Stability issues on Mac OS X

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

am I the only one having major stability issues on Mac OS X? I love Fusion 360, so much that I almost never use my (paid-for) install of SolidWorks 2014 (which runs very well in a Parallels VM, so don't blame my Mac).

It has come so far that I need to save before !every! step, from creating solids to drawing a line in a sketch. On a typical design, I get a crash every 10 minutes. The problem is that this is getting worse and worse, up to the point where I am scared to open a drawing. 

The 'backup recovery files' are useless, usually containing lots of referencing errors and warnings, so these are out. 

I know development on Fusion goes very fast, but can't we get a 'stable' version with less new stuff to stay productive? The people who like newer stuff can then get the 'beta' version and be happy, exploring new features and reporting crashes. 

I am changing jobs to something more design-oriented (in the interior design industry) and would love to introduce Fusion there, but I'm scared this may backfire when Fusion crashes a lot on important projects...

Lastly, as I said before, do not blame my system. It's a late-2012 Mac mini, 2,5ghz dual core i5, 16gb ram, 1.5gb video ram and an SSD. While Fusion is experiencing hickups, which 90% of the time result in a crash, I can freely open Safari or even work with SolidWorks in Parallels, so while this is not the newest machine, it is not slow... the slowness is in the Fusion code...

Thanks for reading my rant... 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I usually pre-select, then input the values… as dragging usually is very slow.

The crash does not only happen when sketching, but it’s one of the things that quickly generate a crash.

M

[Anonymous]

Hi,

thanks for the info on the driver, I am not using a tablet but it is something to keep in mind when using other hardware.

I already type in the numbers instead of dragging, and crashes also happen on other operations, mainly joining assemblies and chamfering. 

It's a weird way of working... save->command->save->command->save 🙂 and it got me to the dark side (Onshape) for a while, because it does constant saving. However, my printer design seemed too much for it and it usually choked on loading the design (on many computers) so I reimported my design into Fusion. 

I hope the developers can find some time to get things more stable in time for me to introduce the software at work. I am thinking about buying a bigger SSD and do some reinstalling to get a bigger Windows 10 partition, and use Fusion mainly from there. This thought however, as a long-time Mac user, kills me and I hope for another solution.

Would anyone have experience with Fusion 360 on previous-gen Mac Pro's? I could get a 5.1 off of eBay and have a faster, more expandable computer to use Fusion with... or should I look for an i7 instead?

Thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it!

[Anonymous]

Hello, since Fusion 360 is one of your "Tools of Trade" good fast computers are what you needed. I suggest you to get a 15" MacBook Pro Quad Core I7 version. These machines are powerful machines and they work very well with Fusion 360. Plus you can carry it home everyday. I think Fusion 360 works very well with Mac's. At least you might not have to worry about problems relating to internal operations of Windows' Operating System. I also suggest using a three button mouse with the MacBook Pro. Track Pads are great devices but a three button mouse is still the best choice.

I am using both MacBook Pro I7, and also a duo core 11 inch I7 AIR. The AIR also works quite well with Fusion 360. The renderings are fine too.  I keep my AIR at my Singapore office and it has no trouble running Fusion 360 at all. Maximum memory in the AIR and Macbook Pro is recommended. I configured them with maximum memory and all SSD drives.

I would say MacBook Pro actually works better than Mac Mini I7 machines. The Latest fast iMac's are also very good Machines but you lose the portablility of a MacBook Pro. 

[Anonymous]

I don't like laptops :). Don't get me wrong, I love my MacBook, but it's from 2008, and I've come a long way in finding a balance between work and quality time. Work is at my desk, everywhere else should never have anything to do with work. When the MacBook dies, then that's it for me and mobile computing (except for my iPhone 6 Plus). 

That said, a faster Mac is an option, but what still bothers me is that SolidWorks works smoother, in a VM, with similar designs, on the same machine... 

M

[Anonymous]

Dear @Anonymous

I agree with your philosophy. Since Fusion 360 can practically works anywhere with many plateforms, you do not have to carry your computer all the time.  I am not sure if Solid Works can do that since I had never used it.

Have a nice day!

