Cannot save drawing in C3D2014

[Eric_Brennan]

Hi All,

So my issue is we have a number of C3D2018 licences in our office and we have one remaining C3D2014 licence which is a perpetual subscription. For the interest of our clients and to facilitate our 2014 licence we normally by default save our files in 2013 format. Recently however when we try to save a drawing in C3D2014 we get this following prompt.

"One or more objects in this drawing cannot be saved to the specified format. The operation was not completed and no file was created".

I understand this means there is a new feature or geometry in the drawing which is incompatible with previous file formats hence the issue. My confusion lies however that this prompt shows up for all drawings. No matter the year of the licence. Perhaps there is a simple explanation or I am missing something obvious.

Appreciate the help in advance.

Many Thanks

[dgorsman]

Stupid question time: are you attempting to downsave Civil3D 2018 content to work on in Civil3D 2014?

[Eric_Brennan]

There is no such thing as a stupid question 🙂 perhaps I didn't explain my position too well. The problem does not just apply to files from Civil 3D2018, most files open but cannot save. The same problem is occurring with files saved from Autocad Lt 2016 and other versions etc.

If the content is basic geometry etc it should be able to be opened and saved in a previous version as long as the file has been saved in a rolled back format no?

[tcorey]

Rather than using SaveAs, use ExporttoAutoCAD2013. This will dumb-down the Civil 3D objects so that they are plain AutoCAD entities.

[WarrenGeissler]

Hi Eric,

It is not the drawing file that is the issue - it is the software platform that is the issue. If you open a drawing in Civil 3D, regardless of the entities in the drawing, it will add features to that drawing (styles, settings, etc) which will cause that message. You can test this by opening a BLANK drawing in Civil 3D 2018 and trying to do a save back. 

The second problem here is that if this DOES happen - even if they are plain AutoCAD entities, then opening the file in an earlier version of Civil 3D will disable the Civil 3D commands.

[Eric_Brennan]

Hi tcorey,

Many thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately the same issue persists, we can open the file but saving is an issue.

Kind Regards

Eric

[Eric_Brennan]

Hi Warren,

I am of the same mind also, I wanted to see if there was a solution but the only real solution seems to be upgrading our software. Unfortunately we cannot afford to use the outputs in isolation and we need them to speak to each other as a component of a design team/process.

Thank you for clarifying this for me. Unless anyone else has an idea which has been missed I think this is the outcome. If I have heard nothing else in one more day I will accept this as the solution.

Thank you for contributing

Regards 

Eric

[chriscowgill7373 · Accepted solution]

if a drawing is opened in 2018, even if it is saved down, all AEC objects are converted to the new format.  this will give you an error in previous versions about aec objects being locked, and to some extent not being able to save the drawing because of one or more objects not being compatible.  Some times I have had luck in that instance with doing an audit followed immediately by a save.  The best practice is to keep a file in the same version of the software.  if you have some users with only 2014, then you should only open that product in 2014, or it could cause issues.