Block issue - spontaneous duplication of objects within, after multiple updates

[sreichling]

Let's say I create a block for a building with just a few layers for the building outline, building overhang, and doors. There are no over-lapping objects.

If I close and save the block, and then later on I adjust the block, and continue to do so maybe a few times over the course of a week...at some point I will go in and find that there are duplicates of the block elements (1-7 I think I've seen before). But yet I have not copied these elements in place.

Attached is the .dwg with an early version of a block that is fine and a later version that decided to procreate objects itself.

Notes that may be useful:
-Not a dynamic block
-I often purge and audit all my drawings, including ones that have blocks in which this error occurs
-I'm using 2018 LT currently, but i'm pretty sure I first noticed this problem when we were using 2017 LT.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!

[cadffm]

I know about the issue and i am searching  for people (dwg file, pc , enviroments) who can replicate the issue.

You are not this human? OR?

But thats one of two problems.. spontaneous and the second is, it is hard to remember that this problem happened in the last few steps.

Note one important fact, the BEDIT is working very crappy: Every(?) time you saved a blockdefinition in bedit,

acad creates NEW objects for your content and remove the "old" source objects from the block.

(refedit is working well, it editing the existing objects, so you will not have that issue with refedit or if it does you get only the old definition)

At one point of working somethings going wrong,

from this point on it is my personal opinion, and a small part of it can also be proven.

The step of saveing goes wrong. I dont not more but it looks like that.

Acad stored the old information somewhere in the file(not in the block) and the new version (the current blockdefinition).

But: You can not see the problem now.

Here one might also suspect a problem with incremental storage of AutoCAD, am I correctly assuming you are using this? (ISAVEPERCENT >0)

Maybe it would not happen if isavepercent is set to 0 - I dont know.

If you run AUDIT (yes)  or open the (saved) file with recover/recoverall..

Acad re-store the old original objects (same handle, so the same objects)

Add to your current block definition, you have the old and the new block content in your block definition now.

But: You can not see the problem now, but now the old objects are inside the blockdefinition.

You have to regenerate your current viewport, run REGEN command or open the block via refedit or bedit

And: Now you will see the old objects if they are noch identical to new objects,

    but you can select them in refedit or bedit.

It is a database problem, i am sure it is a problem which exist in some session (or at the point of save the file),

the are some informations to what i have but it isn' senseful to write more at this point.

I wrote to a Technical Support Specialist @Thomas_Stuehle, but he never heard more from the programmers

or he forgot to pass on information to me. Perhaps Mr.Stuehle should talk with @john.vellek about it.

But i am sure the only one who can find the problem is an autodesk programmer who know exactly

which steps the program is doing at BSAVE and perhaps it is needed to know how the isavepecent feature is working in detail.

Only searching for the problem from the block/file to the source issue is almost impossible if it isn't reproduceable.

For me as a simple draftsman i was surprised that acad can re-store objects which are "deleted" before one ore many sessions before.*

My only explanation of where Autocad can know the information is isavepercent, because

normally a deleted object is discarded with the closing the file after saving - (my knowledge).
The only way for acad to get old informations is by using  isavepercent. (every one can correct me - if he can)

but it is only me 😉

*don't ask about, i can it proven with a sample files from a client which are of the state "before the problem comes in database" and of the state "after bedit, but before audit" - but i can not say which steps was between them and i couldnt replicate it on my own system.

I heard multiple times of the same symptom and not only for internal user blockdefinitions -

it was also the whole modelspace (which is es block too, that you editing every time).

I can not be sure that this was the identical sourcs issue, but it seems to.

[sreichling]

Thanks for this!

Now that you mention ISAVEPERCENT, I do remember changing it to 0 on my previous install of CAD.  However, we recently upgraded to 2018 and I left the default value (50)...so I'm not sure if i'm convinced that that has something to do with it.

I guess for now I'll have to try and be careful to get the block right the first time 😉 or to not audit as much (i'm kind of addicted to audit lol).

Anyway, thanks again.

[cadffm]

@sreichling

After four weeks, what is the state?
Do you working with isavepercent 0 or >0 since there and did it happen again?

[sreichling]

Thanks for checking on me.

I haven't been working on projects recently where I've needed to keep editing the same blocks over and over, so I haven't noticed this problem.

And I left my ISAVEPERCENT at the default 50...should I try it at 0?

Also, what if other people in my office are working in the same drawing and their ISAVEPERCENT is different than mine?

[cadffm]

My mention was trying with isavepercent=0, but nobody (?) incl. me is knowing if that is part of the puzzle or not.

And sure, all users should set it to zero.
It is stored in individual Acad profiles, not in dwg.

So if i would working in your company i would set the variable to 50 (standard) and check a time long if the issue appears.
If i can see that it pop up sure every hour, day or week then all users have to set it to zero i i would check it again for the same time.