[Anonymous]

True, and that's were I will keep it... desks :).

SolidWorks is harder to work with than Fusion 360, it compares more to Inventor. It's Windows-only (yuck and a big shame), but runs great on Parallels (and VMware). However, I prefer Fusion 360. 🙂

Would you or anyone else have experience with Fusion 360 on a 5.1 or current-gen Mac Pro? IF an upgrade turns out to be necessary, it will be a Pro.

Have a nice Sunday 🙂

M

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous

RE: Clean installation- Hi If you had not tried this before, maybe you should. I had found this to be very effective.

If you do not have any other Autodesk programs that had files located at ~/Library/Application Support/AutoDesk folder, maybe you should delete the whole folder and install again.

From the Finder, select "Go To" then enter ~/Library

Then find /Application Support/

Delete the whole /AutoDesk  folder.

After that please go back to Fusion360 official site, download the trial installer and install again. After the program is installed, please log in and wait for maybe 15 minutes or more.

Than you should close the program and start again. Then try it... Hopefully this will work.

That works for me all the time.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

already did that... but thanks anyway!

M

Sent from my iPhone

[kris_berg]

Hi @Anonymous,

I am still looking at your issues, but am having a hard time reproducing them.  As I mentioned earlier, the most frequent crash you are encountering is related to sketch offset when it is trying to auto-look at the sketch (change the camera so you are looking directly at the sketch).   Other users have also crashed in that area.  I have looked at your logs on each one of them looking for a clue on what it is in your workflow that is causing the issue and have spent hours trying to reproduce it with no luck.  I did notice many times your are repeating the command.  When you repeat the offset command are you using the marking menu or something else?  Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.  I am especially interested in how you access commands and mouse/input device interaction (do you often double click, immediately change something in the sketch palette on sketch create, etc).  What input device are you using (ie. trackpad, magic mouse, something else)?  I am sorry I haven't been able to pinpoint a cause, but I assure you it isnt from lack of trying.

Thank you,

Kris Berg

Fusion 360 Development

[Anonymous]

Hi,

thank you very much for your efforts, and I apologize for the sometimes rude comments on crash reports... but things can get very frustrating some times...

I usually invoke commands with the top menu, and rarely use the right-click menu, except for chamfer and fillet operations, and my way of controlling Fusion is to use a mouse 90% of the time (Logitech wireless mouse), and a Magic Trackpad for rapidly scrolling trough the components list.

By auto-look, do you mean where you start or edit a sketch, and the camera zooms into it, sometimes rotating the view (rotation is annoying and unwanted for 80% of the time btw)?

Moving from the OpenGL Core profile to the normal OpenGL profile did get the frequency of crashing down a little...

Thanks,

M

[kris_berg]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for replying.  On your "Auto Look At" comment, yes that is the behavior that is crashing for some reason when using the offset command.  You can turn it off by default in your preferences.  You will find it in the General >  Design tab.  It is the option "Auto Look At Sketch".  I hope this helps.  I will continue to look into your issues, but unfortunately I am not making much progress.

Thank you,

Kris Berg

Fusion 360 Development

[Anonymous]

Turned it off, this annoyed e from day one of using Fusion :). (but probably not enough to dig into the preferences to find a toggle for it)

Thank you, I will continue generating crash logs, hope they help.

M

[Anonymous]

@kris_berg

Hi Kris, I think this "AutoLook at Sketch" feature should be defaulted to "Off" position. Some people might like it. But I think most commercial designers like me would think that it is a distraction on our workflows.  I turned that off a long time ago after reading Mr. Carl Bass' reply to one of the users on this topic. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

True.

The most annoying part gf the function is where it rotates the view. You are designing with a specific view on the parts, and when starting a sketch it is acceptable that the application zooms to the sketch plane, and it is also acceptable that it goes to a ‘flat’ view, but rotation is very annoying…

Maybe the toggle for the function could be split up in disable and disable rotation.

Hope I explained this the right way…

[kris_berg]

Hi @Anonymous and @Anonymous,

Thanks for the suggestions.  @Anonymous would love it if we defaulted that option to off :).  However, some new users like the behavior and find it makes the tool easier to use.  Its never easy to decide which way to default an option.   

