Yet another inane bug

[phillipJSCHJ]

In the current version, if you try to paste text into the name of a part in the data panel, it soft locks the keyboard and eliminated any input. Especially when pulling the text from the drawing's title box. 

I know that figuring out ways to extort more money from your userbase is Autodesk's primary objective, but can we get basic features like RENAMING FILES to operate reliably? I don't know if I'm asking a lot, I don't feel like I am, but there's a wealth of glaring bugs that exist and I don't think finding ways to remove features and services from our paid software solves them. 

[-KyleWilliams-]

Hey @phillipJSCHJ 

If I'm understanding your workflow, I'm seeing something possibly similar. I don't get a lock up, but the "active window" appears to remain the drawings workspace and not the data panel, so my paste command is happening in the drawing.

I've forwarded this to the drawings team. Please let me know if there is something else happening that I can investigate.

Thanks,

[liang_chen]

Thanks for the feedback. It is a valid UI issue, and has been tracked as internal ticket for investigation and fixing. DID is FDWG-18692. 

[phillipJSCHJ]

While y'all are at it, allow us to rename files when disconnected from Fusion's useless cloud. Not being able to do BASIC file management when y'all have server outages, which is regular at this point, is wild. 

Get back to the basics of making Fusion an excellent piece of modeling software. 

[TrippyLighting]

It's interesting to see how users' experiences can vary.

Having all the CAD data in the cloud has a few drawbacks, but the pros vastly outweigh the cons for my private projects and professional work ( I spend 8-12 hours a day using Fusion on most days).
I work with Fusion on three different computers: two Windows machines and a 2017 MacBook Pro. I find it very liberating that I can do so without having to worry about licensing servers, dongles, which machine my data is stored on, etc.

I also can't say that I see regular outages and that those prevent me from getting work done.  

Also, on a more personal note, if you can manage to leave the passive aggressive attitude out of your posts, that would certainly help get more of the Fusion team members to help us here on the forum. Asking questions and reporting bugs is fine. 

If you read your own messages and put yourself in the shoes of those two Autodesk employees who responded to your message, would you be motivated to your post?

I would not! 

[Robert-FreEnergy]

It's great that you have such a positive experience and important that people hear that.

In the name of balance, I also use fusion for 8-12 hours a day, across multiple machines, but have regular serious commercially detrimental problems. The autodesk team are pretty good, they have tried to sort every problem I've taken to them and (when they aren't telling you that you are using fusion wrong) the forums are generally pretty helpful.

Currently these include but are not limited to:

1. Soft locking when enter text into various places (seems as though the focus shifts to something that isn't being displayed). This forces me to completely reload fusion, it takes about 2 minutes to get it to close and another 2 minutes to open, a lot of my assemblies are large and take 2-3 minutes to open, I'm often dealing with 3 or more models, this happens 4-5 times a day, let's be generous and say that's about 40 minutes of dead time a day. However, this bug often occurs when creating drawings which do not recover when reloaded, this often costs me the last 10-20 minutes of work.
2. Model appearances not transferring into assemblies. This doesn't seem to be fixable and seems to require a completely new model. This ranges from 5 minutes of work to hours depending on the complexity of the model.
3. Slow navigation through the data panel, I understand that this is because it has to request the data from the server, but seriously when I press home it locks everything up for 10 seconds. Many of my products use generic parts I have stored in project libraries, this slow navigation is painful when adding or changing components.
4. Fusion seems to struggle exporting large assemblies, this means that it is quite difficult to export the models in a format that gas zone analysis contractors can analyse them. Something that should really be an export becomes a 3 hour challenge of seeing how much of the assembly I have to delete to satisfy fusion.
5. Sometimes assemblies just start crashing whenever the Get Latest command is used. Again depending on the size of the assembly this could be a five minute to 2 day time cost as I have to completely re-create the assembly.

I like fusion, I like the workflow, I like the interface and I like how fast I can iterate models and keep consistency amongst the team; the cloud based storage has real benefits. I particularly like the configuration system that has been added, it has saved me a lot of time and works really well.

The outages don't hurt too much, but we have a lot of projects and a small team, I'm often in the office till 4am trying to make sure I have things ready for a meeting; on these occasions outages really hurt.

I do want to re-iterate that I think the team at autodesk are as helpful with problems as they can be and I expect that they are as run off their feet as developers at any company. However, a lot of the company's decisions lately are inarguably driven by profit maximisation. There is a definite tendency to move functionality to the cloud, which is irritating, use of cloud services should be charged for, but making these cloud only services feels a bit disingenuous.

