AutoCAD randomly shuts down - no errors

[LyleHardin]

We are using AutoCAD 2018 on a network. We have about 30 available licenses. I have 5 users (so far) who say their AutoCAD randomly shuts down. No errors, no warning, just gone.

This usually happens when they are not looking. Perhaps getting a cup of coffee or something. They come back to their desk and AutoCAD is just not running, and they swear that it was.

I'm not using an Options file, the license file is all up to date. This just started happening last week and is still happening. I think it might have happened with me. It's just one of those things... you come back to your computer and there's no AutoCAD and you swear it was running when you left. Makes one question his sanity. Non-the-less, it's happening to several people. Any ideas?

[pendean]

I'm concerned no one is present when it happens: an office prankster? Or did you all adopt new auto-logout procedures on your network/PCs that I.T. may have implemented recently?

[LyleHardin]

Funny, I did have a user respond that he was shutting AutoCAD down when people weren't looking. He was joking, of course.

After a quick email polling, it's happening to about 10 people, AutoCAD 2018, AutoCAD 2019, and Civil 3D 2018 are all involved. No changes to PCs that I know of, but I'll verify with our IT guy on this soon. Some of the responses to my poll indicate say they have witnessed it happen and it has happened when they aren't looking. No one is getting any errors.

[john.vellek]

HI @LyleHardin,,

Is it possible to send me an NFO file from one of these 10 workstations?

Also, can you tell me if you have any Anti-malware applications running?

Please check the Windows Event Viewer on some of these computers to see if there are any common errors at the time AutoCAD shuts down.

If your data needs to be private or confidential, please email it directly to me at john.vellek@autodesk.com and please include a link to this thread in your email.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[pendean]

You and your I.T. need to see it in action, then log into the PC soon afterwards and check logs for what is actually going on https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-the-windows-10-system-diagnostic-report-to-gather-tr...

Good luck.

[LyleHardin]

Thanks everyone.

I've requested some of the more computer savvy users to send me an NFO file if it happens again.

[LyleHardin]

Thanks John.

I privately emailed you two NFO files. 

Thanks for taking a look.

Lyle

[john.vellek]

Hi @LyleHardin,

I am not seeing your email with the NFO files. Please try to zip them together and resend to me at john.vellek@autodesk.com

[ralphsanchezATX]

For what it's worth, several of my users started to report the same thing late last week and it has persisted into this week.  All of them are running AutoCAD Civil 3D 2019 with certified Nvidia drivers on Windows 10 1803.  Our security software is Webroot 9.0.21.18.

In each case, an AutoCAD Civil 3D 2019 session just goes away without any error message.  One minute the window is there, the next minute it's not.  Based on the reports that I've fielded, it seems to happen about once or twice an hour for the affected users, all of whom are working in different files on different projects.  I've been lucky enough to see it with my own eyes a handful of times, although I haven't been able to reliably troubleshoot it.

[john.vellek]

Hi @LyleHardin,

This is what I see so far in the NFO files that the 2nd email had attached. (thanks for sending to me again).

In looking at the DMCmachine.nfo,the video driver appears to be old, new one here.

Malwarebytes, Symantec Endpoint Protection are installed. Is it possible to temporarily disable this applications?

The error log does show AdComFolderWatch.dll  is faulting.  If you watch this process in Task Manager is it consuming a high percentage of resources?  The only errors I see in my database regarding this are rather old and involved SMB2. Is that a network protocol that is in place in your environment?  It is possible that this DLL is corrupt (bad install?) or infected.  Is it possible to do a clean uninstall on one computer and do a reinstall to see if that corrects the behavior?

For the HWBmachine.nfo I see this same DLL error as well as an error with river.arx.

Revit is also experiencing an error with ntdll.dll and might be related to some add-ins.

Please make sure that all the Autodesk applications are fully patched and updated from your account page.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[LyleHardin]

Good to know... well, misery loves company, anyway.

I wonder if a Windows update happened that messed things up.

I'm going to update drivers on these machines to try to eliminate those variables first.

[ralphsanchezATX]

John,

I also directly emailed you some example NFO files from systems which have been experiencing the issue exactly as described by the original poster.  Additionally, I submitted a case which was assigned Case Number: 14786810.

Please let me know if you can provide any further insight into this issue.

[LyleHardin]

Thanks for posting John. It's getting more serious here with 10 users experiencing this. It seems to happen mostly, though not always, while people are doing things inside the Sheet Set Manager. 

Also, out of curiosity, do you guys use Panzura for sharing your network with other offices? We did a Panzura update a few days before this all started happening. Probably coincidence, but I'm putting it out there.

Updating graphic card drivers did not help.

We're now trying other things like disabling the virus protection. Haven't got to the .dll thing yet.

[ralphsanchezATX]

Just to keep all of the reports current and in sync, we do NOT use Panzura.

[LyleHardin]

Thanks. I'm getting ready to open a ticket as well.

A common denominator in all the NFO files I'm getting is that AdComFolderWatch.dll.

Lines from NFO file

[john.vellek]

Hi @LyleHardin

I would start by moving a project to a local machine and remove the network component of this issue. Then test to see if the behavior still appears. If you like, you can also send me a project (zip up with the sheetset) so I can test on my side.

Did you check with your IT group to see what network protocols are being used? I am not familiar with the Panzura product but I want to eliminate that as a possibility.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[LyleHardin]

Working locally and sending you the project would be very difficult. Hundreds of drawings with dozens of xrefs. I'll see what we can do, though. I'll also take a look at my Enterprise menu and network shared files to see if I've made any changes in those files recently.

[ralphsanchezATX]

@LyleHardin - My issue almost certainly is related to data referenced pipe networks in Civil 3D as I have been able to reliably reproduce the behavior using a specific sequence..  I started a separate thread here: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/civil-3d-forum/civil-3d-2019-session-disappearing-without-error-data-...

[LyleHardin]

Update.

We've updated video drivers and made changes to Panzura. No luck. Users are still crashing. The same faulty .dll keeps coming up. We're up to 10 users now having this issue. Both AutoCAD 2018 and 2019. I don't think any of our Civil 3D people are affected. I still seems to happen either while nothing is going on with AutoCAD or when the user is doing something in the SSM or an Xref.

[john.vellek]

Hi @LyleHardin,

I have found another case similar to yours and it also involves Panzura. let me do some research on this.

Please in the mean time, try a small project on a local computer without Panzura involved - this would just be a test to see if the problem can be firmly connected to the Panzura environment.

If I understand correctly, Panzura makes NAS devices. Is that what is in play?  Are the devices fully updated?  Do you have packet-signing turned on? Can you temporarily disable it for testing purposes?

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.