Troubleshooting AutoCAD for Beginners
In the February 2015 issue of AUGIWORLD, I wrote the article, “What to Expect Now That You’re Hired,” which hopefully provided some guidance for new AutoCAD® users to understand how an office environment works, and how to improve your AutoCAD skills to become more productive (and an asset to your company).
In this article, I would like to expand on that idea by providing some quick tips on how to troubleshoot and solve some common AutoCAD problems.
When I started using AutoCAD full-time way back in 1991, the Internet was in its infancy, so there was no way to “Google” a solution to an AutoCAD problem. You either had to wait until your local user group met up each month to present your problem and HOPE someone in attendance had an answer, or you had to wait for the latest issue of your favourite CAD magazine to hit the newsstands (ask your parents) and HOPE there was a solution listed to your particular problem.
In the previously mentioned article, the suggestion was made to get to know your “Go-To CAD Guy” so that person can help you learn CAD tricks as well as help troubleshoot problems. However, it is understandable that some people may either feel intimidated about approaching people to ask about CAD problems, or maybe the CAD guru in your office isn’t available, and Googling AutoCAD problems may not be an easy task if you don’t know what questions to ask.
Hopefully, the following suggestions will help solve some problems you may encounter.
Layer Settings in XREFs Won’t Save
When using XREFs (aka “eXternal REFerences”), users will typically either “freeze” certain unwanted layers, or change some layer settings such as layer colours and linetypes for plotting purposes.
However, you may notice that each time you SAVE and reopen your drawing, the layer setting in your attached XREFs will revert back to their original settings.
The simple fix for this is to enter the command VISRETAIN and set it to a value of 1. When you save and reopen your drawing, the layer settings within your XREF will remain intact.
Layout Viewports Do a Zoom to Extents
Say you are toggled onto a Layout tab and each time you put your cursor inside a Viewport, you may notice all the other viewports will “zoom” to the extents of your Modelspace objects.
This happens when a system variable called UCSFOLLOW is set to a value of 1. To prevent your viewports from zooming to extents, lock your viewports first. Then inside each viewport, enter the command UCSFOLLOW and set the value to 0 (i.e., zero).
Inconsistent Spacing for the Gaps and Dashes in a Polyline
When creating a polyline using a “broken” linetype such as “Hidden” or “Center,” you may notice the gaps and dashes are not spaced equally or consistently. You can fix your polylines using the Properties Manager and changing the “Linetype Generation” from “Disabled” to “Enabled.”
To prevent this problem from happening again, simply enter the command PLINEGEN and set it to a value of 1 (see Figure 1).
Figure 1
Dialog Box Missing When Trying to OPEN a Drawing File
Have you tried to OPEN a file, and instead of getting a dialog box to navigate to a network folder, you get a message at your command prompt asking you to type in the path and filename by hand?
This happens on occasion when either a function in AutoCAD—or a custom function—doesn’t behave properly and turns the file dialog boxes “off.”
To turn them back on again, simply enter the command FILEDIA and set it to a value of 1.
Missing Dialog Boxes for Certain AutoCAD Commands
In addition to the file dialog box not appearing, there can also be certain commands, such as the BHATCH command, that also rely on dialog boxes and they, too, may appear AWOL at times.
To get them to reappear, simply enter the command CMDDIA and set it to a value of 1.
Able to Select Only One Object at a Time
If you find yourself needing to MOVE, COPY, ERASE, or perform another function to a group of objects, AutoCAD may let you select only one object at a time—you select one object, but when you select a second object, the first object becomes unselected.
To fix this, simply enter the command PICKADD and set it to a value of 1.
Layers are OFF, but They Still Plot
If there are certain layers you don’t want to plot, but they still plot even after you turn their layers “OFF,” try “freezing” them instead.
Can’t Select Objects on Layer ‘Defpoints’
A lot of CAD users will create “construction” lines on layer “Defpoints” to help them create their design geometry or act as reference markers, but they do not want these entities to plot. However, it can be confusing and irritating when you try to select those entities on layer Defpoints, but AutoCAD won’t let you select them.
Chances are that Layer “0” (i.e., zero) is either OFF or FROZEN in the Layer Manager. Simply turn Layer 0 back ON or THAW it, and then you will be able to select the Defpoints objects.
Can't Purge $AUDIT-BAD-LAYER
Sometimes after you run the AUDIT command, you will see a layer in the Layer Manager called “$AUDIT-BAD-LAYER,” and even though you PURGE the layer, it seems to keep showing up.
Here’s how to get rid of it permanently:
1. Run the AUDIT command.
2. Run the PURGE command to get rid of the layer.
3. Now SAVE your drawing and exit out of it.
4. Reopen your drawing, and when you run the PURGE command, the bad layer will be gone
When the RECOVER Command Won’t Work on a Drawing File
Sometimes an AutoCAD drawing will get errors or corruption within the file, and it will suggest you try to use the RECOVER command to clean out the errors within the file.
