I haven't posted in a while and I figured this would be the best place to ask the following:
Has anyone had this problem?
Out of the 90+ sheets in our set, about 8 of them have the same issue; title blocks, xrefs and text file objects appear in Paper space, but will not plot. I've checked the following:
-Viewports are on Defpoints
-Page is 2D
-Xrefs are on a visible and printable layer [typically "0"]
-Text objects / blocks are on a visible and printable layer
-Drawing has been Audited and Purged
-There are no "circular" xrefs.
-I began the above procedure at the bottom of the xref stack to ensure no loops.
-I've attempted to open the pages in 2005 as well... same problem.
I've searched numerous times on various Autocad help forums and cannot find any answers. They all seem to just reference other forum's threads and state the obvious. The OP's never find an answer.
Has anyone ever had this problem? It began to happen to us on the night that our Bid Set was due and I had to switch all model space objects to paper space, scale them and essentially duplicate all the information to paper space to plot.
It's a royal pain in the ass and this would never happen in Vectorworks.
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 26, 08 9:10 am
is hideplot on or off?
cowgill
Aug 26, 08 9:23 am
i vp freeze on. when you're in paper space, open the layer properties manager and look for a column entitled "new vp freeze" and make sure the layer that's not plotting is not frozen.
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 10:03 am
Hideplot is off and yeah, all the vp freeze layers are active. I'm not so sure it's a layer issue. The only layers that are set to not print are Defpoints and XRD...
Another really weird mindfuck is when I choose to plot window and not layout, the information will show up in a small selection window. If I then select the whole layout with the window, it disappears again.
John, are you printing a sheet with a lot of viewports? I've seen situations where if there are like more than 30 viewports in a given paperspace, acad'll just disappear some of them. But this was in a much older version, 2001, so it may be fixed now.
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 10:21 am
Nope. 1 viewport. A typical building section. I've even started from scratch and exploded Xrefs to see if it was some bug within the drawing file. It worked for an hour or so, but then it started up again...
rehiggins
Aug 26, 08 11:22 am
this may be an issue with the printer set-up, make sure that the page you're defining in the plot dialog is actually the page that is being sent to the plotter. All of our pc3 files have gone batty in the past few weeks (producing similar results as you describe) and it seems that ACAD is no longer sending the correct page size to the printer nor the correct position on page--the workaround that we use is to set up separate pc3 files for each page size we need. This is the old (pre-R2000) way of doing things--I'm wondering if 2009 has somehow corrupted all of the pc3 files from the previous versions (and doesn't like working in a mixed 2009/2008 environment).
the only other thing that may help is re-creating the drawing from "scratch", i.e. copy/paste/re-xref into a fresh .dwg
rehiggins
Aug 26, 08 11:26 am
er, sorry: missed the bit about you already trying it from scratch
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 11:32 am
rehiggins, I've actually checked that as well. Still stumped.
Bottom is a screen shot from paper space. Above is screen shot from plot preview... Notice how lines are even missing from the preview [dashed and solid lines]. Not to mention all the blocks and xrefs.
Per--Corell
Aug 26, 08 12:16 pm
Fill off or on ?
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 12:34 pm
tried that, Fill On produces the same outcome as Fill Off... by default, Fill is On
strlt_typ
Aug 26, 08 12:43 pm
layout is assigned the proper plot style?
rehiggins
Aug 26, 08 1:43 pm
are you plotting to PDF?
is "center plot" on?
does defining a plot window, from bottom left to upper right work as expected?
Does "fit to paper" plot the entire sheet "correctly"?
"hide paperspace objects" is unchecked, yes?
is this the only file that this is happening to? Have you tried re-creating the pc3 file from scratch?
rehiggins
Aug 26, 08 1:45 pm
also: has the ctb file been manipulated since you originally created the drawing?
Antisthenes
Aug 26, 08 1:52 pm
try IntelliCAD?
Antisthenes
Aug 26, 08 1:53 pm
progecad smart specifically because it's open source free and a Autocad clone..
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 1:58 pm
ok:
-All PC3 files warrant the same result...
-The CTB was manipulated months ago to these files. They only started acting up recently.
-I am plotting Layout. The other options, including the window option warrant the same result, unless you "window" a small area [i.e. the titleblock and the plan]
-hide paperspace is unchecked...
