When Opening a File Autocad requires a recovery and deletes all basic 3D solids

[CodyMilne]

The drawing saves and closes without any errors or crashes. When you re-open it Autocad will have the pop up that the drawing must be recovered. After running recovery it finds numerous errors and fixes them and erases all 3D solids. This has happened to several different computers in my office, Across multiple files and different job folders. We all run Autocad 2018 and from other forums that I have viewed it appears to be an issue with this version. Has anyone had a fix for this or a way to not loose hours of work restoring .bak files or going to older versions to redo the work. Again this on erases basic 3D solids such as rectangles or joined polylines that were extruded.

Attached are the dwg's of the original file before saving for the day and after when you open it and it wants to run recover. You will notice even inside blocks that have 2D lines and one extruded object that the 3d solids have been erased.

We do use a 3rd party software to draw ductwork but none of those objects are affected.

Running - Autocad 2018

Windows 10 Pro

32 GB Ram

Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-7900X CPU @ 3.30GHz

NVIDIA Quadro P4000

[pendean]

Other than trying different methods to recover your file https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/AutoCA... or finding not so old BAK or SV$ files to rename and recover more contenthttps://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Understanding-AutoCAD-backup-and-autosave-files.html , I'm not sure what you can expect others over here to do for your files.

Looking at your files' content, it appears you all may benefit from using XREFs more and limit the amount of loss to portions of files instead of ALL of your content at once too

[CodyMilne]

I don't expect anyone to do anything for the files. I was just wondering if this is only limited to the 2018 version. I have reviewed others post's on the topic it seems to be limited to 2018 versions whether its regular, Mechanical, or Architectural. Would upgrading everyone to 2019 or even 2020 alleviate the issue? Using more XREF's will not solve anything. The backgrounds are already separated via XREF in the file and the only objects displayed are text, 3D ductwork, and 3D Solids in model space. The only content that is erased is the 100 or so 3D solids that make up some equipment. Going back to a .bak file or autosave constantly shouldn't be the answer, which is what we are doing right now.

[pendean]

No, if this was a problem in a now 2-year old software like R2018 there would be thousands of similar posts, not a handful or a few that are not limited to just R2018.

Sadly no one can answer your question really, we only have your before-and-after files, we have no idea how you store files nor access to your server: i could be bad blocks (hence the purge), or there was an issue with your server and backups were unsuccessfully recovered, or could be something totally unrelated too.

>>>...Going back to a .bak file or autosave constantly shouldn't be the answer,...<<<
No it isn't, I was just offering you a way to recover what you lost. If you have to hunt for BAK and SV$ all the time to recover corrupt files I would start looking at how you all store and backup files, then double-check all of your reused/new content for corruption that is leading to files getting trashed.

HTH

[cadffm]

@pendean 

There are a lot of thread, also a huge count of support-cases..

@CodyMilne 

" Would upgrading everyone to 2019 or even 2020 alleviate the issue"

No.

The only way i know (if THIS is the case here / i can not check the files now)

is to disable the undocumented automatic 3dsolid audit.

Not really good idea, but for some cases the only way (for me).

I will check your files tomorrow.

[cadffm]

@CodyMilne 

Do you mean ALL 3DSolids in one?

And "needs to recover" message?

Sorry, i am sure this isn't the problem i thought.

My fail in hurry.

I have to check the the files first (tomorrow)

It is late, bye

[CodyMilne]

Thank you for helping me investigate this.

The window says "the drawing file requires recovery"

Yes it only erases all 3D solids. It doesn't seem to matter if it is a basic 3D solid that was a square extruded or even if they are in a block with other objects (Lines, text, whatever) the 3D solid will be erases and the block will remain.

In the files where happens you can open up the previous save and run Recover/Audit/Purge. No errors are found and nothing is erased. So I am really not sure what is causing this to happen in the program.

[cadffm · Accepted solution]

Hi,

at time  i can not test it with a 2018 version, but 2019.

1. The recover log point to the spatial index

2. My 2019 also find an error about the spatial index in your "9673_21st Floor_04-30-19_CT.dwg"

    and it was able to fix the problem.

Please try it again to _RECOVER the "9673_21st Floor_04-30-19_CT.dwg" file and use this file with the fixed spatial index problem to continue your work.

Is your 2018 detecting the error and solve it?

I can not know if all the other cases with you also show spatial index problems,
you have to read this yourself in the log.

Check the textscreen [F2] or you can also activate the audit log by using AUDITCTL, acad will create *.adt logfiles
in the drawing folder then. Open the *.adt and search for SPATIAL (ctrl+f or look at the end)

If it is the case, try to work a time without the spatial index.

[darionl33]

This is not JUST ACAD 2018, as i am on 2019 and running into the same issue

[JoeVernice]

@CodyMilne 

You are not alone, I too have had this exact issue. Recovery failed to bring back any of the deleted solids, always had to revert back to the previous day's file.

JMV

[cadffm]

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@darionl33  schrieb:

This is not JUST ACAD 2018, as i am on 2019 and running into the same issue

---

As you can read above...yes.

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@cadffm schrieb:

" Would upgrading everyone to 2019 or even 2020 alleviate the issue"

No.

---

Because Adesk changed the internal 3dsolid audits in 2018,

and there are much problems with files(and 3Dsolids objects) from older versions,  so all other (newer) versions do the same.

If i am right - there are not more or less problems as in other versions if you start a new file based on a clean dwg2018 (in 2018/19/20..)

and creates new 3Dsolids with these versions.

and

[geraldbossink]

Experiencing the same problem (loss of 3D solids when forced to recover) I tried the solution above, but in the *.adt is nothing like 'spatial' (see the *adt I had to convert to *.txt, since the *.adt can't be attached somehow). This is a really annoying problem, since it occurred to a drawing I completed weeks ago.

Also: recovering deletes the solids, but opening without recovering also deletes the solids. So either way the drawing is useless.

[phRJ5A8]

I have the same problem with autocad 2024, multiple files on different computers, all ending up with erased 3d objects.

[waynebaird7354]

We have been having the same issue with 2020 perpetual, 2024 & 2025 Subscription on both win 10 and 11 64 bit. VERY frustrating to have to backwards regularly.

[kylei7449]

I have had this annoying issue for years; every time the drawing fatals and recovers my 3D work is gone. The only way around this is to save the completed 3D work into its own separate dwg, then when this happens again (and it will) copy & paste it back into the live dwg.