Lowercase Block Names

[DAVIDDEARDORFF6551]

Is anyone else having their block names changing to lowercase again? I remember this happening about ten years ago and it got fixed with the next update, Not so this time. 

[rkmcswain]

So you open a drawing, and all of the block names are now lowercase? 

What changed between the time it was not doing this and now?

AutoCAD updates?

Windows updates?

3rd party apps?

Anyone else work on these drawings?

This is only about 2 years ago, but does this match what you're saying?

[DAVIDDEARDORFF6551]

When I insert a block the name changes to lowercase. No one else works on my drawings. This happened with the 2021 release. I have all recent updates and don't run any 3rd party apps.

[rkmcswain]

To confirm, you are running AutoCAD 2021.1 ?

I can confirm it does the same for me. Thanks for clarifying the steps needed to reproduce.

[DAVIDDEARDORFF6551]

Yes. Just installed the update yesterday.

[cadffm]

Start an autodesk support case 

and feel free to uninstall the 2021.1 update.

Thanks for sharing!

[rkmcswain]

As a workaround, do one of the following:

• Drag+drop the external .DWG into the editor
• Use the -Insert command [(~) after to get the browse dialog.]
• Insert from DesignCenter
• Insert from a Tool Palette

[rkmcswain]

I've also asked one of the developers on twitter, since the new Insert feature was being discussed.

https://twitter.com/cadpanacea/status/1294013764572975105

Why does this import the name of the block in all lowercase, regardless of how the block (the .DWG) file was named on disk?

— R.K. McSwain (@cadpanacea) August 13, 2020

[Kent1Cooper]

Until they fix it, as a patch you can run the BUC command [= Block names Upper-Case] defined in the attached BlockNameCase.lsp, modified from my old routine for doing the same to Layer names.  [It also defines a BLC command if someone has reason to force them all to Lower Case.]

It could use *error* handling, Undo begin-end wrapping, and command-echo suppression, but hopefully you won't need it often or long enough for those shortcomings to bother you -- maybe I'll work those in some time.

[fatal.error]

Have you tried setting the EXTNAMES system variable value to 1?

It controls the characters accepted for the names of blocks, dimension styles, layers, and other named objects.

Value set to 0:

Uses Release 14 parameters, which limit names to 31 characters in length. Names can include the letters A to Z, the numerals 0 to 9, and the special characters dollar sign ($), underscore (_), and hyphen (-).

Value set to 1:

Uses Release 2000 (and later) parameters. Names can be up to 255 characters in length, and can include the letters A to Z, the numerals 0 to 9, spaces, and any special characters not used by the operating system and the product for other purposes.

[DAVIDDEARDORFF6551]

Thanks! That works pretty well. 

[DAVIDDEARDORFF6551]

It is set to 1. Thanks.

[rkmcswain]

@fatal.error wrote:

Have you tried setting the EXTNAMES system variable value to 1?

EXTNAMES has nothing to do with this case. It's a bug in the new update.

[hhufnagle]

Can this lisp be updated to convert to lowercase while maintaining uppercase for the first character of each word?

[Kent1Cooper]

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@hhufnagle wrote:

Can this lisp be updated to convert to lowercase while maintaining uppercase for the first character of each word?

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By "each word," do you mean you have Block names of multiple words with spaces?  Or do you mean just the first character of each Block's name?