Flexibility not working properly in inventor - BUG that has been there for ever

[Cris-Ideas]

Hi,

I am trying to use flexibility feature but every time I give it a chance it fails me. There is a bug somewhere in inventor that makes it not capable of properly solving assemblies with flexible components.

This time I have run on to this issue with a very simple assembly, had been able to reproduce this buggy behaviour  tens of times, and had made video for you.

After unsuccessfully trying to post this I thought I will make another video for you so you could clearly see what is the difference when assembly is flat.

Here it is.

Here I have uploaded data set for you to play with :  http://a360.co/2fmTsvD

And in case you also think this is not working properly you can support idea to fix this: Fix flexible assemblies !

Cris.

[Cris-Ideas]

Previous one is my fault I admit.

But this one is not.

[video]

Cris.

[Cris-Ideas]

So to be clear:

Autodesk is aware of this for at least 9 years. And despite that this is still not working.

This are the facts.

Cris

[Anonymous]

This really isn't a solution or even an explanation.  

The problem persists and Autodesk isn't listening.  The web page Johnson opened has never seen an update and so the issue has been ignored.

I work on assemblies with hundreds or thousands of parts.  When these break, it's days of "fixing" things.  These are things that aren't really broke and no one can or will explain why or what to do.  I the absence of logic, superstition prevails.  This leaves me and Autodesk looking like fools to my customers, hurts everyone's' bottom line and destroys what little faith I have left in Autodesk.  

Having been compelled by Autodesk to migrate from Mechanical Desktop, I have been using Inventor for twenty years.  I've been an evangelist, set up companies and designed millions of dollars of equipment.  I can't do that anymore.  I can't advocate for a product that isn't honestly supported.  I can't stand behind something Autodesk does not.   I can't ask customers to pay me to fix things that aren't really broken or logically explained.  Too bad Autodesk does. 

-R

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Richard,

This is a very long thread. Do you mind elaborating which page I mentioned has not been updated? It is true that we have issues in Flexible assembly with PosRep particularly, as shown by Cris and others. But, it is not true that no attention has been paid. We are working on solving the issues. Some progress has been made but it is not as quick as we like it to be.

If you can share an example of Flexible issue, I am more than happy to take a look. You can contact me directly (johnson.shiue@autodesk.com).

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Cris, for staying on this.  AD's response has been deplorable.  That something so basic could be ignored for so long speaks volumes of their priorities. 

The inability to ground objects and or transpose the origin is a deep flaw in the software. 

Not recognizing the significance is deep flaw in the culture at AD.  

Promising to deliver something in a future release that customers have been paying for with both money and frustration for years is poor business and could expose the company to claims for reparation.

[Anonymous]

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Richard,

Many thanks for sharing the pages with me! The incident IDs do not seem to link to defect database. I need to follow up with our teams to find out what exactly these two cases are.

I know you are frustrated for the lack of attention to the issues you raised. But, I don't quite understand why you meant by no ability to ground components or transpose components. Could you elaborate it?

BTW, if what you described how the company behaves is true, I and other team members would not be active on the forum helping out our users.

Thanks again!

[P_Korgaonkar]

Hello There,

The video shows its done in Inventor 2017. Is this still an issue with Inventor 2019?

Regards

Parag

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! It is true that most of the issues shown in this thread are still reproducible on 2019. Some have been resolved in our internal build targeting future releases. Unfortunately, the fixes may not be portable to 2019 updates. I wish these issues never existed in the first place. If they were easy to fix, they would have been fixed already. We need to deal with these issues one at a time and make sure the fix is robust without introducing more problems.

If you have an example of failures, please feel free to post a new thread or send it to me directly (johnson.shiue@autodesk.com). I can take a look and see if it is a known issue.

Many thanks for your patience!

[Cris-Ideas]

@P_Korgaonkar

@Anonymous

Thanks Guys for your posts.

I must admit I personally had pretty much gave up on Autodesk. 

Also as years of struggle to get anything explained did not produced any result, as nothing was explained in this thread as well as in other threads of mine, I came to a inevitable conclusion that nothing ever will be explained by Autodesk.