For Fullversions (not LT) it is possible to monitor the blocks aided by a program,
but for LT it is pure hand work.
Make sure the file content is ok, check for duplicated objects.
From this point, use audit after every block editing or only every session and check the content of edited blocks.
Thats not funny and if the problem isn't appearing every session in which the user redefines blocks, it is "to much work" for people.

[stevenwalley]

I'm having issues with dynamic blocks spontaneously and consistently duplicating lines, hatches etc., sometimes more than five times in the same block. I delete all the duplicated objects, save the block, then purge, audit and regen the drawing before saving and closing down AutoCad (I have the latest 2020 3D version). When I open the drawing, the blocks have mysteriously duplicated properties within but without the actions being applied to these duplicates. It's very annoying and completely random. i attach a drawing with the affected blocks.

Can anyone help? It's making using dynamic blocks almost impossible.

Regards, Steven.

[cadffm]

So you can not reproduce it anytime?
Then it's certainly the problem I wrote above and it has nothing to do 'dynamic',

my "old" answer is the same as today. I can not help, i guess nobody can help, and

the only trial as a long-term test: Isavepercent = 0

sorry

[sreichling]

EDIT: I didn't realize at first you were responding to someone else.

Regardless, I appreciate your help!  Since upgrading to 2019, I have not noticed this problem.  Thanks again.

[__bart__]

2020 LT now - objects in blocks multiply like crazy I had one section drawn in the block and it was duplicated 11 times!!!

I cleaned the object by selecting each object and moving across 25m ant then exploded the block and created new block with the same name from moved objects. 1h hour later 5 duplicates within. Now creating with different name and will report back

[sreichling]

I'm still in LT 2019 and coincidentally this also happened to me today...it's only happened a couple times this year overall though.  I almost wonder if it has something to do with working on files that are stored on a server and something to do with the .dwl files or something, reading old versions of the block and then trying to "update" their definitions to the old versions.  IDK, pure speculation at this point.  But it is annoying.

[__bart__]

I suspect something different - visibility states - in my case the block had this parameter which i later deleted and first occurrence my old entities suddenly appeared and then were duplicated for no reason. I kind of like your previous version database of deleted objects approach.

I don''t work of the network drive but from dropbox.

Also this happen for the first time on new laptop which has McAfee instead of Avast maybe antivirus is affecting the files during save.

[samspade]

I am also experiencing this, and it is killing me. here I am new at this company building all these blocks to automate stuff and my blocks are all duplicating. 😥

are we really supposed to live like this??

One of my blocks has a look up table, both have visibility states. I had 6 duplications. 6! WHEN I WENT TO DO A DEMONSTRATION. geesh.

on another note, I did create one block that had no visibility states, and voila! that one did NOT duplicate. methinks it is related to visibility states. I also am a heavy auditor, so there is that.

I have experienced this phenomenon a few years ago, on 2018. Now I am using 2020.

if anybody gets an answer PLEASE for the love of all that is human, share the answer. in the mean time, I changed my isavepercent from 50 to 0. can't hurt?

thanks, at least I know I am not alone in this crazy mixed up duplicating blocks world.

[pendean]

As noted in your other post... Show us: post your DWG file and explain how we can replicate the problem on demand here.

Also list your exact AutoCAD version as listed in ABOUT command, and your Windows version.

[samspade]

a little ridiculous asking to have it blow up in it's unexpected way expecting-ly. but I will give you my fixed block. because I have fixed it. well. one is fixed one is in a half state.

thanks

[pendean]

How to I recreate your issue on demand in a blank new file? So far I have nothing multiplying here with your blocks.

And do you have ISAVEPERCENT set to anything other than 0 (that's a zero)?

[samspade]

my block worked for me for a couple days before it went all loopy on me. I just changed that pesky ISAVEPERCENT to 0 based on the comments I had read here. that is the thing, it must be a glitch because it is SOOOO NOT predictable. If it were predictable I would avoid it like the plague. as it is, it happens just enough to make you unreliable as a block builder. I need these blocks to count up items in our floor plans, and I have sold the technology so feel terrible when it all goes south. but feeling better when I can get a look from the iconic Pendean. (huge fan for years). thank you for any insight beyond what I have already read here.

ENJOY YOUR DAY.

[samspade]

ok. it happened again today. this time I did a little experimenting so as to be able to report back some information for honing in on the problem. 

1) started new drawing, brought the block in from the tool palette. it was all duplicated, messed up.

2) opened the source drawing, copied it CTRL+C... opened new drawing, CTRL+V it was fine. 

3) asked another user to repeat the process, same exact results.

makes me think it is the tool palette method that is screwing us up. 

my original still looks fine.

I am attaching both

[samspade]

I responded to myself accidentally. wanted to flag you. 

btw, one thing I left out is my ISAVEPERCENT is at 0.

please reference my previous message where I uploaded the block examples.

thank you in advance for any help you can give.

[steven-g]

I am not seeing any duplicates, (what is duplicated?). There is a difference in how the attributes are showing, these can be set in a toolpalette for standard value, but we would need to see the settings (properties) of your toolpalette tool for that.