I rolled out Civil 3D 2010 to several offices in October of 2009.  Starting in May of 2010, I started to receive periodic reports of 2010 raising Fatal error e0434f4dh at 7c812afbh immediately after it was launched.  In these cases, no drawing files were opened and nothing out of the ordinary took place.  After running Civil 3D succesfully for weeks or months at a time, a user can simply double click on the C3D icon and can’t proceed past the fatal error.

When I submitted a CER on this, Autodesk’s stock response was to let the secondary installer reinitiate the user profile.  Unfortunately, this is time consuming and it’s usually not a simple task for an average end user.  Knowing that the secondary installer just installs clean registry entries and appdata, I decided to dig a little deeper.

Before running the secondary installer, I exported everything under HKCU\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0 to a .REG file so that I could compare a fresh copy of a user profile to one which was creating the fatal errors.  Then, after creating a clean user profile, I chopped the .REG file in half using a text editor.  Then I repeatedly restored half of the .REG file, and half again, until the fatal errors started to reappear.  It took some time, but I eventually zeroed in on the following key:

HKCU\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8000:409\WebServices\CommunicationCenter\LastUpdateTimeLoWord

By resetting this value to 0, the fatal errors went away.  Over the past ~8 months, I’ve fielded several dozen reports of this fatal error, and in all but on case, setting the above key to 0 solved the issue immediately.  I’ve even helped friends at other firms use the same workaround successfully.

One of our other offices also runs vanilla AutoCAD 2010 and I’ve seen similar reports, albeit less frequently.  The same dword for AutoCAD 2010 can be found here:

HKCU\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8001:409\WebServices\CommunicationCenter\LastUpdateTimeLoWord

There is one unexplainable aspect to this workaround.  After I had seen several instances of this behavior, I started to document the value that was stored in LastUpdateTImeLoWord.  For example, on August 16, 2010, one user couldn’t launch Civil 3D 2010, and I noted that LastUpdateTimeLoWord was set to 1281970257 (decimal) in his registry.  I reset it to 0 to get him back up and running.  However, manually setting LastUpdateTimeLoWord to 1281970257 (decimal) on any other system, or under any other user profile doesn’t seem to cause fatal errors all by itself. 

I should note that over in the Autodesk discussion groups, there are several reports of similar fatal errors at startup, but at different addresses.  Your mileage may vary if you try this workaround for any fatal errors other than Fatal error e0434f4dh at 7c812afbh

We haven’t deployed 2011 in production yet, and I haven’t seen the same fatal errors on my test systems.  I can say that I have had Civil 3D 2011 get into an “not responding” state immediately after launching, but without any fatal errors.  When I saw this, I set the equivalent dword to 0 (HKCU\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.1\ACAD-9000:409\Webservices\CommunicationCenter\LastUpdateTimeLoWord) and then I was able to run C3D 2011 successfully.  I admit, though, that I haven’t seen enough cases of this on 2011 to be able to say definitively whether or not this key was responsible.  I may have just jumped the gun on killing the acad.exe process.

To summarize, to clear out this particular error in the 2010 versions, copy the following to a text file with the .REG extension and then double click on it when logged in as the affected user:

For Civil 3D 2010:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8000:409\WebServices\CommunicationCenter]
@=""
"LastUpdateTimeLoWord"=dword:00000000
"LastUpdateTimeHiWord"=dword:00000000

For AutoCAD 2010:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R18.0\ACAD-8001:409\WebServices\CommunicationCenter]
@=""
"LastUpdateTimeLoWord"=dword:00000000
"LastUpdateTimeHiWord"=dword:00000000

Although fillmode is turned on, a viewport within an affected layout will show 2d solids like so:

Of note:

• fillmode is set to 1
• All viewports are set to 2d wireframe / hideplot is turned off in all of the viewports
• I do have raster design 2009 installed. Neither the “filled object hotfix” nor SP1 corrected the problem
• An example drawing can be found here: http://www.texupport.net/acad_examples/fillmode.dwg

Workarounds: Recreate the entire layout, including the viewports and any paperspace annotation.
First Appeared: AutoCAD 2009
Status as of AutoCAD 2009 version 3.1: Still reproducible.