Johnson so keenly writing "as long as you use Inventor, we are here to help", I feel I got no help at all. Instead many promises and no real results. Never ending argument that everything is working, when it clearly does not.

Even in his last post he wroites " we have to deal with this issues one by one"

This is total nonsense, as all this issues come from a single source - "not stable algorithm of sending data to solver".

So instead on hard working on patch here and there, that may as well make harm to other part of the software, real solution to the problem is to make STABLE, RELABEL algorithm of gathering data for the solver and also VALIDATION OF THE SOLUTION (this is currently not implemented at all in Inventor, and that's what allows  to get solution clearly against defined constrains).

Fact that Autodesk in its vastness and "professionalism" is:

1) NOT CAPABLE of providing properly working software

2) NOT CAPABLE of providing proper service to its customers

3) continuously ignoring problems and bugs in the software and does not make significant progress in fixing them

4) continuously disrespecting its clients

Makes this company definitely not a trustworthy business partner.

AUTODESK

Only that YOU are NOT ABLE to deal with as simple task as solving 3D geometrical constrain sets of rigid bodies proves that YOU have no control over the code and therefore user should have NO confidence in YUOR software.

WHEN WILL YOU FINALLY UNDERSTAND?

Cris.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Kris,

Nobody from Autodesk claims that "everything is working fine." If you have seen a message like that, it was wrong and please show me an example of such communication.
I do not want to get into detail of all the communications you and the teams have gone through over the years. It is true though, not all your issues have been fixed. I do not deny it, which is a fact. But, after various parties and various teams engaging with you in various forms, it is a total false statement saying that you and the issues you raised were not getting enough attention.

I appreciate every issue you raise. Each one of them is a good reminder to us that there is more work to be done. I stand by the statement I made," as long as you use Inventor, we are here to help." The fact that I am replying to this thread is a testament to the statement. Whether you like it or not and whether you believe it or not is irrelevant. All I care is that the issues are properly reviewed and appropriate actions are taken.

Many thanks!

[Frederick_Law]

Well said and well done.

Focus on the solution, not the problem.

[P_Korgaonkar]

Thank you all.

Will keep this in mind, and will workaround.

All the best for finding a solution.

Understand both sides, frustration user has, and difficulties software engineers have.

Regards

Parag

[Cris-Ideas]

@johnsonshiue

As i recall you have made numerous promises to explain causes of bad behaviour but you never did. (go to other threads we have been discussing if you do not remember)

Only outcome was usual statement "this issue was logged with development.. bla bla bla"

In the same time I read your posts answering to other users where you state "flexibility is working and should work for any depth"

We all know this is not true as flexibility is not working and definitely it will not work for any depth in the assembly. 

If in some cases it works it is only by pure lack of the particular user.

I honestly do not care how much attention my cases get. I am only interested in results I get.

Supplying cases to Autodesk in a nightmare. You require me to document, explain, prepare data sets and than above all fight to get it logged after (sometimes) painful process of convincing customer support that things that are not working in fact are not working.

It is not any mystery that customer support is forbidden to admit there are any problems in the software. When they do, it is only when user gives them no other choice presenting clear and undisputable evidence.

In the same time they are paid on hourly bases at a rate of few tens of euros an hour.

If I only estimate I have spent 6 hours on average on each of the cases I  had send not even adding time I had spend preparing data sets for this forum and posting I come up with a minimum estimate of 72 000 euro for my work I did for Autodesk. + I must pay subscription to be able to send bug reports at all.

So instead of ensuring me of how much is being done, despite there are no effects available for user, give me the effect.

How do you explain the fact that 9 years ago user send bug documentation regarding POS reps of components not being followed in POS reps of the components. Than he made a plugin that sets them properly and gave that to Autodesk.

How than it is possible so still this bug is not fixed?

Please explain why? How much was done during this 9 years to fix that, not even having to look where the problem is as it was all done for you by this user.

