custom toolbar icons blank

I have created an extensive amount of custom toolbars, all were working great in all areas. I opened AC today and all the icons in the custom toolbars are blank. When I try to go into Customize Toolbars, I get a Fatal Error: Unhandled Access Violation Reading 0x0000 Exception at 838974h. If I unload the custom menu, I can access the Customize Toolbars. Any ideas why this just happened? Am I going to have to create these all over again?

 

You need to search for your icons and either make sure they are in a folder that autocad can find in the search path or move them to such a folder.

 

This will happen when using a compiled menu from AutoCAD 2004 in an earlier
version.
Is it possible the custom menu could have been recompiled in a later version
of AutoCAD?
If so, load the mnu file to recompile it.

 

The Fatal error use to happens whenever you have 2 or more AutoCAD windows whenever you're trying to customize it.
You did not lost the icons, they might be placed in your hard disk, you just need to find them... try searching for all of the *.bmp files. they could be in C:\Program files\Autocad XXX...

 

I have the search path to the directory that I have my mns and mnc file along with all the bmp files. I have been using this same directory path for 3 weeks now.

 

And this is not something I brought from an earlier version. All new and created in 2004.

 

For anyone who is interested, I was able to retrieve ALL of my custom toolbars with their icons intact by removing the custom .mnr and .mns files in the path directory. When AC restarts, it will compile these two files automatically. Not sure if it is real solution, but it worked in my case.

 

For anyone who is interested, I was able to retrieve ALL of my custom
toolbars with their icons intact by removing the custom .mnr and .mns files
in the path directory. When AC restarts, it will compile these two files
automatically. Not sure if it is real solution, but it worked in my case.

No!! I hope nobody follows that advice!!

You deleted the MNC and MNR files -- ***not*** the MNS. You don't want to
delete the MNS file (menu source), because that's what your menu is compiled
from. The MNR contains the button icons, and is built from the BMP files
found on your path. The MNC is the actual compiled menu.

This is the usual solution for fixing toolbar problems. Normally, on
restarting, Acad will recompile the menu any time it finds an MNS which is
more recent than the MNC file (as in, if you manually edited it, which is
the best way to customize a menu). It will also recompile the menu when you
make on-screen interactive toolbar changes (which seems easy, but is
problematic in several ways).

However, the MNR file can sometimes get out of whack, and you don't see the
button icon problems until you restart Acad. This is what happened to you --
you actually messed up the icons on the previous day, but you didn't see it
until you restarted Acad the next time.

To force a recompilation, and see what is really happening with your toolbar
buttons, you can delete the MNC and MNR files, then restart Acad, to force a
menu recompilation. You should really do this any time you customize a
toolbar, to make sure you haven't messed something up. And every time you
have a successfully working menu, you should back up its MNS file in a safe
place, in case the menu gets messed up later.

I highly recommend Mark Middlebrook's article on toolbar customization at
http://www.markcad.com/autocad/acadtoolbars.htm.

 

<<You deleted the MNC and MNR files -- ***not*** the MNS. >>

I noticed that too, but then I noticed he said <"removing the custom .mnr and .mns files in the path directory.">

It sounded as if he is loading a custom menu from a specific directory (not in search path) but has a "bogus" MNS of the same name in the search path. So, I'm not real sure what he's doing.

 

I noticed that too, but then I noticed he said <"removing the custom .mnr
and .mns files in the path directory.">

(not in search path) but has a "bogus" MNS of the same name in the search
path. So, I'm not real sure what he's doing.

You could be right, it did sound confusing. I wanted to make clear to any
neophyte menu tinkerers who might see this thread that deleting your MNS
file would not be a good way to solve toolbar problems.

 

Gentlemen you are correct and sorry for my typo... I removed my CUSTOM mnc and mnr. I did not remove any default AC menu or resource files. I'm green to this stuff, but not that stupid.

The one gentleman was correct that I have these custom files, bmp, etc in a separate directory so the path is not linked to any default AC info.

I was able to get back all of my toolbars, icons and what-not.

Again, I apologize if there was any confusion on my part for the incorrect file name. And thanx Tom for catching it.

 

She is loading a custom menu that is in the search path. The custom mns file name is not the same as any AC file name. Thanx for catching my typo and clarifying.

 

Again, I apologize if there was any confusion on my part for the incorrect
file name. And thanx Tom for catching it.

Just trying to keep the record straight

There seem to be some differences between operating systems on MNR issues.
In NT, I can use menuload to unload and reload my custom (partial) menu
inside Acad, after editing the mns file, and it will trigger a
recompilation. However, for some reason, in XP, when buttons are
mysteriously missing, this doesn't seem to fix the toolbars. But if you exit
Acad, delete MNR and MNC, and restart Acad, the menu will recompile and the
toolbars will be fixed. Don't know why this would be different according to
OS, but that seems to be the pattern.

It's worth noting that you don't necessarily see the real picture until you
restart Acad. Hence my advice to always do so after changing a toolbar.