Workarounds:
I wrote this command to completely reset the MRUF list.  This will remove all entries from the list.  Over time, be prepared for it to be populated by nine DST files again.  When that happens and it gets to be too annoying, simply re-run the command.  (Note: I’ll add the LSP file to the downloads section ASAP.)

;;Reset Most Recently Used Files
;;This utility can be used to clean out the mess that 2009 and 2009v2 leaves in
;;the Most Recently Used Document list after opening nine or more DST files
;;absolutely no warranty
;;feel free to modify as necessary
;;I use this only periodically.  I run it manually when my Recently Used Files list gets filled up with DST files.
;;v2008.12.01
(PRINC “Reset Most Recently Used Files (rmruf) v2008.12.01 – www.texupport.net“)
(DEFUN c:rmruf (/ regkey mruf)
 (SETQ mruf (GETENV “MRUFilesToList”))
 (SETENV “MRUFilesToList” “0″)
 (SETQ regkey (STRCAT “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\” (VLAX-PRODUCT-KEY) “\\Recent File List”))
 (VL-REGISTRY-DELETE regkey)
 (SETENV “MRUFilesToList” mruf)
 (PRINC “\nMost Recently used files list has been reset.”)
 (PRINC)
) ;_ end-defun

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2009
Status as of AutoCAD 2009, version 2: Still reproducible

If an uppercase character exists in the extension, the sheetset template appears with the extension in the listbox and the system will then search for YourTemplateName.DST.dst. 

When it doesn’t find the template, a “File Not Found” dialog reports “Cannot find the specified sheet set data (DST) file.”

Workarond:
Create sheet set templates with a lowercase dst extension.

First Appeared: Unknown
Status as of AutoCAD 2009 version 3: Still Reproducible.

Figure 1 – Middle of Text justified mleader

Figure 2 – The same mleader with a field added

Thanks to Christian Billiot for submitting this report.

Workarounds: None Known

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2008
Status as of 2009: Still reproducible

Steps to reproduce:

   1. Create two mtext objects with this text (include a return after each word):  test centered text
   2. Set the width on both mtext objects to 0.
   3. Change the first mtext object to be middle centered justified.
   4. Edit the second mtext object:
   5. Select All
   6. Select the “Center” icon on the Text Formatting toolbar

   7. Both mtext objects look the same at this point.
   8. Draw a rectangle around each mtext object.
   9. Hatch inside each rectangle (allowing island detection).
  10. While the island detected around the middle justified text is correct, the border around the center justified text is incorrect.

Workarounds:
Either use middle justified mtext entities or do not use zero with mtext entities.

First Appeared: Unknown.  Bug didn’t exist in 2004, but is easily reproducible in AutoCAD 2008.
Status as of 2008SP1: Still reproducible

Submitted By: TommieR

Workarounds:

• If the linework is polylines, sometimes it helps to explode them before hatching
• If the linework is lines and arcs, sometimes it helps to convert them to polylines before hatching
• Sometimes it helps to temporarily set the UCS closer to the current view *
• Sometimes it helps to temporarily move the linework closer to the WCS origin
• Sometimes it helps to continuously cut the figure that won’t hatch into halves and hatch each half until a “leak” is found
• You should always to check the entities in question for an “extrusion direction” and if they have one, remove the extrusion direction with the express tools FLATTEN command. 
• HPGAPTOL almost never works

First Appeared: When bhatch was introduced in R13 (1994).  It’s possible that the hatch command from previous releases exhibited the same symptoms, but I simply can’t remember.
Status as of 2008 SP1: Still reproducible.

