texupport

In previous releases of AutoCAD, DXF files could be inserted into the current drawing file using the insert command. Starting with AutoCAD 2005, the same process causes frequent fatal errors.

Workarounds: Open the DXF, save it as a DWG, and then insert the resulting DWG

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2005
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still reproducible
Status as of 2009: (unknown)

Over the years, numerous Autodesk products have caused huge gaps to appear in the Windows Add/Remove Programs list. This is caused by an incorrect registry entry.

Workarounds: If you’re very comfortable with editing your systems registry, look for all Autodesk programs under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Uninstall until you see one that has a “,-1″ following the path shown in DisplayIcon. Just change the “,-1″ to “,1″ and then restart the Add/Remove Programs applet.

AutoCADs quickleader settings allow you to specify how you want the arrowhead to appear. In most cases, “closed filled,” is the default arrowhead block. If you happen to change the block to something other than “closed filled”, (for example, “dot”), and then draw leaders using the new style, then it becomes impossible to set it back to “closed filled” within the settings for the command.

Workarounds:

(setvar "DIMLDRBLK" ".")

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2000
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still reproducible
Status as of 2007: (unknown)
Status as of 2008: This appears to be fixed! Tough luck to the non subscription customers.

As of AutoCAD 2004, VBA can no longer be used to explode non-uniformly scaled blocks although this could easily be done with earlier releases.

Test with the following snippet:

Sub ExplodeNonUniform()
Dim oLine As AcadLine
Dim oBlock As AcadBlock
Dim oBlockRef As AcadBlockReference
Dim StartPoint(2) As Double, EndPoint(2) As Double
StartPoint(0) = 0#: StartPoint(1) = 0#: StartPoint(2) = 0#
EndPoint(0) = 1#: EndPoint(1) = 1#: EndPoint(2) = 1#
Set oBlock = ThisDrawing.Blocks.Add(StartPoint, "widget")
Set oLine = oBlock.AddLine(StartPoint, EndPoint)
Set oBlockRef = ThisDrawing.ModelSpace.InsertBlock(StartPoint, oBlock.Name, 1, 2, 1, 0)
oBlockRef.Explode
'*** above line works in AutoCAD 2002, but not in 2004,5,6,7
oBlockRef.DeleteEnd Sub

Workarounds: Assuming oBlkRef is the reference that you want to explode (and keeping in mind sendcommands own limitations):

thisdrawing.sendcommand ("explode" & vbcr & "(handent " _  & Chr(34) & oBlkRef.Handle & Chr(34) & ")" & vbcr & vbcr)

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2004
Status as of 2008: Still reproducible
Status as of 2009: (unknown)

In AutoCAD 2006, left clicking on a dynamic blocks “grip” does not work when a station is configured not to use any right click shortcut menus.

Since there are still a many users out there who prefer right click to always be enter and only enter, this is probably a design flaw. The fact that 2007 corrects this behavior probably reinforces this opinion.

Workarounds: Turn on at least some option in CONFIG / USER PREFERENCES / RIGHT CLICK. I can’t tell you how to work, but you probably should be using at least some level of right click shortcut menus anyway.

First Appeared: Land Desktop 2006
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still reproducible
Status as of 2007: This appears to be corrected. Tough luck, 2006 users.

It appears that when PREVIEWEFFECT is set to a value which allows thickening (1 or 2) then short MTEXT entities observe this setting while larger MTEXT entities do not. Unfortunately, when moving the cursor over the entities that do observe the “Thicken” setting, performance noticeably hesitates. 

Workarounds: Change PREVIEWEFFECT to 0

First Appeared: Land Desktop 2006
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still reproducible
Status as of 2007: (unknown)
Status as of 2008: (unknown)
Status as of 2009: (unknown)

Some (but not all) of the blocks that shipped with Land Desktop 2006 have some associated lisp code that runs when they are inserted. It appears that much of this code predated the new interpretation of INSUNITS, and wasn’t updated to account for it. When using Autodesk’s own functions to insert any of these blocks, they will be inserted incorrectly scaled by a factor of 12 when using imperial units. One example is the graphic scale that is inserted via the symbol manager. A better example can be found in Civil Design. Go to Layouts / Sport Fields / Baseball and follow the prompts. If you have INSUNITS set to 2 (as Land Desktop seems to want to force), the baseball field will show up at 1/12th of its intended size.

From looking at the code in baseball.lsp, it appears that the function (ZZ_IN2CU 1) programmatically converts inches to feet, which, as of 2006, should already be handled by INSUNITS. The end result is that the block (which is drawn in architectural units) gets scaled by 1/12 two times – once by Land Desktop (baseball.lsp), and once by AutoCAD (INSUNITS).

Workarounds: Without acknowledging the underlying problem, Autodesk released a very poor workaround. Another workaround might be for you to try to force a semi unitless platform by setting INSUNITSDEFSOURCE and INSUNITEDEFTARGET to 0 for your system. Then you can set INSUNITS to 0 in all of your drawings by putting something like the following code in your acaddoc.lsp.