However, (and it's a big however), there are a lot of quality of life improvements to be made and bugs to be squashed and I don't think it's inappropriate to be frustrated when those things impact your commercial output and I think it's really inappropriate to try and "play down" or pretend that these problems are not an issue.

[TrippyLighting]

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n@Robert-FreEnergy wrote:

However, (and it's a big however), there are a lot of quality of life improvements to be made and bugs to be squashed and I don't think it's inappropriate to be frustrated when those things impact your commercial output and I think it's really inappropriate to try and "play down" or pretend that these problems are not an issue.

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I have worked with Fusion for almost 10 years, during which time I have reported hundreds of bugs and helped other users report many, many bugs. I can assure you that I am fully aware of what bugs need to be fixed and have a long list of QOL improvements that I would like to see.

I have worked professionally with CAD, 3D modeling, and many other software programs for over three decades. I am no stranger to frustrations when it comes to working with software! I have been frustrated and will continue to get frustrated. However, I have learned to manage that frustration. Some days are better, some days are worse.

Two Autodesk employees participated and provided feedback. They were able to reproduce the behavior, and it has been recorded as a bug.

A simple "Thanks" would have been an appropriate response.

Adding completely useless, abrasive statements to a post is immature and not appropriate. End of story! 

My response to frustration is to get involved on the forum. I help other users, report bugs, and provide models and screencasts so a QA can reproduce the bug, record it, and send it to the appropriate team to get it fixed. I've done that hundreds of times, and it has had a significant positive impact on every user!
I have no intention or need to downplay anything because I don't use the forum just to complain or vent!
 

To your #4 and #5, please add a new thread and provide data. I work frequently with STEP imports and exports exceeding 10000 components and my experience is different (it is very fast and reliable). However, STEP export is processed locally and not in the cloud. Some of the export formats are processed in the cloud, and that might be the culprit in your case.

[Robert-FreEnergy]

This is such a waste of both of our time.

I was not trying to be abrasive and I don't think my post was immature.

I made a real effort to point out that the autodesk team are really helpful, even though I expect they are stretched. 

I am and I suspect many others here are, very grateful for the help that you and everyone else offer here and it is extremely laudable.

I am not being sarcastic and I genuinely mean this, I really do not want to offend you or make you or the autodesk team feel undervalued. 

I hope that you will read this last bit in good faith.

Using these forums can be really disheartening, especially if you are only a beginner. Often someone comes to the forum asking a question that has either been formulated badly, or is based on a pretty questionable workflow.

For the people who are frequent contributors, it must get frustrating solving the same problems over and over again and being asked "But why can't fusion just be different?".

I understand that you don't use the forums to vent, but if you have just slammed your head into a brick wall for hours trying to workaround a bug (even if its a temporary one caused by an update) trying to get something ready for a customer, sometimes it's relieving to hear from someone else that you aren't the only person who is struggling. Moreover it's really depressing when you get responses saying that the system, on balance, works well, or that your workflow is wrong or that what you are asking for is impossible or nonsensical.

I stand by my comment that: "It's great that you have such a positive experience and important that people hear that."

I wasn't being sarcastic then and I really do think it's good to point out the good things that the cloud system makes possible.

I have been suffering from the problem described in this thread, which is why I'm here and the reason I commented was to offer a tempered criticism. I don't want to dissuade anyone from squashing bugs or helping people, but I do think it's important that reasonable criticism be made and the cost of the problems pointed out. I agree that aggressive posts do not achieve anything.

That is why I left my original comment.

As I said, I do hope that this does not offend you.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Robert-FreEnergy wrote:

This is such a waste of both of our time.

I was not trying to be abrasive and I don't think my post was immature.

My apologies, you were definitely not abrasive or immature!

The "downplay" comment hurt a little, though 😉

That is not what I intended to do.

Your criticism is constructive and well-placed, but I would have hoped not to find it in this particular thread 😉

[Robert-FreEnergy]

Thanks, I am sorry, I don't think you downplayed it and I'm sorry that my comment didn't distinguish that the downplay bit was a general comment not specifically at you.

Maybe you are right, this isn't the right place to make all those points and I got carried away, but I worry that the a new thread dedicated to a list of problems might be a bit much.

[phillipJSCHJ]

Unless you speak out about your issues, Autodesk will always use the excuse that they didn't have enough negative feedback to invalidate their poor decisions. Autodesk/yFusion has intentionally made many, many anti-consumer moves in recent years and it handicaps their services.

-EDIT-

Moderator note: please keep it civil.