view cube becomes deactivated

[Anonymous]

hello,

i have noticed that occasionally the view cube is not working correctly. the small house icon disappears and the cube becomes inactive. clicking on it does nothing. also it seems like its is a lighter shade of grey? that may be due to it not being clickable. i have not found any solutions to this issue, and i cannot determine the cause. usually it becomes usable after a while. hopefully this is just user error and someone can tell me how to fix it. its not a huge issue but it is very frustrating. 

thanks

[Phil.E]

@ericbrowning

Thanks for refreshing this discussion.

I read through the entire post and tried a few things I don't normally do. This time I found the steps to reproduce it. 

• I cannot achieve this bug without going to Chrome and back to Fusion.
• I have tap to click turned on.
• It happens more if I drive the trackpad with one hand.
• "Finger down" ( which = a tap) and also drag the cube at the same time

I suspect that all of these factors matter and contribute to the bug. Can you confirm? 

As you may see me state from time to time, we can only fix bugs we can reproduce. We are rather glad to fix things like this, if we can reproduce them. Up until now, many hours have been spent trying to reproduce this. So thanks again for the prompt!

(internal reference: FUS:25923)

Thanks,

[ericbrowning]

Phil,

We're using the native Fusion 360 app. We're not using it in any
browsers. I have also confirmed that I can unfreeze the view cube by
zooming in/out a little. This happens on both my Desktop which is Mac OS
10.11.6 and my Laptop which is 10.12.4. Both have trackpads. The desktop
used the Apple trackpad model A1339. Batteries are 100%, there's no
interference or other issues with responsiveness. The view cube just locks
up. I have noticed that it puts a small black icon (not sure if it's a dot
or a black cube) at the bottom of the arrow cursor when it freezes.

[Phil.E]

@ericbrowning

Thanks for the information.

To be clear. I can only achieve this bug if I am:

1. Using Fusion

2. Chrome is open and pointing to a web page, perhaps the news or the Fusion forum page.

3. During my Fusion session I click the web page (chrome) and then go back to Fusion to continue modeling.

At this point it's very easy to get the view cube stuck by simply using it.

• So are you also occasionally clicking to view another app, such as Chrome, or anything else?
• And you didn't say if you are using "tap to click" in your macOS trackpad settings. 
• Can you confirm either of these for me please?

Thanks,

[ericbrowning]

@Anonymous

No I am not using tap to click. The only gestures I use are the two finger
scroll, three finger "mission control", four finger "show desktop", and I
have to press down to click.

No it makes no difference in either switching apps or just continually
working in Fusion. The view cube just occasionally locks up regardless of
what I'm doing. I will send a screenshot the next time it happens.
--
Eric Browning

[donsmac]

Please fix the problem with the view cube becoming inactive, disappearing etc. 

[info]

Hi,

I also get this issue quite often, running on a Mac. It also seems to effects other tools / dialogue boxes within Fusion. The way I have always resolved it is to switch the display to Multiple Views then back to Single View and it resolves the issues. Have had this issue for quite a few versions of Fusion, I've just lived with it.

Cheers

[chris]

I've been getting this almost daily since I recently started with 360.

I wish I could give you some pattern - but it's as random as for the others (MB Pro, inbuilt trackpad).

One thing that seems to be fairly common for me - when it has become disabled - other trackpad commands behave in an odd fashion.

Pan/pinch trackpad commands and mouse click/drag will all give the same effect (last time everything zoomed, the time before that everything panned regardless of if I was pinching, two finger panning or mouse click and drag on background).

After an app restart when the cube is back to behaving - then the trackpad/click works as it should again.

So - I don't know if that's related - but I thought I'd mention it.

[Phil.E]

@chris

Thanks for the additional information. 

Can you, or anyone else confirm, the following:

1. Restart your computer.
2. Do not start any application other than Fusion 360.
3. Start Fusion 360.
4. Use it normally to do your work.

Does the trackpad or view cube become disabled?

The reason I ask is because as I stated earlier in the thread, I can easily get the view cube to disable if I click into Chrome to view a web page, and then click back to Fusion. I would like to know if you all can run Fusion without failures when you don't have any other apps running.

Thanks,

[ericbrowning]

No restarting doesn't do anything. It seems to be how Fusion360 responds
to Apple's trackpad gestures. When the view cube gets stuck I can unstick
it by using panning or zooming in/out with the trackpad, then the view cube
becomes "normal" again. I've noticed many times that when I want to pan
left/right/up/down it Fusion360 sometimes will zoom in or out.

[Phil.E]

@ericbrowning

Hi thanks for the input. 