I will quote what this user wrote to me:

"As for the forums, I gave up a long time ago. I have had a number of problems besides this flexibility issue and have tried Autodesk support,reseller support, and the forums. For over ten years I have reported issues through all three channels. I have never had Autodesk fix any of my issues that I have reported in this way. So I have mostly given up on the forums to get bugs fixed; I believe it is a waste of my time. I see that you have spent countless hours discussing this with Johnson, who is never going to say on the forum that this is a real bug. He will continue to blame grounding, constraints, etc. I pretty much gave up after this post that I made

"

So what is the outcome of all this vast effort of development you always write about?

Because it is clearly not in fixed bugs.

I believe it is a waste of my time.

I am pretty much convinced that this is just the outcome Autodesk wants, so users having problems felt it is a waste of their time to try to get them fixed and so they stop spoiling Autodesk forums.

Cris.

[doug.johnston]

I'm curious to know if all the issues you are finding occur in other 3D modeling software (eg. Solidworks, Creo, Fusion, ProE, etc.)

Would be interesting to know if this is strictly an Inventor issue …. 

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Cris,

For every point you raised, I could offer a counter argument. But, I am not going to do that. It is because it is mutually destructive and it is irrelevant to the issues. If you want to put a dollar amount to all the efforts invested on reviewing your issues and providing solutions, it is stunning, very stunning. Sometimes I personally felt that we seemed to have you as the only customer. We had to help debug your design from time to time. But, no matter how disappointed you are, we are obligated to protect your data. Let's leave it as that.

Every issue you raised was reported and reviewed. Some are fixed but some are not. You are very keen on assembly solver related issues. Unfortunately, I cannot offer much explanation. It is because the constraint solver is a separate component, not managed by Inventor team. There are bugs and there are limitations in the solver like any software package. Some behaviors are deep in the way the solver solves a case. It is very difficult for me to explain the behaviors. For those cases that you did not get an explanation, they are more than likely bugs or limitations. However, again some can be fixed and some cannot be fixed.

Certainly, if these issues did not exist in the first place, we would not have this lengthy discussion. Nonetheless, based on my continuous engagement with you, I am not sure if you would be a happy customer either. There are always issues to be solved as any product on the market. Inventor is a tool of choice. I am very sorry that it causes you so much trouble, while millions of users worldwide use it for production purposes on a daily basis. No matter how negative you are and how you attack the product, the team, or me, I have to reiterate, as long as you use Inventor, we are here to help.

Many thanks!

[Cris-Ideas]

@johnsonshiue

please give counter argument to all of my points. If you only say you could, it is worth nothing.

You also said "you had to debug my projects" and "you are obliged to protect my data". I therefore relive you from this obligation, as most of the cases of mine are already public so please explain.

I asked in previous post about a simple bug reported and documented 9 years ago.

But of course you did not care to answer about why this is not fixed still.

Also you make totally inappropriate remark as I am  seeing my self as a only inventor user. Well I am not. Bugs that I point and document are problems for many users. Not only me.

Do you deny that?

Cris.

[Cris-Ideas]

As usual,

Answer about all but the question.

Just to recall.

Question is:

Why simple bug was not fixed for 9 years?

Since you are here to help, so please help me and others to understand that.

Cris.

[Anonymous]

I have followed this thread since it's inception and I have been using Inventor since version 1...the beginning of it all.

Inventor is a great program overall but in my humble opinion, having "working every time" flexibility is of extreme importance!

The workarounds we use to deal with the flexibility issues  have not shut the engineering dept down but we still can't efficiently produce complete BOM's without flexibility being dependable.......bottom line.

I think there are a lot of us that have just given up the fight and moved on with our "workarounds" 

Chris just happens to be tenacious and will not give up the bone that easily....I for one support his endeavors to get this resolved. 

[Cris-Ideas]

@Anonymous

I gave  up lately, but your post and kudos below may give me some more strength.

I will probably continue this blog, as considering total lack of valuable input form Autodesk this thread is not more than a blog.

Currently I am not as much in design, as some projects are now in execution and they take most of my time.

I however have new ridiculous cases documented.

Last so far is #211

Cris.