Autocad plotting problems 1

[spidajdn]

In Autocad 2007, I seem to have problems when plotting a drawing off our network - it usually crashes the program. with a fatal error message and fails to plot.

However, if I save the drawing to my c: drive before I plot, then it will plot OK and no errors. I feel it might be something to do with Autocad trying to write log files back to the network drive, though I have turned off all the plot logging I can find. Any othter advice would be appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

 

[TCARPENTER1]

Hi spidajdn,

Make sure you have all the latest and greatest service packs installed, but I suspect this has something more to do with your network than AutoCAD.

The other thing to change is where AutoCAD writes it's temporary files. I always create a directory underneath the AutoCAD install directory called AcadTemp. I tell AutoCAD to place all temporary files; (Automatic saves, Temporary Drawing File Location, and Temporary External Reference File Location).

HTH
Todd

 

[spidajdn]

Thanks TCarpenter1 - I have done the service pack thing, but this made no difference. What I have discovered was the directory structure I was working in had folder names and file names with quite long descriptions. When I rename them to make them shorter, I don't have the problem. It's almost as if Autocad couldn't cope with the length of path and filename characters, which is hard to believe, but so far has proved to be the case!! Bring back the old 8.3 convention DOS used...!!! Thanks for the input.

 

[ActiveSolar05]

I think you are limited to 256 characters including drive and path name, file name...... and they want us to pay for this thing every 2 years.... are the updates meaningful?

 

[spidajdn]

Thanks ActiveSolar05 - I think you may be right with the max number of characters, but even with the server\drive\path\directiory\filename.ext the characters were nowhere near 256, but probably easily in excess of 100 characters. I guess there must be some upper limit and I must have just been over that before I shortened some of the directory names and file names. Something to be aware of if people are using a complex tiered directory structure it may become an issue.

 

[Geironimo]

Hi,

Just new here and saw this problem issue when trying to solve another. My job is to keep plotters and servers running here at work, and we had this similar problem with our Kipstar plotters together with long paths.

The command "FULLPLOTPATH" set to "0" solved our problem.
Basically what it seems to do is send nothing but the filename as plotinfo. That way the path won't matter.

Hope it helps.

Geironimo

 

[spidajdn]

Many thanks Geronimo - another Autocad command burried deep in the system....you either know it or you don't I guess - I would not even have thought to look for such a variable!

I've set the variable to 0, so this should cure all future problems.

Many thanks for this. - a big help!