texupport

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time now, but I just haven’t had the time until now…

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

In an office full of US English seats of Civil 3D, our users frequently see a dialog which reports a missing language pack when opening DWG files.  I can only assume that at one time a drawing file did contain an object which was worked on in a non-english version of AutoCAD or Civil 3D.  Since we’re seeting this more frequently, I’m a little concerned this might turn out to be yet another piece of contagious “CAD Debris” (such as Named Layer Filters [2000-2002], Scale Lists [2008], and unused RegApps [ongoing]).   According to Matt’s post in this thread, which details Autodesk’s explanation of this issue, it sounds like it’s fairly benign and the user can feel comfortable by checking the “don’t show me this again” checkbox (or, alternately, actually installing the Windows language pack).

However, it has recently come to my attention there there is also an AutoCAD specific virus being distributed in a file called ACAD.VLX which also causes the Missing Language Pack dialog.  Autodesk recently posted an article about the virus.  After following the steps outlined in the article, I determined that we do not have the infected acad.vlx file so my Missing Language Pack dialog is likely caused by an actual object in the drawing file(s).

What bothers me about Autodesk’s article about the ACAD.VLX virus is that there isn’t much information and I still have plenty of questions:

• What is the method of infection and how is the evil ACAD.VLX being distributed?
• Other than the “Missing Language Pack” dialog, is there any additional payload?
• What can users do to prevent infection?
• Do over the counter virus scanners catch this virus?

In Civil 3D 2009, any surface which uses a style under which only one minor contour would show for the entire surface, no contours are shown.

This is very difficult to explain verbally, but the image below illustrates the problem.

Workarounds:
Create a temporary style which shows major contours at the interval that you would typically show minor coutours with. Make those major contours the same color/layer/linetype as your regular style’s minor contours. Apply the new temporary style to the problematic surface.

First Appeared: Civil 3D 200x?
Status as of Civil 3D 2009 version 2: Still reproducible
Status as of Civil 3D 2010: Resolved

   1. New drawing from acad.dwt
   2. Save as ADVANCED.dwg
   3. Create a general line label style named PARENT
   4. Qsave ADVANCED.dwg
   5. Right click on the PARENT style and select New…
   6. Save the child style as CHILD
   7. Qsave ADVANCED.dwg
   8. New drawing from acad.dwt
   9. Save as BASIC.dwg
  10. Drag the PARENT style into BASIC.dwg
  11. Qsave BASIC.dwg
  12. Drag the CHILD style into BASIC.dwg
  13. Qsave BASIC.dwg
  14. Check the command line for the error message:  *Warning* Multiply owned object, handle “###”

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3648349943
Submitted By: TommieR
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2009 (verified on XPSP2 [32], Vista 32, and Vista 64)
Status as of Civil 3D 2009 Update 1 (aka Civil 3D 2009, Version 2): Resolved

“Warning: An error occured during save” arises when saving a drawing which contains a style which was created with a layer from another “layer source” drawing.

1.  File new from _AutoCAD Civil 3D (Imperial) NCS Extended.dwt (drawing2.dwg) 2.  File new from acad.dwt (drawing3.dwg) 3.  Under toolspace/settings for drawing3.dwg, right click on General-Label Styles-Line and select New.
4.  General tab, left click on the box next to Layer that currently contains 0, then click on the … to the right.
5.  Left click on Drawing3.dwg under Layer source at the top left of the Layer Selection dialog and select Drawing2.dwg.
6.  Select C-ANNO then OK and OK and save the drawing as temp.dwg.

This results in an AUTOCAD Message box with this text:

Warning:  An error occured during save.
We recommend that you run RECOVER on the drawing.

Workarounds:
… bring the layer into the new drawing prior to assigning it. … This, unfortunately, negates the functionality of using “layer source”.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#1-3608470141
Submitted By: TommieR
First Appeared: Civil 3D 200?
Status As of 2009: Still Reproducible
Status as of Civil 3D 2010: Resolved

In Civil 3D, several of the inquiry commands under the map menu don’t work:

Map-Inquiry-Line and Arc Information
Map-Inquiry-Angle Information
Map-Inquiry-Continuous Distance
Map-Inquiry-Add Distances
Map-Inquiry-List Slope

Workaround:
Use the equivalent Civil 3D commands as documented below.