I asked if you could restart the computer to ensure that no other apps are running.

Can you confirm that you see this defect when a) you have freshly restarted Fusion and also b) there are no other apps running.

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

[El8ias]

I use Fusion throughout my day on a MacBook Pro using the track pad almost exclusively. The View cube disables itself regularly.  A quick Shift Rotation or view port motion brings it back. Also finding other anomalies, fairly often the Shift rotation stops working on the track pad leaving only zoom in and out. Also, if left idle around 20 min, a complete degridation of the user interface occures to the point I must force quit and restart.  I'm one not to close out of the program or shut down my computer when leaving the office, I just close the laptop and shove into my backpack until I need it again. 

[billbucket]

Pinch zooming on the screen of my X1 Yoga fixed it for me. 

[davebYYPCU]

Just a note to report my cube went down during a customer session, and did not come back to life,

Orbit and Constrained orbit got me bye, 

I could not shut down at the time and try the restart, work got done, about an hour or so, was like working one handed,

can't say what I was doing to cause it, but was almost immediately after opening a file, reviewing it, but before any edits, 

I am away from Fusion next 3 days, so no panic will check back on Monday.

But Windows 10, has done 2 upgrades in the last 24 hours that I have been told about one was a large update.

I had seen this thread, noted mostly Mac users, were involved, 

Hoping the restart will fix it....

[Phil.E]

@davebYYPCU

Sorry to hear of some trouble for you. Please let us know if restart fixes things.

To be clear, you are using Windows? If it's still a problem , can you provide some hardware specs? I'd like to look into this for you but hardware is a key aspect of this problem so I need to test a similar machine.

Thanks,

[mianos]

I seem to be having this issue more and more (maybe because I am doing more sketching?)

Restarting Fusion fixes it for me.

Macbook with an external screen. I don't run Chrome at all.

Could this be related to the screen glitches where the dock icons get drawn over the top of the Safari when on an external screen?

[Phil.E]

@mianos

Welcome to the Fusion 360 community! Sorry to hear you are having some trouble.

Can you post your graphics diagnostic information here? Look under the ?Help menu for a tool called Graphics Diagnostic. There is a copy to clipboard button there. 

Thanks!

[mianos]

This is my normal mode. If I put reduced mode it makes no difference. Still once every few days the view cube becomes de-activated.

[GPU Information]
GPU Device: Intel(R) HD Graphics 5300
GPU RAM: 1536 MB (Integrated card)
GPU Driver API: OpenGL

[Graphics Effects Settings]
Use high-resolution graphics: Off
Anti Aliasing: On
Ambient Occlusion: On
Object Shadow: On
Ground Shadow: On
Ground Reflection: Off
Selection Display Style: Normal
Transparency Effect: Better Display

[Limit effects to optimize performance]
Off

[Phil.E]

@mianos

Thanks for the details.

Your comment: "Could this be related to the screen glitches where the dock icons get drawn over the top of the Safari when on an external screen?"

Yes, your hardware setup is likely causing some issues like this. Normally CAD programs run much better on dedicated graphics. However, the Intel series of on board GPUs like yours does a decent job and many people rely on them to run Fusion. But 1.5 GB of memory for graphics intensive CAD programs is not really enough. Chances are that your machine is paging GPU memory to the hard drive after you've started Fusion and have a model on the screen.

Normally this causes no issues, but as you see the view cube can become disabled, and when you switch apps the graphics memory doesn't release properly. These are timing issues and probably related to memory.

In your situation, you are also using an external monitor which may add significantly to the GPU load, especially if you are viewing both screens at once. 

I have a suggestion and a request: Try running with effects turned off. That does reduce GPU load.

My request is to help narrow down why the view cube becomes deactivated. Some series of events creates a situation where the cube gets hung. If I can reproduce this with your help we can try to fix it once and for all. Thanks for your help.

Regards,

[mianos]

I don't run the built in screen. The laptop is closed in clam-shell mode. There are no windows on the other screen. It is completely disabled.

The only other app I run is Safari.

Last night I had the box disappear with effects turned off so I don't think this is it.

Next time it is disabled I will try and go back and duplicate it.

(I just spoke to a friend of mine with another Macbook (a 2016 pro 15) and he said it happens quite a lot. He's never reported it as he said he can just exit fusion end start it back up again. As I can).

Should I build up a PC for fusion instead of trying to keep using a macbook?

[Anonymous]

I posted this earlier in the thread as well but I know scrolling through three pages of comments is no fun.

"I came across this issue today as well. Just wanted to let you guys know I was able to get it working again by pinch zooming in and out on my Macbooks trackpad. Hope it helps!"