Working Folder path changes itself

[slant]

Windows 7, Civil 3D 2014

Every day when i come in and open my project, the working folder is set back to an old job that i finished more than a year ago and have not revisited. Once i reset the working folder to the correct project, it stays that way all day. The next morning, however, it has reverted back to the old working folder. Is it possible to lock it somehow so that it stops changing itself overnight?

[Jeff_M]

The WorkingFolder setting is saved, when C3D closes normally, in the WorkingFolders.xml file saved here:

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\C3D 2014\enu\Project Management\

If your system is reset by IT then that would explain why you are seeing the wrong one.

[slant]

I'm having a hard time finding where the path to the WorkingFolders.xml file is controlled. It may very well be looking for the wrong xml. Where do i set that path?

[cwr-pae]

Also, in every drawing, be sure to right click "Data Shortcuts" in prospector and click "Associate Project to Current Drawing" and save the drawing. This seems to lock the drawing/data shortcut connection.

[Jeff_M]

You don't set that path, as far as I know it is hard coded into C3D. You may need to set Windows Explorer to show system/hidden files.

[slant]

Still resetting itself whenever it feels like it. Anyone had this?

[jmayo-EE]

When you right click on the Data shortcuts tree in prospector there is a command to associate the project to the current drawing. If you use this and save the file the dwg should automatically find the correct path every time it is opened.

[slant]

Yes, it should. And yet at random, it finds an old project and sets it's working folder as the working folder for this project. Today, the change made all of my associated profiles static, so that now nothing updates automatically based on a change to the Base Grade Profile.

On a side note, can i get those profiles to reacqure their data source?

[jmayo-EE]

I have had issues with my last two projects I had to remap to a new path but...

1. If you rename the incorrect source folder for a moment and open the file with the references you should see the ref's with an error in Prospector. Right click on each one and select Repair Broken Reference'. Browse to the correct source, save and close. Rename the original folder and open the file again. THe ref should work but locate these ref's in prosepctor and insure the paths are what you expect.

2. Use the DataShortcut Editor to remap the paths. THe program is found in the Autodesk Civil 3D 20XX folder located in your Start Menu.

[slant]

How's this for a new wrinkle? Just now, i switched drawings real quick to do some mark-ups on a different project for 10 minutes, and when i switched back to my current project drawing, lo and behold it had changed the working folder WHILE i had two of the drawings open....  luckily, this time it didn't destroy any work, but i need to figure this out A.S.A.P.  This project is too far advanced at this point to have to go back and redo two weeks worth of work because of a glitch!

Is this an issue of having too many versions of civil 3d installed, maybe? Is there a way to set the path other than "set working folder" option?

[Jeff_M]

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slant wrote:

Is this an issue of having too many versions of civil 3d installed, maybe? Is there a way to set the path other than "set working folder" option?

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The behavior you are seeing is definitely not 'normal'. I have never had this happen in the 7+ years of using C3D. I currently have 5 versions of C3D installed (I'm a developer as well so need to support that many versions. Most won't/can't have that many installed), so I doubt that is the issue. If you've associated your drawings to the appropriate projects as mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm just not thinking of anything else that could be affecting this.

[Anonymous]

In the beginnng.....

We initially set up our data shortcuts within each project (same idea as ldd). Back in the 2008 version, this was fine. By the time we upgraded to 2012, we started having this problem more often. 

Now we have a data shortcuts (working) folder in our projects directory, and have all projects data shortcuts stored within that folder. Seems to be more stable.

The only time we seem to have a problem is if someone opens the file through explorer instead of c3d, or if a different user logs into our computer. (can't figure out the second one either)

We do not use regular acad or any other autodesk products. No additional add ons either.

Always associate shortcuts to drawings, check path and set before opening a new drawing.

Due to being paranoid, I will always close the program completely before opening a drawing with a different shortcut folder. (probably comes from the early years of the soft desk products)

[C3D_TomR]

@slant

I know this is an old thread but I'm seeing this happen on several computers in my office including my own. It's currently only happening in Civil 3D version 2018 and only sometimes. Did you ever determine what's causing this to happen or did you open a ticket with Autodesk?

Tom Richardson
CAD Manager
Crossing the line with Civil 3D
Twitter | LinkedIn


If you find an answer to your question, please mark Accept as Solution so others can find it...

[slant]

I never found a solution, but I am fairly certain I figured out what was causing it. We had a barely adequate file server at my company, and sometimes, individual machines temporarily lost connection with the network. Whenever I opened a new project while my machine had no connection to the server, it would reassign the working folder to the only project I had ever worked on where the data files were on my local drive. Also, I found that as long as I caught it fairly quickly, it didn't damage my project. If I ever submitted a ticket on it, I don't recall and never got a response. 

One last thing, I haven't noticed it again since we moved up from 2014 to 2017.

[C3D_TomR]

I uninstalled Microsoft .NET framework multi-targeting pack from my computer and that resolved the issue for me, even with .NET 4.7 installed, which is causing all kinds of trouble with software these days.

Tom Richardson
CAD Manager
Crossing the line with Civil 3D
Twitter | LinkedIn


If you find an answer to your question, please mark Accept as Solution so others can find it...

[bham4ever]

Same thing happens in 2019 Civil 3D , have not found a solution

[Anonymous]

Data shortcuts, their convoluted setup procedure, and how to edit them are soooooo confusing.  I was chasing my tail for half an hour here before I saw your comment.  AutoDesk should introduce a prompt to reassign the current project if its ever changed.  Thank you for your advice... lifesaver!

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@cwr-pae wrote:

Also, in every drawing, be sure to right click "Data Shortcuts" in prospector and click "Associate Project to Current Drawing" and save the drawing. This seems to lock the drawing/data shortcut connection.

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[Anonymous]

I'm using C3D 2018 and have been puzzled with this issue recently. Here's how I fixed the problem.

1.) Open one drawing that is giving you the problem.

In the shortcut tab right click and in this order select your path.

2.) Set Working Folder.

3.) Associate Drawing to Current Project

4.) Set Data Shortcut Project folder. Before you hit save on the drawing though...

5.) Right click the ShortcutFolder.xml (C:\Users\" "\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\C3D 2018\enu\Project Management) and Edit it. Select all elements in the .xml and delete them, then save the .xml & close it.

6.) Now go back to your C3D drawing and hit save. A new .xml will be created.

7.) Re-open the C3D drawing and you should have the current working folder in the data shortcut window now.

You may need to repeat this procedure with other drawings that start showing the old project, I had to do this with three drawings. This eventually fixed my current project from resorting back to an old project. Its a pain, but hopefully this works for you all! Autodesk get this fixed please!

[jim.poole]

I thought this would be the case but it isn't, if I flick between drawings my working folder can change - infuriating when you have a lot of similarly named files, working folders!

[brendan.collum]

I am setting the working folder, then the project folder, then associating current drawing to project, then saving and closing. Then when I open it back up, it is changed to another project.