Right-click SearchSet Locks up NW

[dennis]

I have a process plant model, various CAD contributors, NWD file = about 425800kb.  When I right-click on a SearchSet that has a large portion of the model selected, I get a lock up.  Smaller SearchSets seem fine.  Any ideas as to what may be the limiting factor?

System Specs:

Dell Precision Laptop

Win7 64

8GB Ram

NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M 1GB Ram

[lee.mullin]

How long have you left this for before moving on? I would like to see if Navisworks becomes available again and we can determine if this is just taking a very long time, or if it has truly become frozen up.

What does the search set look for? Is it a database property? Is it looking on CAD files or and NWD/NWC? Are the files local or on a network drive?

[dennis]

The particular searchset is based on the property name to include 'steel' in the name.  It then does select a large portion of the model.  Other searchsets that do not grab nearly as much of the objects do fine.  One 'try' we did was right before heading home, and we left for the night.  The next morning the cursor was still spinning.  I will try again today and let it run just to see if it does ever come back.  The NWF/NWCs are all local.

[dennis]

Update:

Ok, I tried the right-click on a searchset from two different PCs.  One, the cursor is still spinning after 2 hours.  The second, after two hours, it finally presented me with a menu.  So, to review, we had one PC origionally that ran all night and never woke up, we have another now that after two hours it has NOT woke up, and a third that after 2 hours it did finally offer a menu.

Honestly, from my workflow point of view, a two hour window for a menu to pop up isn't a good sign.

[JeffH_ADSK]

Just to check, what version of Navisworks is this occurring in, and is it a new phenomenon, or something you've encountered for a while in different versions?

If you have permission to do so, I'd be most grateful if you could send the relevant model to Support so we can investigate further.

Thanks,

Jeff

[dennis]

Currently NW Manage 2012, but I also tried it with the same results on 2013.  I haven't seen these particular problems before, and it does have me wondering if there is some sorta "size limit" to models.  To recap:

1) Rendered scenes have alot of tears in the image

2) Right-click to get a menu on the SearchSets tab of the Selection Tree will either take 2 hours or more to get a menu, or just plain lock up.

I appreciate your interest and questions, but I really would like some ideas or "try this" "try that".

[JeffH_ADSK]

Hi Dennis,

Having looked into this further, I think I can see what is occurring. However, to prove this one way or the other, I'd like to confirm a few things:

• As this is specifically a search set, do you get a progress bar at any point in interacting with the set? If so, when?
• When you left-click on a set that has this issue in the Selection Tree Sets tab, do you get the same delay before you get the application responsive again?
• If you right-click on the set (same location, Tree Sets tab) after the left click, do you get the menu immediately? You should as far as I am aware.
• Do you get any delay when you right-click on the same set in the Sets window in NW2013 specifically (not the Tree tab)? It's not the same context menu, so you may not be able to do the desired operation, but it's useful to localise the problem.

To explain, I believe that the right-click in the Tree specifically is selecting the Set contents in the model before giving you the menu, and that operation for some reason as yet unknown in your case is very slow.

We updated the separate Sets window in NW2013 and I'm curious to know whether this might help as a workaround - if you can select more swiftly via the Sets window and then right-click in the Tree, that should give an instant right-click as the set is already selected by that point; that will work until we can look at why the right-click in the Tree is so slow. Alternatively, if the issue is about the speed of selection generally from either tab, left or right click, then that also tells us where to focus improvements.

Without seeing the file it's hard to be any more specific than that.

Thanks,

Jeff

[dennis]

Progress bar:  In the SelectionTree/Set tab, if I select (left-click) the SearchSet, I do get a bar that runs about 5 seconds, then the entire SearchSet is selected.  Then if I right-click the same SearchSet, it takes (depending on the PC I am on) from 45 minutes, to 2 hours, and some lock up (ran all night).

In the Sets palette (not the SelectionTree), selecting (left-click) is fast, right-click the same SearchSet and the menu comes up immediately.  However, I do not have the same options in that menu as I do in the SelectionTree right-click menu.

If I select the SearchSet in the Sets palette, then right-click in the SelectionTree/Set tab, again, forever before it comes back, if at all.

I tried the same steps in 2013 NWManage and saw no difference in results.  So upgrading the 2013 doesn't seem to be a fix.

Would it be reasonable to assume that the size of the SearchSet is making it so slow/lock up?  Yet, why then does it work so well from the Set palette?

[JeffH_ADSK]

Hi Dennis,

Well there goes my initial theory...  I think at this point we need the file sent to Support and we can look at it in more detail to be able to give any kind of further recommendations, and indeed to figure out what we can change to improve this specific case for the future. Two hours is far longer than I would have expected even with a large model, and indeed orders of magnitude longer than the large files I've been trying here, so there must be something unusual going on somewhere.

The only other thing I could suggest trying at this point is to save the result of the Search Set as an explicit Selection Set (not as useful as it won't update from changes) and see if that improves things. However, until we've been able to look at where Navisworks is spending its time in that right-click and why, it's all theory.

Thanks,

Jeff