Tool Palettes Disappear at night

[Light_Guy]

We just recently upgraded all users to ACAD 2016. Several of them are complaining that they load up their tool palettes from our shared network location and the next day when they come in, they are no longer there. Some have blank tool palettes others are missing the palettes altogether. They re-add them and the next day they are gone again. HELP?

[rkmcswain]

When you say "load up their tool palettes from our shared network location", I presume you are adding the path to the TP in Options under "Files > Tool Palettes File Locations"?

Is this path still there when the TP's are missing?

Does more than one person have WRITE access to this location?

[pendean]

and in addition to other great responses...

Is everyone saving their current workspaces manually after these are put back?
Is everyone saving/updating their current AutoCAD profiles too?
All these are required.

[Light_Guy]

Paths have been added in OP/FILES, profiles/workspaces have been created and saved. Some users find that even some of their paths disappear from the list. Others open up to find their toolpalettes are there but they are now blank.

[Light_Guy]

Yes, others do have write privs but only a limited few.

[wispoxy]

Sounds like a write access privilege issue. Also, windows has a tool where everything sets to default after logging off / restarting.

[rkmcswain]

Light_Guy wrote:

Yes, others do have write privs but only a limited few.

Probably not part of the problem here, but keep in mind.... when more than one person has WRITE access to a set of tool palettes, the last one out wins.

Meaning that if more than one person makes changes, the last one to close AutoCAD, his/her changes will be the ones to stick.

[LyleHardin]

I would recommend making two identical Profiles and two identical Workspaces. 

I've found sometimes things don't stay put, especially with multiple monitors and several pulldown menus from multiple CUIXs.

You can toggle between the two workspaces each time you open AutoCAD and find things have moved.

The spare Profile is there just for a backup in case something goes wrong such as the network not being available when they start AutoCAD.

I doub't this will solve your 'empty' tool palettes but it might help with some other issues. 

I have to agree with the write rights. Having several people with full access to the same tool palettes can cause havock.

[dgorsman]

Are tool palette groups in use?  If so, I've found this can create additional copies of tool palettes in the system when users have read-only access.

[rapidcad]

Exactly what got you to this problem might be hard to figure out, but one thing seems to be apparent - you have some tool palette definition problems. I have found that if you point to a network folder of shared palettes, users have to be kept from having write access to it so the definitions don't get overwritten if they make changes. I suppose that you blocked write access, but there are other places that the individual users store their own definitions.  Did you migrate? if so, your definitions probably came from previous versions on their own systems and there could be discrepancies. I have had a number of encounters where users point to several folder paths, and i run into trouble getting a particular tool, or entire tool palette definition corrected because the definition source gets hard to isolate when there is multiple AcTpCatalog.atc files involved.

I assume that all of your users are using the roamable root prefix path (AutoCAD default path for tool palettes within the windows user tree) as their first path, then maybe they point to your server standard palettes path, then they add the multiple paths to any other tool palettes that they have developed. I would back up the ones that you care about (Export them to a folder of definitions), then do a flush, then start rebuilding from scratch. What I mean is, after exporting the ones you want, with AutoCAD pointing to only one tool Palette file location folder, remove all tool palettes (yes, delete them even though AutoCAD asks "Are you sure?"), then close AutoCAD. Closing AutoCAD saves tool Palette definitions to the AcTpCatalog.atc master reference in whatever folder you left toolpalettes mapped to. Then launch AutoCAD and customize the tool palettes, importing them one by one from exported definitions. If you want to be real sure that you have this right, start with only one path for your tool palettes folders in Options>Filetab>Tool Palettes File Locations, and make it a new one. Once you rebuild your complete tool palette group from importing every palette and you are sure that each tool is right, you can close AutoCAD and copy the entire tool palette file folder to the server and have everyone point to it at a locked folder location. Then they can add any additional paths to their own custom folder on their hard drive. The key in the process is to make sure that the roamable root prefix folder isn't containing mixed up definitions of your tools, palettes or groups. That's why I recommend effectively flushing a system.

Since they are having problems with locally stored folders, I would flush their systems and have them import/create their custom palettes, pointing to just their own local tool palette folder, then once they like what they have, export them (in order to save them to a backup location). One they have backed up their definitions, they can add the standard network folder and bring in some/all of your enterprise palettes. Do watch out for duplicate palette, group or tool names though. Those will ultimately cause this issue to reoccur.

