Loading an older drawing, visible in preview but not actually loading anything

[Anonymous]

Morning / Afternoon all, 

Trying to help my dad with a persistent CAD2011 problem he has had.

For work, he uses an older drawing which has thousands of pre-drawn items on there. What he likes to do is copy and drop these into his current project to speed things up. 

However, as of this morning, his laptop is failing to load any of his drawings, despite them being clearly visible in the preview. 

He assures me that he has not changed anything and that it "simply happened over night". He has tried to loading them in older versions and as different formats but to no success. 

My dad needs these things for work so as you can imagine, is panicking quite a bit but I also appreciate that he isn't the most technologically savvy person. Hell, he was doing the drawings by hand until eight years ago . . 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

[SeeMSixty7]

I'm not sure what all the symptoms are, but you can try this.

Start a new Drawing.

Insert the drawing he is trying to get at into the new drawing. Then explode it. Or just insert it exploded to avoid the definition of  the large single block.

hopefully that helps get him at the drawing data.

good luck,

[Anonymous]

Thanks, i will let him know. Hopefully this will help him. 

I may ask him to come on here and explain it better than I. He just keeps telling me:

"It won't load! I can see the file, it shows me all the stuff in the preview but then when I click load, nothing. Doesn't even try."

[pendean]

Does the program actually start on it's own? With a blank file?

What version of Windows is the laptop? Win8 or Win10 are the wrong answers, no fixes there.

How to fix problem files, worth trying all of them https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/AutoCA...

[j.ches]

If this is something that happened overnight, something to try would be a system restore.  Sometimes updates sneak in and mess with settings.  There's many ways to get there, but depending on the operating system, use the search feature and type "System Restore" or go through the control panel, or right click "This PC" or "Computer" and get to the system properties.  Once in system properties, get to the System Protection tab and click system restore.  You can browse the restore points before actually choosing one.  This is nice because you may see something did happen overnight which is causing the problems.  When doing system restores, sometimes you need to be in safe mode to complete them.

The second thing to try is make sure the graphics driver is up to date.

Third thing, run AutoCAD as an administrator or try a compatibility mode.

4th thing, login your system in safemode and run AutoCAD from there.

5th, in the spirit of finding a solution, download Draftsight (free) and see if the problem persists.  If you save with Draftsight you can still open the file in AutoCAD except you get a pop up message which can be ignored.

Try any of these in any order.  If you make a change, remember to change it back if it did not fix the problem.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

I see that you are visiting as a new member. Welcome to the Autodesk Community! 

 Has this problem been resolved by any of the suggestions in the thread?

If not, please give me some details:

Operating System

Graphics card and Driver

Exact AutoCAD version (type about in program)

Did a Windows Update just happen? Is it possible to roll back to the previous state?

Are the files stored on a local drive (not a flash drive or external drive or cloud.

It sounds like this is happening to all drawing files. Is he able to start a new file? Is it possible to attach one or two of the files to a post so I can examine them? I wonder if their is some disk corruption that might have occurred.

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

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous

I am checking back to see if my post or others helped you with your problem. Please add a post with how you decide to proceed and your results so other Community members may benefit.

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if a post or posts solves your issue or answers your question.