Dynamic Block Visibility States Issue Objects Appearing

[emma.cronin]

Good morning all,

Have had an interesting issue develop when using Visibility States on Dynamic Blocks. Attached is a sample of the block which caused me issues this morning.

Whenever I use Visibility States, and never use the 'Leave visibility of existing objects unchanged in new state' and as such 'Hide all...' is always selected when I create new states. Now. Oddly enough. With this particular block, I had modified it within the editor a few times, saving and closing, editing, etc etc. Until, this morning, I opened it again, and had odd 'residual' overlays from old versions which had long since been deleted and pasted over. upon checking the other Visibility States this same 'ghost' appeared on those too, and saving the block causes these unforeseen objects to be future parts of all states.

What is most odd is that viewed all the blocks states prior to opening the editor clearly doesn't show them there... They don't 'exist'. You can burst the block, and again, they are not present. But there is something about opening the editor that causes them to appear. This is not a major problem as there are work arounds, but I am worried I will miss this in the future and on more complicated and 'Painful-to-fix' blocks. So am hoping to find the reasoning behind this.

All the usual bumf of saving, auditing, recoving, purging, pasting into blank files, etc have been tested and the problem still remains. Also, the states were always set to 'Hide all...' It was saved from a previous block from another job, but again, that block was also set with 'Hide all....' also

I have attached a tested .dwg file for others to check out.

Cheers all!

-Emma Cronin

[leothebuilder]

Yes, there is something strange about your block but without knowning what you want it's difficult to say what is strange.

I exploded both your visibilities and placed them back into a new test block and all seems fine. See attached.

Maybe it is the way you create the visibilty states? I don't know

[emma.cronin]

Yeah this was the work around I managed to use too, seems odd as this partcular block was working absolutely fine up to a point, then broke. All this a long time after originally creating the Visibilty states.

Thank you anyway! 🙂

[emma.cronin]

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but this is still an issue on our newest version of AutoCAD (2021) and I would very much like to know if anyone else has encountered it or found the original problem. My colleague and I seem to be the only people in the world with this particular issue! I'm sure it's the way we are always in and out of blocks. But we would love to know exactly what causes it.

Kind Regards,

[bravat]

I've had something similar happen. Producing a CAD library file for a number of blocks; the blocks are working fine on close. Next time I've come to open the file, some of the blocks (Always something with a visibility parameter) seems to have broken with a number of the states duplicating themselves and overlaying, effectively messing up the block completely.

PLEASE someone come up with a fix! This must be an AutoCAD issue, never had this before this year (2021).

Cheers,

Bil

[cadffm]

My answer matchs to the original and your post:

1. Nothing to do with 2021 or visibility states

2. You could have had the problem earlier and without visibilities.
    It can happen in certain situations(several things must be true at once), but there is an easy way to protect yourself from it.
   (maybe there are other situations I'm not aware of, but as long as there's no "evidence" I assume it's just this one problem)

3. Work with ISAVEPERCENT off (= 0)

    And save your current/important files the next time, because it is possible that this problem is already in the background of your file

    and saving get rid of it. But there is no fix for files you can SEE that problem <sorry>.

So set up the setting in Options/Open&Save/incremental save per percent or just isavepercent

Open your block files, block libraries, templates and during the daily work - your project files ans SAVE them as first command.

All problems with 'doubled or old fragments' you find from then, should be older (but not seen earlier).

If you think you found new 'doubled or old fragments', don't save - create a backup of this DWG and the <samename>.bak file.

send me a private message - I like to check it.

[emma.cronin]

Hi CADffm! I beleive I actually have a file saved with a block at the moment of breaking, its from years and years ago but I'm going to try and find it for you today, I thought it would be useful to save it seeing as I knew it definitely worked correctly before this last save of the block. Once you open it, it breaks and all states merge.

Over the last few years there have been a number of different 'symptoms' which have occured which all seem to be around the same original problem with the block. 

Kind Regards,

[cadffm]

Thank you Emma,

That ship has sailed and this File is not what I ask for. But in general it was a good idea to backup this file.

What I said yesterday:

After you start using isavepercent =0,

save your DWG. Let us name this file state 'NewBorn'.

If you changed this setting and you saved your DWG:

If you think you found new 'doubled or old fragments', don't save - create a backup of this DWG and the <samename>.bak file.

send me a private message - I like to check it.

But your file

1. was not saved while isavepercent was set to 0  (without the file i am guessing)

2. You don't have the previous version of this dwg (*.bak) - Or you forgot to mention it.

Two reasons why your file is not interesting for me, sorry.