HTH,

Ron

[wispoxy]

It's evident that your Tool Palettes are werewolves.

I like to bring laughs to thread titles every now and then. If this bothers or offends anyone, please private message me.

[LyleHardin]

I was actually thinking Vampires, but then they would dissapear during the day. Actually, that is the case, isn't it? They are gone in the morning when people start working. No one really knows what happens at night...

[wispoxy]

Vampires work too 🙂

[Light_Guy]

The majority of the palettes in use reside on the network. We are using network palettes to enforce consistency and standards. Originally we did this so that when the palette was updated, everyone would see the update without having to reload. That hasn't worked in several releases. (Very frustrating)

My understanding was that palettes out on the network, had to be exported out to be updated. I did not think they updated at close of AutoCAD. Only those that were local palettes to the user were updated.

[LyleHardin]

We have a similar setup here. Palettes are kept in a network drive/folder that only I have full access to. Everyone else can read, but cannot edit or write to this folder. This is where we keep our custom CUIX files, palettes, hatch patterns, linetypes, pgp file, etc.
When I make a change to the palettes (add a block, change a routine, etc.), they show up on everyone's AutoCAD the next time they get into AutoCAD.
I did notice if more than one person has write access to such folders, mayhem ensues.

Lyle

[rapidcad]

My method for using network master locations was to:

1. Map toolpalettes folder location to a local brand new folder.

2. Create my tool palettes, yes, this could even mean importing them from .xtp files

3. Close AutoCAD

4. Copy the folder and all subfolders to the network share location.

5. Make that folder read only.

6. have everyone map to only the shared folder.

It always worked for me, but now I have to support several dozen laptop users so my strategy has to be different since they do take them off site to work off network.

If the users want to have their own custom palettes besides the shared ones, it complicates things but it can be done cleanly. The main trick in that case is to add an additional (local) folder to the tool palettes file path in options, then make sure that no tools or palettes share the same name as the read-only shared master folder tools and palettes. AutoCAD will attempt to write the definition of each tool and each palette to an .atc file in your mapped ToolPalette\Palettes folder, and will also include a map to the individual palette definitions in the ToolPalette \AcTpCatalog.atc file. If you want to understand them fully, double-click on one and you can examine the code in Notepad. Each .atc file in the Palettes folder gets addressed in the catalog file in the parent folder. The problems I've seen occur when a local user names a palette or tool (containing different content) the same name as one of the standard palettes or tools and ends up hosing his locally stored definition. It then becomes hard to figure out where the confusion lies if he is pointing to multiple locations. The easiest fix in that case is to erase the locals and start over for him. I have done a fair piece of find/replace in Notepad with toolpalette.atc files and have sucessfully changed versions of blocks and rewrote path calls without any problems, but i review each replace one by one whenever I do. I do this to lisp tools and regular old block insert tools alike.

HTH

[Victoria.Studley]

Hi @Light_Guy,

As others have suggested here, you may first want to restrict all other user permissions to read-only, so that only you have full write access to them.

If the tools and palettes continue to disappear overnight after enforcing the restriction, consider the following:

• Does this only happen to certain users? Or is everyone affected by this?
• If only certain users are affected, are they disconnecting from the network at all and trying to use the program? (Taking a laptop home, for instance.)
• If this always happens at the same time every day (overnight), is there a security or antivirus scan that occurs daily, which could be causing this?

I've seen Symantec fully remove ATC files from a network location due to aggressive scanning. You can add these exclusions to whichever security/antivirus program you may be running to avoid thi... (In addition to the list provided, be sure to include the ATC file type as well.)

[Light_Guy]

This is all occuring on desktops in the office. We are importing XTP files, that is what resides out on the network. Each palette is made by one idividual from each of our disciplines. While there are several who have access, only one person actually writes to the file and that is by export to the file. Checking on online status of the individuals reporting this problem. I know I am one of them and I log off everynight, which, by rule, is SOP.

[Light_Guy]

When we import the XTP files, should they be creating an ATC on the local drives? I can say that that is NOT happening for me if that is the case.

[LyleHardin]

We don't export or import .xtp files.
I'll make the tool palettes, then copy the .atc file and relevant folders from my local machine to the network where everyone has read only access. If that network folder is on their Tool Palettes Locations in their Options, then they will see the tool palettes. No need to export and import this way.
You can even rename the .xtp file once it's been copied to remove all the jibberish of the default file name.