PURGE everything, the block (old plan that was XREFed in) is still in the file on a (auto-generated) layer named *ADSK_CONSTRAINTS and it cannot be purged. The block definition still exists within the dwg. I tried inserting a new instance on a new temp layer, went into BLOCKEDITOR, Select All/Delete, then added a couple of criss-crossed XLINES to locate the block. Exit BLOCKEDITOR/Delete the block instance and the temp layer/PURGE ALL. This helped reduce the file size, but the block definition still exists on mystery layer. Cannot locate the block using QSELECT and I don't visually see the criss-crossed XLINES anywhere.

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

engrjvb — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:06:23 GMT

I've seen some ADSK_CONSTRAINTS on Civil 3D and Revit. Downloading the correct object enablers might do the trick.

Also, maybe try opening it in Autodesk TrueView first?

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

Joshua_Szafranski2 — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:10:51 GMT

A couple of additional notes: The *ADSK_CONSTRAINTS layer does not appear in the Layer Properties Manager. I dabbled with the "AutoConstrain" function in the recent past. This may have contributed to the problem, but I cannot confirm that. "Delete Constraints" did not seem to help.

Re: Drawing can't go two seconds without needing to be recovered.

Joshua_Szafranski2 — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:14:11 GMT

The only solution I have had success with is to thaw and unlock everything in the drawing/Select All/WBLOCK. This may not be an option with a really large file. It took a long time for my drawing to process.