Frustrated!

Does anyone know whether the 'unhandled error' and subsequent crash to
desktop problem been solved yet. This is now becoming a major pain,
just lost a whole afternoon's work (I was working on a drg and
switched off backup etc because of speed problems).
Feel like contacting my VAR and asking them to pay for lost time!


While I'm here I might as well get some other things of my chest.
SW2004 is soooooo slow in drg mode..... thanks SW!

I don't want all these new bells and whistles, I just want a stable
piece of software!

Cosmos Xpress for example shows how a part may deflect under load but
doesn't tell you by how much...... whats the point?

There's a lot more but I'm going to stop now, blood pressure has gone
too high....... I do feel a bit better.

Bob MacGregor

 

you worked an entire afternoon on a drawing without saving?

bill

 

Have you updated to SP2.1? This was to address speed and a few other
issues.

Keith

 

This is a good place to vent, Bob, and a lot more. You can learn a lot
here and get your questions answered by experts . . . and some
non-experts (like me). Welcome BACK to the newsgroup. Perhaps you
should lurk here more often. You would have already known the answer to
the slow drawing performance issue.

Best regards,
Mark 'Sporky' Stapleton
WaterMark Design, LLC
Charlotte, NC
www.h2omarkdesign.com (will be up tomorrow -- not there today)

 

There is some workaround method of getting the deformation data. I believe
it involves creating an eDrawing which should create an "analysis file"
containing the deflections of each node in a text form. Unfortunately, my
memory is not that good and I couldn't figure it out by tinkering. I'll bet
a good search of the NG would bring you the answer or maybe someone here
remembers.

JJ

 

I'm not sure this still works, but when CosmosXpress came out, it would
create a text output file for each job and save it with the suffix .OUT. If
you open that file with a text editor, like Notepad, you can find the
maximum deflection (it's in meters, no matter what units you are working
in). If that's what you are looking for, you are in luck. If the deflection
you are looking for is some where else and you aren't too fussy, you might
be able to get close enough by scaling from a print of the deflected shape.


Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems

 

I've donw that. Many times. I have, in the past, had 10+ work in
progress models open and did't save them all day. Of course, these days
I do save and save often. Anyone who thinks saving every few minutes
should be the norm is nuts. Good software doesn't crash. Period.

Jim S.

 

I don't think it is crazy to plan for the unexpected. It would be ideal if
software never crashed, if power interruptions never occurred, and if
computers never hiccupped. None of these things should happen, but they do.
To deny this and to not precautionary measures is nuts.


JJ

 

Bob:

The "unhandled error" is not just a single problem, it could be a
hundred different things. If you want to fix the problem, the best
thing is to try to isolate the cause. There is a crash troubleshooting
document on the SW FAQ, and an on-line Troubleshooter that may or may
not help you find the cause.

You might want to consider calling your VAR before you get this worked
up instead of only to complain after the fact. Sometimes they can help
you solve problems like these.

Possible causes:

SolidWorks software
SolidWorks data (part, assy, drw files corrupt)
bad install (sometimes due to antivirus software)
other questionable software installed causing conflicts
temp directory too full
bad virtual memory settings
corrupted registry (try to log on as new user)
Novell network
Windows network slow
hardware drivers
RBP syndrome (rapid or random button pushing)


Many folks have reported drawings much faster in sp2.1.

Good luck,

matt



(Bob MacGregor) wrote in

 

Thanks for the tips guys I'll look into them when I finish this
project.
Also got this info from John Picinich @ CADimensions thought I'd post
it for other people.

**************************************************************************
Cosmos Express Deflection: Does it or doesn't it?

Note: This subject was brought up during our introductory OKSWUG
meeting.
There were
differing opinions, so here is information you may find useful. This
is more
or less a Newsletter
Tutorial.