I guess I'll check out progecad. Thanks for the information. Autodesk help forums turned up the same suggestions. No answers though.
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 2:00 pm
Also, it happens to random files. One day they're fine, the next, they're screwed up.
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 26, 08 2:06 pm
make sure you've got all the service packs? if all else fails, send someone the file to check it, try opening in r14, and then if none of that works, reinstall autocad.
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 2:15 pm
reinstalled autocad, opened it in 2005, 2004 and I have all the service packs... trying progecad smart now.
Antisthenes
Aug 26, 08 2:28 pm
good luck
strlt_typ
Aug 26, 08 2:29 pm
what i would do is check the properties on a line that doesn't print and compare it to the properties of a line of the same color that prints. one thing to make sure that are similar are the colors. I noticed on your image that a yellow line produces two types of screening. for example, "finished floor" is yellow but appears gray when printed...above that is a yellow square that appears black when printed. are those objects using the same yellow? it's difficult to tell the difference between yellow 51 and yellow 50 on the screen but those two might have different screening percentage on your plot style/ctb.
similar thing is happening with red. i noticed that red is producing two types of screening: gray for the perimeter wall hatching and black for the regular lines. confirm the color of those not printing and then go into plot style and check the settings. a screening of 0 and dither off will not print.
as an experiment, try using the match properties on a green line that doesn't prints to a green line that prints and see if that works.
what is mind boggling is that it prints when you window around a portion but not when you window around the full layout. when you do this, are you also doing plot to scale or scale to fit? the only thing i can think of is that you are maybe doing a window with scale to fit and the lines are showing up because the line is getting scaled bigger, therefore visible...but when you do the proper plot scale, the lines become too small or faint for the actual scale.
i don't know...
JohnProlly
Aug 26, 08 2:45 pm
I just went through and tried what you described. I'm not scaling the plot. when I do the window. Also, windowing the layout gives me the same result, although windowing a section shows the title block and missing information.
What's puzzeling to me is that we aren't having this problem with other floorplans. Just this one. Same with the sections. One out of twelve will behave this way as well. No clue. I've even had different paper space layouts in the same file behave differently. Say for instance the file "Elevations" will have A201 - A204. Well, layout A202 won't plot correctly, but the rest will.
Even when I rebuild it from scratch, and isolate this exact drawing information, we have the same result.
I'm going on 4 hours of "problem solving"...
rehiggins
Aug 26, 08 3:21 pm
how about this:
set up the sheet to print entirely from modelspace, scale the titleblock accordingly (96x for 1/8", 192x for 1/16, etc.)
this will be really tedious to do if you've set up the drawing with multiple phases and were managing them via vp freeze
Antisthenes
Aug 26, 08 4:34 pm
maybe try that one horned beast that is so popular with designers
induct
Aug 26, 08 7:26 pm
I saw that coming
Antisthenes
Aug 26, 08 7:43 pm
hey it could work, sure not as 100% compatible as the intellicads, how did that go , were those same objects still non printing?
Drewrd
Oct 30, 08 9:40 am
Was this problem ever resolved? What JP describes is the closest thing I can find to my problem. One day everything prints fine, then all of a sudden, certain objects won't plot. The layering does not seem to be a factor.
One more note. I'm not sure if John ever tried printing to different printers, but I have and some of them are unaffected. I can leave every option unchanged except for the printer selection. The printer here in my office will not print the object, and they don't show up when printed to PDF (which is what i really need). I have to print the documents to a printer across the hall, and then scan the paper to PDF. Maybe this adds some insight?
commuter
Nov 10, 08 7:21 pm
This happened to me, but I was able to find a fix.
I typed in 'Audit' in each of the xref'd files.
Then typed 'Y' to fix any errors when prompted.
In one of the files, it found 4 errors.
Once it was fixed, the file plotted again.
Hope it works for you.
binary
Nov 10, 08 7:41 pm
i got a copy of r14 if anyone needs it..
FOG Lite
Nov 10, 08 9:19 pm
I've had similar things happen when using defpoints and layer 0. I remeber calling support and they said it was due to some ancient link between the 2 layers (strange legacy stuff) and they recommended not putting objects on those layers. Since then I always make a unique layer for Viewports.
Probably (not Prolly) all too late to be of any use.
Antisthenes
Nov 11, 08 4:04 am
:cyborg: 13c4 ?
