Stop Using A Bot To Reply To Error Reports

[cstarker6VCG4]

This is at least the fifth time this has happened. I just received this email from Autodesk:

Hello,

I am a developer monitoring Autodesk Inventor crash error reports.

4/2/2024, you submitted a crash report against Autodesk Inventor 2024.

You wrote:

*** FILES ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND CANNOT BE SENT ***
*** FILES ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND CANNOT BE SENT ***
*** FILES ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND CANNOT BE SENT ***

Did you read what is above this line?

Are you SURE you read what is above this line?
This is your third and final chance to read what is above this line.

Pop-quiz: What can I NOT do?
A) Send you confidential files that contain trade secrets
B) Literally anything else

The correct answer is A!

Now that the quiz is over, I can tell you what happened right before this error occured. This error occured while opening a file from the Where Used table in Vault.

Would it be possible to get a copy of the files you see the problem on and the steps needed to cause the problem? From the crash report it"s difficult to tell exactly what went wrong and having a reproducible way to produce the crash would be very helpful to us for improving the quality of the product. Any additional information you could provide on this would be greatly appreciated.

Please refer to report 755185467 for any correspondence on this issue.

If your dataset is larger than 10MB, I can give you access to an ftp site to upload the data to.

Best Regards,

Autodesk Inventor CER Team


^ This is unprofessional and unacceptable. ^

Inventor is a buggy program and the vast majority of users do not own the intellectual property they work on. You will be flooded with error reports for which you will never get the related files. Don't want reports? Pay ONE GUY to use Inventor + Vault for 30 minutes a day and you will catch most of these bugs before your users complain about them.  Please stop wasting everyone's time and take 2 seconds to read the comments for error reports. I'm still holding out hope that you actually give the slightest crap about the future of Inventor, but you are testing my faith.


Further requests for confidential information will be ignored.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I am sorry that the CER inquiry emails bother you. The bottom line is that Inventor or any Autodesk products should never crash. Crash isn't normal and it needs to be further investigated. In very rare cases, the workflow leading to the crash can be identified by looking at the crash report. However, in most cases the files are needed to reproduce the crash.

Certainly, the user may not be willing to share the files with us. Or the user may not be authorized to do so. That is perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, without the files, the chance of finding the defect and fixing it would be low.

I have taken a look at the crash report (CER 755185467) you submitted earlier. The crash seems to be related to a missing file when you activate a Model State.

Please make sure all critical Windows updates are installed and the graphics driver is updated. Install Inventor 2024.2.1 update and Vault 2024.2.1 update.

Many thanks!

[cstarker6VCG4]

Thank you for the reply. I will take your suggestion. A human is necessary to investigate the crash anyway so it should not be disruptive to require a human to send the email.

[Frederick_Law]

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@cstarker6VCG4 wrote:

Don't want reports? Pay ONE GUY to use Inventor + Vault for 30 minutes a day and you will catch most of these bugs before your users complain about them.

Further requests for confidential information will be ignored.

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Employee in Autodesk don't know how users use Inventor.

Even we all use the same software, doesn't mean we all use it with exact same steps.

Most learn to use software on their own.

Try ask mechanic to fix a car without giving them the car.

Try create a set of non-confidential files which produce the same problem.

Yes, it's time consuming.

Yes, I've done that a few times.

And a few times I found what I've done wrong to cause the crash.

It's really hard to hit the target shooting in the dark.

BTW, as least someone or something is responding to error report.

Other software will just ignore them.

Some will send notice of closing the report without doing anything.

[cstarker6VCG4]

Absolutely employees at Autodesk should know how users use Inventor. Are you sure that's what you meant to say? I think I misinterpreted what you said. If you design a product you must imagine how it will be used. This is obvious.

The car analogy doesn't apply unless the car is exploding while driving the speed limit. I am not doing anything exotic with the software. Inventor regularly crashes during common operations such as...

• Opening files from Vault > Main View
• Opening files from Vault > Where Used
• Saving files
• Switching model states

The analogy is further broken because giving a car to a mechanic and giving trade secrets to another company are not comparable. One is simple and required and the other results in termination and litigation. Autodesk's excuse that they need the files is invalid. They won't get them most of the time. Employees working on intellectual property they don't own is as old as time. They need to greatly reevaluate their bug-fixing process if they can't work around that.

This is non-negotiable from my side. It's not even my decision. If violating company policy is required for Autodesk to provide customer service, then we will take that into consideration when deciding to renew our subscriptions (which is my decision).

I am now unsubscribing from this thread and will not read further replies. Good day.

[Frederick_Law]

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@cstarker6VCG4 wrote:

If you design a product you must imagine how it will be used. This is obvious.

I am now unsubscribing from this thread and will not read further replies. Good day.

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Sorry to upset you.

If you read enough post, you'll see how everyone use software differently.