Using Cosmos Express (Included free inside of SolidWorks 2003), you
can get
a pretty picture of
a deflected part, based on Force or Pressure criteria you specify. The
typical depiction of
deflected or stressed parts in analysis software is to exaggerate it.
Cosmos
Express gives you this
representation, but doesn't really tell you what the true deflection
is. Or
do they?

After you do a Run Analysis, you can SAVE the data by clicking the
Close
button. After saving,
there will be several files with the part name (with "COSMOSXpress
Study"
after it) as the
filename, with varying extensions ("partfile-COSMOSXpress Study.out",
"partfile-COSMOSXpress Study.mas", etc.). We need to OPEN the file
with the
OUT extension ("partfile-COSMOSXpress Study.out") in Notepad. In the
middle
of the file, in the "Load Case 1" section,
you will see something like the following listed:

Minimum/Maximum Displacements

X-displ. Y-displ. Z-displ.
Node: 106 106 211
Min.: -0.00038138 -0.054787 -1.0483e-005
Node: 1294 2201 1071
Max.: 0.00038140 1.2401e-006 1.0500e-005

Maximum Magnitude of Displacement
Node: 106
Max.: 0.054789

For a simple one-way, or maximum, deflection analysis, you can use the
"Maximum Magnitude
of Displacement" and grab the Max. Value listed there. This is the
Maximum
Deflection,
according to SolidWorks. But SolidWorks does all its measuring in
METERS
(does all it's
Angular Degrees in RADIANS, in case you wondered). To convert this to
Inches, you take the
Max. Value (0.054789) times 1000 (1000mm in a Meter) divided by 25.4
(mm in
an Inch). Thus
the equation would be as follows:

0.054789 * 1000 / 25.4 = 2.157047 inches for this example.

If you have multiple deflections from multiple loadings, you need to
subtract the Maximum and
Minimum values from the direction you are interested in, either X, Y,
or Z.
in the example above,
the X and Z directions basically zero themselves out, and don't, due
to
compressions and such in
the material during loading, or so I am told.

Hopefully this is beneficial for some of you. If you find this
information
hard to follow, not so
educational, or just plain wrong, let me know.

Craig Milligan

*******************************************************************************

 

Good luck.
bill

 

I have to agree with Matt, about a Novell network. It does not work too well
with Windoze Xp, that is why we scrapped Novell.

 

The "unhandled error" is not just a single problem, it could be a
hundred different things.<

Although this may be true, I have been getting the "unhandled error"
on the rate of several times per hour after upgrading to SP2.1. With
SP0 I maybe got it once a week. There is something with this SP that
causes that crash more.

pope

 

On the other hand, I think we're getting about the same number of crashes
per day on 2.1 as we were on SP0 (roughly 0-4, sometimes spiking up to 7 or
8, but usually only when we get something repeatable). Did your work change
in any way about the time you went to SP2.1?

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems

 

I would be willing to put money on the fix being related to your system,
set up or installation rather than regressions in the sp.

I'm not crash free, I had an ugly one last night at a user group
presentation, but my crashes are limited to 1-2 per week using sweeps and
lofts, surfacing and sheetmetal. I don't work much with large assemblies.
These are seemingly random unreproducible crashes, although I have noticed
one pattern. When I see double icons in the upper left or upper right of
the SW window, I know a crash will happen if I just keep working.

anyway, good luck.

matt



(pope) wrote in

 

Hummm....If I were to use the engineering method of failure and
productivity analysis, I might be tempted to ask if you have tried the
obvious & downgraded back to SolidWorks 2003 SP5?

Bo

 

matt, jerry,

I can't think of what is different with my setup after i installed
SP2.1. I probably exaggerate on my crashes. Sometimes it does happen
once every hour, but for instance I haven't had a crash all day and
it's almost 1:00. I do run large assemblies, and it does seem to
happen then. Sometimes though it will happen in a medium sized
assembly. I can't seem to draw any connections and it happens so
suddenly. Needless to say, I save my drawings non-stop.