Wednesday 14 December 2016

Reset AutoCAD profile - saved settings can't be unzipped?

I just had to reset an AutoCAD Map 2017 user profile. Before Map resets the profile you can save your existing settings. The settings are saved as ZIP file.
Bit disappointing though that I couldn't unzip the archive afterwards - Window 7 build in "unzipper" informed me that the archive was damaged and therefore couldn't be extracted. But don't give up - just use an alternative app such as 7-zip. It did unzip the file without any complaints,

Map 2017, SP1, HF3

Map 2017 - DWG export - crash with long symbol names

Map 2017 seems to crash if symbol names are too long and you export too many features of that class (export option: editable). But it might be more complicated as I couldn't reproduce this with all data sets.

After we updated to Map 2017 we got crashes when exporting certain areas using certain Display Models. Further testing unveiled, that the crashes were linked to a specific point layer (part of displaying electrical cross sections). Then we found out, that we could export cross sections - but not all of them at the same time. Lets say we had three cross sections - they could all be exported one by one - but not all together.  The layer involved comprises of more then 20 thematic rules and we used lots of dynamic expressions (for instance symbol size is calculated for each feature based on attribute  <ParameterValue>1.09375*SCALE</ParameterValue>). It took quite some time to figure out that neither the symbol itself nor any of the settings for the symbol caused the crash. At one point a new layer was created from scratch and one of the symbols from the original layer was imported from the drawing into StyleEditor again. No other settings were modified - and Map DWG Export crashed. So the conclusion was it has to be related to the symbol - or to be more precise - to the graphical representation of the symbol. At least that was what I thought. But why should this symbol crash Map? It wasn't a complex one, it was like many other used in the display model which did not cause any crash. It was very confusing - how can you find a workaround if your explanation for the issue doesn't make any sense? I thought I need to test every symbol setting step by step to find exactly the point where it causes Map to crash. So I created a  new layer from scratch - that is the default layer Maps creates when the feature class is added to the DisplayManager. I first added the symbol name, did a test export and - voilà  -  I got the crash.

So, here is a symbol name which will cause Map to crash if I export more then a few features "BWEWR2501_B35". And yes, these long symbol names mainly occur in the layer for cross section symbols.

As a workaround we shortened the symbol names in the layer file (which is easy to do) but we also had to modify the block names in our export template (which is more time consuming). With the workaround in place we still get crashes when exporting if XDATA is included in the export. I think it took  us  more then 4 days of testing and eventually applying the workaround. - and we are not sure it will cover all eventualities.... This issue still occurs with Map SP1 and HF3.


Map 2017, S1, HF3

Monday 12 December 2016

AutoCAD Map 2017 - features with arcs

Contrary to what I wrote just minutes ago - there is no workaround for the issue regarding modifying a feature with arcs. Even worse - first I thought the issue only occurs if you convert a polyline with arcs into a Map (FDO) feature. But the same issue occurs if a feature is digitized in Map or even for an existing feature with arcs.

Description: if you move a vertex then Map moves the position of a different vertex instead. This happens if the feature has arcs. It does not happen with all vertices - I haven't figured out which ones are affected and which ones are not affected. Here is an example:


Map 2017, SP1, HF3

AutoCAD Map 2017 Update

It was time to update to a new release and end of November - after  testing - we rolled out Map 2017. Updating the Industry Models in our test environment went well. Functional testing of Map and AIMS did not unveil any major issues. But after we updated our production environment we started to see issues coming in:

AIMS / MapGuide

- GeoRest is very slow - generating an image takes 30 secs
   Insufficient testing: we use Georest to embed maps in Crystal Reports. Our reports are already quite slow. I only tested a simple report  whether the report shows up including the map. The report contains only one map. I did not check any other reports containing more maps - otherwise I would have noticed that reports are not generated anymore / map placeholders are empty.   
   
- error messages we haven't seen before - causing instability and sometimes crashes
(1)    Error occurred in Feature Source (Library://FS_INFO/WT_IM_I/Data/TopobaseDefault.FeatureSource): Ausnahmefehler in FDO-Komponente aufgetreten.
ORA-12537: TNS: Verbindung beendet ( connection closed)
(2)  Error: Keine weiteren Verbindungen zum FDO-Provider von Autodesk.Topobase konnten erstellt werden. (couldn't create any further connections to Autodesk.Topobase provider)

bit more difficult to find out during testing. I didnt do any stress tests and the issues we see only occur under load. I changed a few settings for AIMS server and we also changed settings in Oracle - it appears that the error messages occur less frequent now. I will wait a few weeks and then check how often AIMS automatically reboots after a crash and then compare that to numbers for AIMS 2013.

Map 

- DWG export caused crashes and even after installing HF3 we have crashes in certain situations
  Export as DWG is very important to us - so we put some time in testing the  DWG export. But it seems we did not test enough. Although the crashes only occur in certain situations these situations could have been identified with proper testing. Fortunately Autodesk published Hotfix 3 shortly after we had rolled out Map 2017 - two issue we ran into have been solved now. For a third one - a crash - we had to find our own workaround (in short: if the symbol name in the layer file is too long it can crash Map if you export a certain number of features).

- converting polyline with arcs to IM feature causes unexpected behavior when feature is modified (moving vertexes)
  bad luck - you cannot test everything and there is a workaround.
  
 So overall - proper testing costs time but it will pay off.

Map 2017, Sp1, HF3