Device Not Found Error when using Automatic Publish

[mennutia]

Using AutoCAD 2018 on Windows 7.

I've recently updated from AutoCAD 2017. A current set of PDFs is important so we've always had Automatic Publish enabled. Since upgrading to 2018, I only get ERROR: Device not found when using Automatic Publish. In the plot and publish details all of the fields except file name are blank.

Automatic Publish is (mostly) successful when I change the setting to DWF or DWFx but using those instead of PDF is not an option for several reasons not relevant to my problem.

I'm using the DWG to PDF pc3 file. It works as expected when using PLOT or PUBLISH.

I've tried to use Automatic Publish with background plotting and publishing on and off and I still get the same error.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Since upgrading to 2018, I only get ERROR: Device not found

>> when using Automatic Publish

Have you migrated settings? If so you might have PC3 files that point to old AutoCAD drivers and that might be the issue.

Can you use command _PLOT and use the device you have set to be used for auto-publish?

- alfred -

[mennutia]

---

Have you migrated settings? If so you might have PC3 files that point to old AutoCAD drivers and that might be the issue.

Can you use command _PLOT and use the device you have set to be used for auto-publish?

---

I have not migrated settings. It's an out-of-the-box install.

Yes, trying to plot using _PLOT produces the expected result.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> I have not migrated settings. It's an out-of-the-box install.

So you have used command _OPTIONS in AutoCAD 2018 and defined your Auto-Publish settings?
Which location (try a local temporary folder) and which file-format did you activate?

- alfred -

[mennutia · Accepted solution]

I've figured it out. The Printer Configuration Search Path pointed to a nonexistent location. I located the .pc3 file on my machine, updated the path, and it now works as expected.

I'd looked for and found the file before, but overlooked the path.

Thank you for the guidance.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> The Printer Configuration Search Path pointed to a nonexistent location

Excuse me, that does not sound like "not migrated, just fresh install" .. 😉

But good to know all is working well now! 😉

- alfred -

[mennutia]

I won't pretend to know enough about how migration works, but it was looking for \appdata\roaming\autodesk\autocad 2018\r22.0\enu\plotters\ when the actual folder was \AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\ACA 2018\enu\Plotters\

My best guess is that it's because I'd installed the software as AutoCAD Architecture but for this purpose I'm using a profile that reduces it to plain old AutoCAD. I'm fairly certain nothing was migrated during the install.

Thanks again!

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> for this purpose I'm using a profile that reduces

>> it to plain old AutoCAD
Well, using a different profile is an explanation what happened, but also that this is not a clean profile like after installation without customization.

It could make sense to verify the other paths too 😉

- alfred -