Per--Corell
Nov 11, 08 7:34 am
Just a long shot ; -- is the layer named "hidden" + something ?
nicolivangug
Dec 8, 11 10:01 am
Had similar sounding problem with text that never showed up in paper space. fixed it by turning "Annotation" off under object properties.
TakuZhou
Jul 12, 12 9:27 am
I agree completely turning off "Annotative" in the text style has helped greatly with my disappearing text problems.
tuna
Jul 12, 12 3:48 pm
wow. people still using cad these days?
neb6
Feb 15, 19 11:37 am
Still using CAD? What other option is there (or are you from a planet in a galaxy far far away)? Anyone had a similar issue in AutoCAD 2019 in which objects intermittently still show up in frozen layers?
gwharton
Jul 12, 12 6:24 pm
Necro'd old thread, necro'd old software. It's Zombie Time.
I haven't posted in a while and I figured this would be the best place to ask the following:
Has anyone had this problem?
Out of the 90+ sheets in our set, about 8 of them have the same issue; title blocks, xrefs and text file objects appear in Paper space, but will not plot. I've checked the following:
-Viewports are on Defpoints
-Page is 2D
-Xrefs are on a visible and printable layer [typically "0"]
-Text objects / blocks are on a visible and printable layer
-Drawing has been Audited and Purged
-There are no "circular" xrefs.
-I began the above procedure at the bottom of the xref stack to ensure no loops.
-I've attempted to open the pages in 2005 as well... same problem.
I've searched numerous times on various Autocad help forums and cannot find any answers. They all seem to just reference other forum's threads and state the obvious. The OP's never find an answer.
Has anyone ever had this problem? It began to happen to us on the night that our Bid Set was due and I had to switch all model space objects to paper space, scale them and essentially duplicate all the information to paper space to plot.
It's a royal pain in the ass and this would never happen in Vectorworks.
is hideplot on or off?
i vp freeze on. when you're in paper space, open the layer properties manager and look for a column entitled "new vp freeze" and make sure the layer that's not plotting is not frozen.
Hideplot is off and yeah, all the vp freeze layers are active. I'm not so sure it's a layer issue. The only layers that are set to not print are Defpoints and XRD...
Another really weird mindfuck is when I choose to plot window and not layout, the information will show up in a small selection window. If I then select the whole layout with the window, it disappears again.
As I said, I'm stumped...
Similar problem here on AUGI
John, are you printing a sheet with a lot of viewports? I've seen situations where if there are like more than 30 viewports in a given paperspace, acad'll just disappear some of them. But this was in a much older version, 2001, so it may be fixed now.
Nope. 1 viewport. A typical building section. I've even started from scratch and exploded Xrefs to see if it was some bug within the drawing file. It worked for an hour or so, but then it started up again...
this may be an issue with the printer set-up, make sure that the page you're defining in the plot dialog is actually the page that is being sent to the plotter. All of our pc3 files have gone batty in the past few weeks (producing similar results as you describe) and it seems that ACAD is no longer sending the correct page size to the printer nor the correct position on page--the workaround that we use is to set up separate pc3 files for each page size we need. This is the old (pre-R2000) way of doing things--I'm wondering if 2009 has somehow corrupted all of the pc3 files from the previous versions (and doesn't like working in a mixed 2009/2008 environment).
the only other thing that may help is re-creating the drawing from "scratch", i.e. copy/paste/re-xref into a fresh .dwg
er, sorry: missed the bit about you already trying it from scratch
rehiggins, I've actually checked that as well. Still stumped.
Orignal file here
Bottom is a screen shot from paper space. Above is screen shot from plot preview... Notice how lines are even missing from the preview [dashed and solid lines]. Not to mention all the blocks and xrefs.
Fill off or on ?
tried that, Fill On produces the same outcome as Fill Off... by default, Fill is On
layout is assigned the proper plot style?
are you plotting to PDF?
is "center plot" on?
does defining a plot window, from bottom left to upper right work as expected?
Does "fit to paper" plot the entire sheet "correctly"?
"hide paperspace objects" is unchecked, yes?
is this the only file that this is happening to? Have you tried re-creating the pc3 file from scratch?
also: has the ctb file been manipulated since you originally created the drawing?
try IntelliCAD?
progecad smart specifically because it's open source free and a Autocad clone..
ok:
-All PC3 files warrant the same result...