* I have written a short lisp command which automatically sets the UCS close to the current view, runs the bhatch command, and then sets the UCS back.  Although it still fails in many of the same situations that cause the “out of the box” bhatch command to fail, it definitely does a better job than the default command in many cases.  In particular, it sheilds the users from quite a few hatch errors when working in geospatial drawing files.  The code is as listed below.  I’ll add it to the downloads section as time permits.

;; bbh.lsp (Better BHatch)
;; ralph sanchez (rsanchez at texupport dawt net)
;;
;; As most users know, AutoCAD has trouble hatching anything but simple figures when working far from the WCS origin
;; The user community has come up with several workarounds and this code attempts one of the most common.
;; In short, it will temporarily change the UCS to the current view before executing the bhatch command.
;; As with all of the workarounds, it is not perfect and does not work in many situations.
;; It does, however, work better than the default bhatch command.
(DEFUN c:bbh (/ ucsorg ucsx ucsy)
  (DEFUN savars (sv0 / x)
    ;;excellent savars/revars functions from paul turvill
    ;;(prevents user ESC from killing variables)
    (COMMAND “._undo” “begin”)
    (SETQ svx1  nil
   olderr *error*
    ) ;_ end-setq
    (FOREACH x sv0 (SETQ svx1 (APPEND svx1 (LIST (LIST x (GETVAR x))))))
    (SETQ ucsorg (GETVAR “UCSORG”))
    (SETQ ucsx (TRANS (LIST 1 0 0) 1 0))
    (SETQ ucsy (TRANS (LIST 0 1 0) 1 0))
    (DEFUN *error* (msg) (revars))
  ) ;_ end-defun
  (DEFUN revars (/ x)
    (SETQ *error* olderr)
    (FOREACH x svx1 (SETVAR (CAR x) (CADR x)))
    (SETQ svx1 nil)
    (COMMAND “._ucs” “3p” (TRANS ucsorg 0 1) (TRANS ucsx 0 1) (TRANS ucsy 0 1))
    (PRINC)
    (COMMAND “._undo” “end”)
  ) ;_ end-defun
  ;;******************************************************
  (savars ‘(“cmdecho”)) ;’saves variables to be reset later
  (SETVAR “cmdecho” 0)
  (COMMAND “._ucs” (GETVAR “vsmin”) “”)
  (INITDIA)
  (COMMAND “bhatch”)
  (WHILE (= (LOGAND (GETVAR “cmdactive”) 1) 1) (COMMAND pause))
  ;;****************************************************** 
  (revars)
  (PRINC)
) ;_ end- defun

Steps to reproduce:

• Draw three lines which meet end to end
• Enter PEDIT (if peditaccept is turned off, hit “y”)
• Select J to join the segments
• Select S to spline the resulting polyline
• Notice that the command is exited

Workarounds: Exit the PEDIT command after joining the segments, then reexecute PEDIT and select S to spline.

First Appeared: 2007? (This bug is definitely not evident in 2004 and is known to exist in 2007.  Its status in 2005 and 2006 is unknown)
Status as of 2008 SP1: Still reproducible.

Thanks to Opie for submitting this report.

My testing has confirmed this bug in C3D, LDT and MAP 2008, but not necessarily AutoCAD 2008.

Workarounds: Use a dimension style set to “move text, no leader,” rather than using the property override.

First Appeared: Map 2008, C3D 2008, LDT 2008
Status as of 2008 SP1: Still reproducible.
Status as of 2009: (unknown)

This only appears to occur when using COPYBASE with PASTEORIG. Keep in mind that if you will be executing PASTORIG, then using COPYBASE to specify the entities will present a useless prompt for base point.

While its true that this can at least be interpreted as user error, the software should at least report the user error in a message box or at the command line.

Workarounds: Use COPYBASE with PASTECLIP. Use COPYCLIP with PASTEORIG.
First Appeared: AutoCAD 2006
Status as of 2008 SP1: Still reproducible.
Status as of 2009: (unknown)