MAP MENU           CIVIL 3D TOOL
COMMAND            COMMAND
mapcglist    ==>   cglist
mapcgang     ==>   cgang
mapcgcdist   ==>   cgcdist
mapcgadist   ==>   cgadist
mapcgslist   ==>   cgslist

Alternately, you can use the commands under the Map menu in Land Desktop or Land Enabled Map

First Appeared: Civil 3D 2007
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 Sp2:  Still reproducible
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still reproducible

Submitted By: TommieR and Christian Billiot

1. Create a Curve Label Style with the following settings:
   • Allow Curved Text = true
   • Border Visibility = true
   • Background Mask = true
2. Before you OK the label style, you’ll notice that the border is not going to be correct.
3. Draw an arc.
4. Place the curve label style on arc and check the location of the border and the background mask.

The background mask matches the border, but neither matches the text.  It works fine if you don’t use “Allow Curved Text”.

Workarounds:
… add two spaces before the start of “L=….” in the Contents row.  This will take care of the border overlapping the “L”, but unfortunately, does not address the extra masking being added at the end of the text.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052813 
Submitted By: TommieR
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2007?
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 SP2: Still reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still reproducible.

1. Create a new drawing from the acad.dwt drawing template.
2. Set the annotation scale to 1″=40′.
3. Place some points manually.
4. Drag the labels of the points so that the leader arrowhead is visible.
5. Create a new Point Label Style with the dragged state arrowhead set to origin indicator 2.
6. Change the Point Label Style of the manually placed points to the new Point Label style.
7. Save the drawing (Points-1.dwg).
8. Create a second drawing from the acad.dwt drawing template.
9. Save the drawing as (Sheet-1.dwg).
10. Set the annotation scale to 1″ = 40′.
11. Overlay the first drawing (Points-1.dwg) into the second drawing.
12. Zoom extents and view the arrowheads.

The arrowheads revert to closed filled when viewed in the xref drawing (Sheet-1.dwg), but are still origin indicator 2 in the original drawing (Points-1.dwg). 

Workaround:
The current work-around is to use the origin indicator 2 as the marker style but that leaves a gap between the end of the leader and the marker.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052864
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 SP2: Still reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: (unknown)

1.  Take a computer with 4GB RAM.
2.  Start the OS with the /3GB switch enabled *
3.  Start Civil 3D 2008
4.  Map-Image-Insert
5.  Select a tiff with a world file attached, or a SID file
6.  Let the error messages begin…

Note – this behavior also takes place when using x64 Windows (which doesn’t require the /3GB switch) as noted on “Civil 3D for Beginners”

Workaround:
Either don’t use /3gb switch with the OS or use Raster Design to insert georeferenced raster files.  Alternately, you can try to use the Add Raster Image or Surface Connection from the Map Task Pane.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3608470203
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2008?
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still Reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2010: Resolved

Numerous errors in user input are known to cause fatal errors in Civil 3D.  Most recently, I’ve noticed that incorrect grading criteria can cause an unhandled exception.

Steps to reproduce:* Create a grading criteria to grade to a relative elevation of +5′ at 0% grade.
* Grade from any feature line using this criterea.
* Wait several minutes.
* Watch C3D produce a fatal error

Admittedly, this is an error in user input, but Civil 3D should do standard error checking to catch user error.  For comparison, enter =5/0 in a cell in excel, and it will immediately return #DIV/0! without crashing.

Workaround:
Never make mistakes.

First Appeared: This was first reported to me in Civil 3D 2008 SP2, but I suspect it has been around since the beginning.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: (unknown)

Steps to Reproduce the issue:
1.  Create a viewport in a layout that is zoomed into a certain area in model space.
2.  Lock the viewport.
3.  Change to model space within that layout.
4.  LandXML import or data shortcut create reference an object into the drawing.

What is the problem?
The locked viewport “zooms to extents” of the object imported.  You have to unlock the viewport, fix it, then lock it again.

What were the expected results?
Create the object without zooming extents or switch to model tab before importing object.  Adding a warning about switching to Model tab with cancel option would be even better.

Submitted By: TommieR
Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052751
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2008
Status as of 2008 SP2: Still reproducible
Status as of 2009: Still reproducible