@Anonymous I understood everything you said except the "flat view".  Can you elaborate on that a little more?

Thank you,

Kris Berg

Fusion 360 Development

[Anonymous]

Yes it was a little bit weird to explain. I’ll try again:

The function ‘Auto look at sketch’ does this:

- go from a 3D-view to a ‘flat’ 2D-view
- zoom to the estimated sketch size
- sometimes it rotates the view over the Y-axis, the best way to explain this is that when looking to the view cube on the top right, the view on it sometimes rotates. This can put sketches upside-down at time, or sideways. I think this view’s rotation should remain in its position, as this is often distracting and can create a feeling of getting lost and disoriented on your drawing...

[Anonymous]

I agree with your original statement. 

Updates should be less frequent. As rightly or wrongly the updates are precived as buggy by Mac users. 

I had consecutive issues following consecutive updates. One was the compare and edit feature in the cam space. The other was a lack of extension in the Mach 3 post. Both seam now to have been fixed. But on the last update. Wow could I get me saves to load to the cloud? No! Not over wireless. I had to plug I a cable and then it tock a long time. Maybe not a update issue but coincidence? 

Can I ask what are the specks on Mac machines that AD issue to the f360'devs? 

Also what the average settings that AD employees use. That should give a idea on what is considered a stable platform. 

Us users could then see how far off the AD baseline we are. 

[kris_berg]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for the feedback.  After looking at @Anonymous 's crashes, I don't believe they are hardware related.  I believe they are data and workflow specific.  Other customers with different hardware configurations are experiencing the same issue.

That said, I completely understand the frustration felt when the application is crashing at the rate @Anonymous was experiencing.  We continue to strive for high quality before we ever release our software and monitor crash reports after a release to try and address any issues quickly.  The offset crash is considered one of our "hot CER's" which means we have a team looking at why it is happening and trying to get a fix ASAP.  It is unfortunate it was not caught prior to releasing.  He also experienced another issue the team is also trying to reproduce.

On our Mac hardware, we don't have a corporate standard.  We have Mac mini's, Mac Book Pro's, very few new Mac Pro's (quite a few old ones) and iMacs.  The only one we dont use for development is the Mac Book Air.  Our Quality Assurance team also has a wide variety of machines.  

Thank you,

Kris Berg

Fusion 360 Development

[Anonymous]

Hi @kris_berg

it is not my intention to dis the Dev team quite the opposit. 

I would say embrace the community. 

Send out the updates to a community beta team who will test it to destruction. 

You will get CER before you relise the update. 

Ok this maybe a slower way to update the programme. But there will be less issues on public forum for the team to fire fight. 

Plus. 

A buggy programme can have a negative impact when your clients are in the shop and your trying to work with them to hammer a design down or cam up something they want done. 

It gives a small job shop the "he can't do the job" look. 

By spreading the updates out to your users in beta. Your test platform becomes massive. 

[Anonymous]

@kris_berg

Hi Kris, my MacBook Air using this configuration is working very well with Fusion 360.  In fact I did a lot of renderings in Advanced Mode using the AIR yesterday. That is the only Machine I am using at my Singapore office for Fusion 360.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Air
Model Identifier: MacBookAir6,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 1.7 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBA61.0099.B21
SMC Version (system): 2.12f143
Serial Number (system): C02N3028G5RM
Hardware UUID: ADA5869E-101C-56A9-AF98-F4593F307E23

I also hook up to big 24 inch screen and outside Apple Key Board and Joy Mouse. It is behaving like a bigger computer.

I did not have any crashing issues with this machne so far. But I work very slow in my designing. This is an image of a rendering in the AIR yesterday using Advance Mode (600 seconds). This image had been edited to 4R 300 ppi Format. Inserted here in "Medium Size": The rendering is on the left side. A real picture of the real product is on the right side. You can see the rendering of this Coil Ring is almost perfect. All done in this small 11 inch MacBook Air. Please note that this is the minimum configuration of a MacBook Air that can work with Fusion. Slower Air's will freeze up.