>>"I knew it definitely worked correctly before this last save of the block."

The last state of your DWG can found as <samefolder>/<samefilename>.bak       {depending on yout isavebak and movebak setting}

>>"Once you open it, it breaks and all states merge."

Trust me, it was already broken by saving, but perhaps "invisible". We could check it with the previous file state. (*.bak file)

[emma.cronin]

You are correct that the file does not have isavepercent set to 0. But it WAS saved prior to the block breaking. I realised I had the block break, then I moved the .bak of that file and changed to a .dwg back then (I tested and it was pre break but I hadnt ever saved over that original file), which is how I know that file was previous to the block break. However I understand if this is not useful due to the isavepercent. 

It's all I have at the moment, and this was probably 3+ years ago, I have never been able to capture a 'pre break' file since as by the time you realise theres an issue its usually multiple saves down the line. 

Both of us in CAD are going to set our variable to 0 and see how we go, but we work with very large and often annoying slow file saves so we might have to set it back. We will see how it goes

Thanks for the interest in helping us! Its been a funny issue for many many years and changed how we managed our entire library systems due to it seeming to cause a cascade of problems once it starts happening.

[emma.cronin]

Actually the file on the original post is the one which I was refering too, but it was saved as I cleared all other content out due to it being a company project. 

[cadffm]

>>"then I moved the .bak of that file and changed to a .dwg back then"
-> Good, but next time you want to backup files because of analyses, backup the dwg also.

>>"However I understand if this is not useful due to the isavepercent."
It is just not what I ask for.

>>"I have never been able to capture a 'pre break' file since as by the time you realise theres an issue its usually multiple saves down the line."
It is pretty hard to capture the real break point, because the real break point is not what you think it is,
the real break point is "invisible". Also over multiple saves it is invisible and appears by Audit/Regen or by open via Recover only.
(In AutoCAD is an automate audit included, so sometime it is the not user who starteds recover or audit, but AutoCAD)
So long the break is not visible, you can rescue the file.

>>"Both of us in CAD are going to set our variable to 0 and see how we go,"
Create a backup of the most used or important file after you saved them while isavepercent is set to 0
[this way we have one "older" version which should 'fixed' - to compare with the new bak/dwg data, if you find the trouble again]

>>" but we work with very large and often annoying slow file saves so we might have to set it back. We will see how it goes"
Hello IT, I like to have a faster network.
(Yes, directly working on networks can slowing down, down to a real pain.)
If you need to change it back, send me a message and I will show you other workarounds!

>>"Its been a funny "
Oh no, NOTHING is funny what releated to this bug <grrrrh>

- - -

>>"Actually the file on the original post is the one which I was refering too"

This is the problem DWG?, and the .bak file without the issue you talking about is

the last version (except your delete-action because of company contents) ?

Then: Open your renamedBAK by command RECOVER, Audit Yes

and check it again, no issue? Then it is really a state before the block breaks.

[APiggottTWV6T]

Perhaps related, I have found that when I completely removed visibility states (not sure which way I did this), there were still some "ghost" objects left.  They did not appear in the model nor in the block editor (with BVMODE 0).  However, another time when I had BVMODE 1, and opened the block editor, they appeared, much to my surprise!  Fortunately, I could select them and delete them.  Unfortunately, Properties does not tell you about visibility states, but it shouldn't be that there are objects in a block that does not use visibility states that are invisible.  I am using AutoCAD 2023.

[cadffm]

Hi,

>>"Perhaps related" in this case it is not related

but I like to say Thank you! Because one part of your post will help me other people in the future:-)

I understand your thoughts and desire to have that changed, but what you don't know:

In AutoCAD objects have a property what is not listed in properties palette (visible yes/no),

so it is not limited to blocks and visibility parameters.

(the dynamic visibility parameter uses exactly this property to show/hide objects in Bedit)

I like the idea :

By deleting visibility parameter, popup appears if there are objects 1) linked to the visibility parameter PLUS 2) invisible in cureent visibility state (independend of BVmod).

[Alert: There are invisible objects ....]

[APiggottTWV6T]

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for replying and the information you provided.

Andrew

[Octy]

Hi Emma,

I have the same issue and I have not found a permanent solution for this. A temporary fix is to edit the d.block that you currently use and go to the visibility that you want and hide the unwanted elements and save. Another temporary solution is to delete all the d.blocks with that name from the file, purge the drawing and insert the originally created block, if you don't delete the blocks with that name, purge will not clear it from the file and the inserted block takes the properties of the faulty one.

This 2 are working for me and I hope it works for you too.

Kindest Regards,

Octavian