-The CTB was manipulated months ago to these files. They only started acting up recently.
-I am plotting Layout. The other options, including the window option warrant the same result, unless you "window" a small area [i.e. the titleblock and the plan]
-hide paperspace is unchecked...
I guess I'll check out progecad. Thanks for the information. Autodesk help forums turned up the same suggestions. No answers though.
Also, it happens to random files. One day they're fine, the next, they're screwed up.
make sure you've got all the service packs? if all else fails, send someone the file to check it, try opening in r14, and then if none of that works, reinstall autocad.
reinstalled autocad, opened it in 2005, 2004 and I have all the service packs... trying progecad smart now.
good luck
what i would do is check the properties on a line that doesn't print and compare it to the properties of a line of the same color that prints. one thing to make sure that are similar are the colors. I noticed on your image that a yellow line produces two types of screening. for example, "finished floor" is yellow but appears gray when printed...above that is a yellow square that appears black when printed. are those objects using the same yellow? it's difficult to tell the difference between yellow 51 and yellow 50 on the screen but those two might have different screening percentage on your plot style/ctb.
similar thing is happening with red. i noticed that red is producing two types of screening: gray for the perimeter wall hatching and black for the regular lines. confirm the color of those not printing and then go into plot style and check the settings. a screening of 0 and dither off will not print.
as an experiment, try using the match properties on a green line that doesn't prints to a green line that prints and see if that works.
what is mind boggling is that it prints when you window around a portion but not when you window around the full layout. when you do this, are you also doing plot to scale or scale to fit? the only thing i can think of is that you are maybe doing a window with scale to fit and the lines are showing up because the line is getting scaled bigger, therefore visible...but when you do the proper plot scale, the lines become too small or faint for the actual scale.
i don't know...
I just went through and tried what you described. I'm not scaling the plot. when I do the window. Also, windowing the layout gives me the same result, although windowing a section shows the title block and missing information.
What's puzzeling to me is that we aren't having this problem with other floorplans. Just this one. Same with the sections. One out of twelve will behave this way as well. No clue. I've even had different paper space layouts in the same file behave differently. Say for instance the file "Elevations" will have A201 - A204. Well, layout A202 won't plot correctly, but the rest will.
Even when I rebuild it from scratch, and isolate this exact drawing information, we have the same result.
I'm going on 4 hours of "problem solving"...
how about this:
set up the sheet to print entirely from modelspace, scale the titleblock accordingly (96x for 1/8", 192x for 1/16, etc.)
this will be really tedious to do if you've set up the drawing with multiple phases and were managing them via vp freeze
maybe try that one horned beast that is so popular with designers
I saw that coming
hey it could work, sure not as 100% compatible as the intellicads, how did that go , were those same objects still non printing?
Was this problem ever resolved? What JP describes is the closest thing I can find to my problem. One day everything prints fine, then all of a sudden, certain objects won't plot. The layering does not seem to be a factor.
One more note. I'm not sure if John ever tried printing to different printers, but I have and some of them are unaffected. I can leave every option unchanged except for the printer selection. The printer here in my office will not print the object, and they don't show up when printed to PDF (which is what i really need). I have to print the documents to a printer across the hall, and then scan the paper to PDF. Maybe this adds some insight?
This happened to me, but I was able to find a fix.
I typed in 'Audit' in each of the xref'd files.
Then typed 'Y' to fix any errors when prompted.
In one of the files, it found 4 errors.
Once it was fixed, the file plotted again.
Hope it works for you.
i got a copy of r14 if anyone needs it..
I've had similar things happen when using defpoints and layer 0. I remeber calling support and they said it was due to some ancient link between the 2 layers (strange legacy stuff) and they recommended not putting objects on those layers. Since then I always make a unique layer for Viewports.
Probably (not Prolly) all too late to be of any use.
:cyborg: 13c4 ?
Just a long shot ; -- is the layer named "hidden" + something ?
Had similar sounding problem with text that never showed up in paper space. fixed it by turning "Annotation" off under object properties.
I agree completely turning off "Annotative" in the text style has helped greatly with my disappearing text problems.
wow. people still using cad these days?
Still using CAD? What other option is there (or are you from a planet in a galaxy far far away)? Anyone had a similar issue in AutoCAD 2019 in which objects intermittently still show up in frozen layers?
Necro'd old thread, necro'd old software. It's Zombie Time.