Cannot Create Cylinder On Pre-Selected Surface

[fusiondesigner]

Since the beginning, if you wanted to create a simple cylinder (or box), it was possible (or even expected) to first click and select the surface/face you want to begin it on, then chose the Create Cylinder command. This would then directly prompt for choosing the center of the new cylinder, on this pre-selected face/plane.  However, for at least 6 months, this has not been working, and it results in very obviously buggy behavior. See attached screencast. This has been unaddressed and seemingly unmentioned across several updates. The workaround is to first run the Create cylinder command, then select the face. But it does impede usability in several situations.

[HughesTooling]

I just tried what you're showing and it works how it should for me. Is this a problem all the time or intermittent? One reason this might not be being seen is most experienced users tend to avoid the primitives in Fusion because they and not paramtric.

[jeff_strater]

I see the same thing as @HughesTooling - it seems to work as expected.  Can you try just exiting Fusion and re-starting it?

[fusiondesigner]

Hi Jeff, I have been using Fusion since 2017, and am used to this feature being there since then, seems pretty basic. (It becomes an absolute necessity when teaching beginners or making a tutorial video). I have always been on a Mac. This particular bug has been happening for more than 6 months now. It may coincide with when I upgraded to a Macbook Pro M3 last year, not sure.

This has persisted across multiple restarts, installs, reinstalls, updates. I also have the latest insider build, and it happens there as well. It happens every single time a surface is preselected and then the create cylinder/primitive command is chosen.

Since others are saying it doesn't happen to them, I will post my system configuration:

Macbook Pro, 14-inch Nov 2023

Apple M3 Pro, 18GB, MacOS Sonoma 14.4.1

[fusiondesigner]

I updated just now to the latest version released on May 17 and tried it, exactly the same issue persists. 

Fusion 2.0.19215 arm64 [Native]
Active Plan: Subscription
macOS 14.4.1 (23E224) on Mac15,6

[jeff_strater]

Not sure what to tell you, to be honest.  I have almost the exact same configuration (just more memory):

and, I have never experienced this problem.  I am not at all saying you are NOT seeing this problem - the video proves that you do.  So, there is some other variable involved.  Do you have any particular input devices that you use (I use the touchpad or a Windows-type/3 button mouse)?

Also, I have, in the past, experienced transient issues during an update that are similar (though not the exact problem that you see).  I have seen times where I am unable to select a sketch plane, or where the dynamic preview in sketch line or rectangle creation is missing.  In all cases, though, closing Fusion and restarting it usually fixes that problem.  One time I had to use the Fusion Repair Utility to fix it. 

Another case that I have seen that can cause UI weirdness is:  a rogue Fusion process.  I have seen times when Fusion does not shut down cleanly.  Then, if you start an instance of Fusion, some of the UI messages get diverted to that rogue process.  Though, I find it hard to imagine that you would have had such a rogue process for 6 months...

Sorry not to be more helpful.

[fusiondesigner]

Thank you for your response Jeff. Let's leave this up here for some time to see if someone else also reports the problem. I will continue to use the workaround (first select the command, then choose the surface) until it someday magically gets fixed on its own.

[fusiondesigner]

7 years into using and advocating for Fusion, I was nearly at the point of giving up on it because of this issue continuing to happen for more than a year. But I think I finally figured it out, and also why it hasn't been happening with lots of users. It seems to be because of an add-in, or the combination of two specific add-ins, pictured below. When they are both disabled, things become normal again. I will see how to file a bug on this add-in's page.

This does imply that add-ins have significant intrusive capability into Fusion's core functionality, even when not invoked.