Seen this one?

I've seeing a quirk in SolidWorks 2005 (original release) that I don't
THINK has been fixed in the 0.1 service pack and which may be causing a
more severe problem than I originally thought. I don't have the service
pack, because I haven't been able to afford to re-up my maintenance
agreement. A client of mine, however, does have the service pack and he
reports at least the quirk if not the apparent actual resultant problem
(fairly worrisome problem) that I think possibly results from the quirk.

The symptom is that when an assembly has been renamed, the Mates in the
Feature Trees of the components of the new assembly still reflect the
name of the older assembly until the assembly file has actually been
closed down and reopened. I would say ostensibly not really a big deal,
except that seemingly even if one makes Mate changes and then Saves the
new assembly, those Mates won't necessarily reappear if SolidWorks
crashes thereafter. I've had it happen several times now. Mates that I
knew I corrected (and I Saved after I corrected them) reappear as
problems after the SolidWorks assembly is reopened after a crash.
UNLESS I close down the assembly file, then reopen it. If I do that and
I have a crash, the Mates that were corrected remain correct. I suspect
it has to do with those Mate names not being properly updated when
renaming the Assembly file until after closing down the file and
reopening it.

Does this make sense? Sorry if not . . . I'll try to clarify better.
What brought it about is resurrecting a Backup of an assembly, renaming
that backup to the original assembly name (removing "Backup (1) of") and
making changes to Mates and Saving. The Save didn't seem to "take"
regarding Mates if SolidWorks crashes. Other changes (as regarding
things like Component Patterns) were saved properly and came back up
correctly.

Anybody else having the same experience? Or think maybe they are?

Mark 'Sporky' Stapleton
Watermark Design, LLC
www.h2omarkdesign.com

 

Crap. I had just about been resigned to living with it also until I
found out that a crash after a Save didn't save the Mate corrections
made before the Save. That is, until I realized that the two are
logically connected and probably connected in reality. That's a
potentially really problematic scenario. I accept workarounds, and even
some workarounds on top of workarounds, but the workarounds are getting
too numerous to remember. I've lost some substantial amount of time
because of this. John, would you do all of us a favor and report it
AGAIN, this time to SolidWorks tech support, with mention that you've
reported it to your VAR in the past with no satisfaction?

Thanks,
'Sporky'

 

Guys,

Just wondering if you think the use of SolidWorks Explorer (for the
purpose of renaming/copying) suffers from similar problems.

Generally speaking, I think SWKS Explorer is far more powerful in
updating associated files than the main SolidWorks program in certain
cases...

Per O. Hoel
_____________________________________________________________________

 

You may be right, and I may be better off using SW Explorer. I guess
I've shyed away from doing things that way ever since my experiences
during the bad old days of SW2000 when SW Explorer did NOT always find
all of the Where Used instances. I should probably say "worse old days"
'cause I'm still not happy with the number of problems we're seeing with
the software releases and service packs. Anyway, I never trusted SW
Explorer thereafter.

'Sporky'

 

You should do whatever it takes to get SP0.1. Used to crash every hour and
now didn't crashed in two days.
SP0 did have some problem too exporting some files to STEP or IGES.

Marc

 

Well I'd certainly love to have SP0.1. But not at the cost of $1300.
I'll probably re-up my subscription service at some point, but for the
moment I neither have the extra cash nor do I have any desire to play
that game after five years of ante-ing up and getting (IMHO) much less
than my money's worth. When you're working for a company that pays for
the subscription it's not so painful, but when you're a freelancer like
me that impacts your bottom line pretty severely. I don't have SPRs
that (to my knowledge) are fixed in SP0.1 and the problems that I do
have that are keeping me from doing my work (e.g., inability to run
interference checks, inability to change density on parts, and the
problem of topic in this thread) have not yet been fixed (to my
knowledge). And unlike some people I'm not going to attempt to get an
illegal copy of the Service Pack. SolidWorks Corp has me snookered all
right, but I'm not giving in . . . yet.

'Sporky'

 

John, thanks. That's a big help.

 

So, John, what's your Web site? Can't Google you or JK Mold Design at
all, except to find you playing "Spaceman" in SciFi Hotel (like that
suit, but what's that thing on your cheek?).

 

Yeh, I did come up with links to those SolidWorks and Moldworks reviews
and plugs to which you contributed, but nothing that led to your own
work. So -- do you actually look more like that pic in Desktop
Engineering, or more like "Starman"? ;-) Personally I try to keep MY
pic off the Net, and my resume pic is from almost a decade ago. Only
once in a blue moon do I get a pic of myself that doesn't make me look
like Dorkman (as I've been called by some who've been the targets of
'Sporkman' sarcasm). That is to say, it's hard to find a pic of me that
doesn't make me look like myself.
8^)

 

That's nice to hear. I'm glad yer busy without having to work at
getting there.

Nah. If you were from 'round here it would make you look like a
redneck, but since yer from Californy it just makes yer look like a
surfer dude. Ummm . . . a slightly aging surfer dude, maybe, but that's
OK.