However, the drawing may fail to open if there are XREFs attached to your drawing file, and it could be the XREFs themselves that are corrupted. To make things worse, it may be one XREF that is damaged, or it may be all of them. And as always, time is a factor in that it may take a long time to RECOVER each and every XREF that may or may not be corrupted.
To speed things up, you can use the RECOVERALL command, which will fix the drawing file containing the XREFs as well as the attached XREFs.
Open a blank drawing (or if you are already in a drawing, that’s okay, too), enter the command RECOVERALL and you will be prompted with a message asking you to Recover the Drawing File. When you click on the Recovery option, you will be asked to navigate to the drawing file containing the XREFs. After you select the drawing file to open, it will recover/open the drawing and then proceed to recover/open each of the attached XREFs. Once the recovery on each XREF is complete, they will automatically save and close themselves. A report will be generated showing what was fixed. After you close the report, you are free to OPEN your drawing file.
Text Height of DIMENSIONS Look Too Small
Have you ever had the problem when placing dimension objects the dimension text was too small even though everything else such as the arrowheads, dimension lines, and extension lines still look okay?
The defined text style that the Dimension Style is using probably has a fixed height assigned to it. Simply enter the STYLE command, and in the “Height” field, make sure it has a value of 0 (zero). If that particular Text Style needs to have a fixed height, then create a separate Text Style to be used just for your dimensions with a defined height of zero.
Figure 2
Message Saying 'Command in Progress' When Trying to Save Drawing
After making a series of changes to your drawing, most users will either click on the “SAVE” icon, or press “Ctrl-S” on their keyboards.
However, it is not uncommon to get an error message saying there is a “Command in Progress” and no matter how many times you press the Esc. key, to “cancel” a running command, it seems to have no effect. Users are forced to close their drawings without saving, and thus, lose a lot of work.
The trick is to enter the SAVE command at the command prompt. When you press the SAVE icon or press Ctrl-S, those methods use the QSAVE command (aka “Quick SAVE”), which can mess up sometimes. Forcing the SAVE command will bypass QSAVE option and will actually save your drawing (t’s a good practice to then shut down AutoCAD and restart it).
Missing or Unknown Commands
While working in AutoCAD, or working in AutoCAD with a vertical application sitting “on top” of AutoCAD, sometimes you will get an error message saying “Missing or Unknown Command” when you try to enter a command.
Try entering the command DEMANDLOAD and setting it to a value of 3.
You may have to shut AutoCAD down and restart for the results to kick in.
Linetypes in XREFs Won’t Display Properly
This last issue is a lengthy one, and it’s one I personally see all the time both in my office and on the message boards regardless of the experience level of AutoCAD users.
When you attach an XREF containing “broken” linetypes such as “Center”, “Hidden”, and “Dashed,” etc., you may notice they do not display like the Center, Hidden, and Dashed linetypes that are in your parent drawing (i.e., the dashes and gaps can look either bigger or smaller by comparison).
There could be one or many issues causing this, so we will go through every potential culprit.
The linetypes were not loaded in your current drawing when you attached your XREF. When you attach an XREF, it looks in your current drawing for the same linetypes that reside within the XREF, but if they are not present, the XREF will do its best to display them properly, sometimes with unwanted results. To fix this, enter the LINETYPE command and load the necessary linetypes first, and then go into the Layer Manager and assign the linetypes accordingly to the XREF layers. After the linetypes have been assigned, you may have to REGEN the drawing to see the results.
If Option #1 did not work, it is possible the XREF and/or the current drawing are using the “wrong” linetype definitions. In other words, one drawing may be using Imperial linetype definitions while the other drawing may be using Metric linetype definitions (most likely due to each drawing using different DWT templates). To check and correct this, you need to set the MEASUREMENT command correctly. For example, if both the XREF and current drawing are drawn in imperial units, then enter the command MEASUREMENT and set it to a value of 0. Then you will have to reload the linetypes by entering the command LINETYPE and then select the desired linetypes to reload (followed by using the REGEN command for good measure).
If both of those suggestions are still not giving you the desired results, there may be a “ByEntity” issue happening. In the XREF drawing file, click on one of the objects that has a “messed up” linetype and check its properties in the Properties Manager. You will be looking for two things: the first being that the linetype is “ByEntity” as opposed to “ByLayer,” and the second is that the object may have a ByEntity LTSCALE value other than 1 assigned to it. Once you put the object back to ByLayer and its physical LTSCALE setting of 1, you can save the drawing and reload the XREF in the parent drawing.