(if (not (zerop (getvar "insunits")))  (setvar "insunits" 0))

(You might have to tweak this a bit to suit your needs. In fact, I keep ours in a common s::startup function.) Keep in mind, however, that Land Desktop itself tries to set INSUNITS to the value that corresponds to the unit type that you select in PROJECTS / DRAWING SETUP.

First Appeared: Land Desktop 2006
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still reproducible
Status as of 2007: This appears to be corrected. Tough luck, 2006 users.

Note: The INSUNITS issue with Land Desktop 2006 was undoubtedly a true bug, which like most true bugs, was never acknowledged on Autodesk’s knowledge base. Despite the fact that this bug was corrected in LDT 2007, the new (2006+) interpretation of INSUNITS is still very much a nuisance in all versions of AutoCAD. Unfortunately, at this point, this feature is probably considered working as designed. The workarounds described above can still be used with all versions of AutoCAD to come close to replicating the old unitless system.

The new “partial preview” like icon seems to indicate incorrect image positioning when plotting named model space views.

For an example, enter (or script) these commands:

_vscurrent
2
plan
w
ucs
w
setvar
osnapcoord
1
._rectangle
1380000,445000
1380010,445007.50
._-VIEW
w
MYVIEW
1380000,445000
1380010,445007.50
._zoom
 e

Then, in the plot dialog box notice how the “partial preview” shifts when switching between plotting extents and plotting MYVIEW.

Workaround: Use “full” preview when plotting named views
First Appeared: AutoCAD 2006
Status as of 2008: Still reproducible
Status as of 2009: (unknown)

Commands such as BHATCH and XREF fail to work after running multiple plots when “plotting to file.” This is not related to the CMDDIA variable.

Workarounds: Shutdown and restart
First Appeared: AutoCAD 2006
Status as of 2007: Cursory testing unable to reproduce error. Touch luck 2006 customers.

On some systems, LWDISPLAY, which is typically a DWG-stored variable, automatically gets set to 1 in every file that is opened. Like other CAD Managers, I’ve seen this on only a handful of systems, but on those affected systems it is consistent. It’s not a bug in the profile, nor is it introduced anywhere in the custom startups (acad.lsp, acaddoc.lsp, .mnl).

Workarounds: Add the following to your acaddoc.lsp:

(if (eq (getvar "lwdisplay") 1)(setvar "lwdisplay" 0))

Alternately, you can right click on the LWT icon on the status bar, and adjust the display scale to “minimum” on the affected systems.

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2006
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still evident
Status as of 2007: Cursory testing is unable to reproduce bug. Tough luck 2006 customers.

When using VBA to iterate through entities within any block (including modelspace and paperspace), the first time an RTEXT entity is encountered, an error is produced. Whats worse is that this error cant be trapped with “on error resume next.”

For example:

Sub RtextError()
Dim oEnt As AcadEntity
Dim oBlock As AcadBlock
For Each oBlock In ThisDrawing.Blocks
If Not oBlock.IsXRef Then
For Each oEnt In oBlock
Debug.Print oEnt.ObjectName ***
Next oEnt
End If
Next oBlock
End Sub

*** when this line encounters an RTEXT entity, the following error occurs: Run-time error -2147221231 ClassFactory cannot supply requested class

Workarounds: None known
First Appeared: AutoCAD 2006
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still evident
Status as of 2007: Fixed. Tough luck, 2006 users.

After using BHATCH to create hatches against XREFfed entities, LAYERP may distort the hatch boundary.

Exhibit A – Xref or block has been inserted 

Exhibit B – One of the referenced layers is frozen 

Exhibit C – Associative bhatch

Exhibit D - LAYERP has been run
 

Workarounds: Use non-associative hatches under these conditions or thaw your layers using LAYTHW, -LAYER or LAYER
First Appeared: AutoCAD 2002
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still reproducible
Status as of 2007: (unknown – please email with any info)
Status as of 2008: Fixed

In AutoCAD 2006, if you use a main CUI with one or more partials, as well as an enterprise CUI with one or more partials, then your toolbars may not stay in place when you start AutoCAD, even when youve saved then in a workspace. It appears that, at startup, the toolbars are placed according to the order that the CUI files are loaded rather than the layout that you saved in your workspace.

Workarounds: If you’re using AutoCAD 2006, resetting the WSCURRENT system variable will restore the toolbar locations. The following code placed into your acad.lsp file should help.

(SETVAR "wscurrent" (GETVAR "wscurrent"))

If you’re using 2000-2002, see this article for an Autodesk-suggested workaround.

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2000
Status as of 2006 SP1: Still reproducible
Status as of 2007: (unknown)
Status as of 2008: (unknown)
Status as of 2009: (unknown)