topic Re: Major problems with Plotmaker in Documentation

Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 15:04:51 GMT

Today our office had a major meltdown with plotmaker. Let me set the scene.
Plotmaker is set up from two different files; 1- a teamworked floor plan and 2 - a solo site plan.
We originally had problems with the solo file in linking in a set of details made with the detail tool. The solo project was open in one machine, while the plotmaker updates are made on another. (All of the files are located on our server) I never could get the linked drawings to come in despite several restarts on both machines. I finally resorted to opening the solo site plan on the same machine where the plotmaker file was open. (Not the server machine). This allowed me to bring in the site plan and linked site details.

Now here's where it really gets weird. In going to a different sheet that was previously set up with a sheet full of interior elevations from the teamworked floor plan, several of the files (not all) had reverted to PMK files and instead of interior elevations--- they showed the floor plan! (with the layer setup for interior elevations).

We were able to re-convert these to linked files by individually selecting and relinking. There didn't seem to be any way to batch convert these files from PMK files to linked drawings.

Does ANYBODY have ANY idea what happened?!

A clue: there are several of the PM_UPD files in the teamwork folder. These have not been deleted.

This is also a file where a whole view set disappeared and we had to recreate the view set and relink the files that time also.

Also these computers have not been updated with the latest release. They are still build 1812. I will be updating them tomorrow.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 02:08:16 GMT

I take that no one has seen this kind of weirdness?

Today the file took a different turn. The site plan PLN linked drawings reverted to PMK files and the site plan changed to a roof plan that would be found only in the PLP building file. (the building file is hotlinked into the site). I have updated the computers to 1965 and deleted the PM_UPD files.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 03:03:15 GMT

I've seen these problems such as yours, Millard, and I think others have to. The bulk changing of link types, from quickview to pmk has happened to me a couple of times. We simply rebuilt and were not able to troubleshoot or diagnose what had happened.

Along with other posters to this list, I have also had quickviews in ArchiCAD disappear, along with strange transformations to the linked drawings in Plotmaker (e.g. scale change, layer set change).

I'm afraid I have no insight to offer, but can corroborate your experience.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Aussie John — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 07:00:44 GMT

I too have seen this and it occured with a teamwork file. I have no solution and ended up reimporting it.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:32:35 GMT

We have had the same problems with linked files turning into PMK files. Very frustrating... I talked with Graphisoft USA and they said that they don't know why this happens and will get back to me as soon as there is a fix for this...

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:43:36 GMT

We had one change to PMK in another file just this morning. It didn't affect anything as this drawing had already been issued and would not need to be issued with newer set.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Ben Odonnell — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 20:05:12 GMT

Millard,
I have been thinking about your problem and have a suggestion on what the problem might be.

Can it be so that the person creating the layout book has chosen to save cache data in a folder instead of the plotmaker layout book? Then they possibly have set that linked drawings should be included in the layout book also? hens the PMK files.

If one chooses to save cache data in a folder the linked drawings will not show up in the layout book, as the linked data resides in folder not assessable to other users, that's why when you relinked the solo project you had no problems, as you did it locally on the machine that has the cache data folder.
see the attached image.

The other problem that you have were views are changing to other views, I'm sorry but I have no explanation for this abnormality! But it sound very scarry to me, You should get in contact with your support team and get them to sort it ASAP.

HTH.
Cheers.
Ben

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 03:40:13 GMT

Typically our plotmaker books are set to save to a cache folder. I was scared off by the warning that including the cache will significantly increase the file size.
Before we have had no problems with this as when a new person opens the layout book the views are missing as you would expect; but you can just update the views and everything comes in. This is different as some of the views (not all) revert to PMK's and some even switch to totally different views!
Should I switch to having layout books include cache data? I was concerned that if this was done with all of the projects that our server would quickly overflow with data.

By the way our cache file is set to save to the default location (as recommended).

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 15:50:09 GMT

I too have been having this problem. for me it is typically just one or two drawings that switch from a linked view to a pmk file. I have not be able to simply re-link the drawing, so I have been having to delete it and reimport the view from the AC project file. I have noticed it only seems to happen to me when I get a error message saying archicad is not responding (BGarchicad). I get this message quite often since upgrading to 9, but the error only occurs about a 3rd of the time in these instances.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:54:45 GMT

Scott wrote:
I too have been having this problem. for me it is typically just one or two drawings that switch from a linked view to a pmk file.

I spoke to someone at Graphisoft technical support US and he indicated that this was a know bug that would be fixed with the next patch.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Karl Barker — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 04:34:02 GMT

I too have been having a similar problem with a particular plotmaker file.
It has three linked PLN files which randomly swap drawings between them in plotmaker. eg, import 'floor plan building A' and you get 'floor plan Building B'.

next issue is that the pmk files that show up (they were supposed to be drawing views) come up with error ans the status code, and no amount of reinserting them helps.

opening the PLN file on my computer and re-saving it also bares no effect.
I find that i have to delete the link in plotmaker, close the file, and start again.

we are running all the latest panther setup (server and terminal) and the latest building of ArchiCAD 9 NZ.

Karl

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

kevin b — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:02:48 GMT

We have experienced the linked files changing to PMKs as well. No idea why but we seem to have prevented it from happening again. At least so far. It seems to occur with teamwork files, when different people on the team end up opening the layout book. Im not sure of all the ins and outs but even when you link the drawings, plotmaker makes PMKs which it stores in a cache file. The problem seems to only occur with layout books where the cache folder is located on someone's hard drive and then someone else opens the layout book. Because the path to the cache folder is now different confusion occurs, there's a puff of purple smoke, and everything is PMKs. The fix seems to be putting the cache folder on the server, so the path is always the same. Its in Plotmaker > Options > Preferences > Cache Folder. So far this seems to have stopped the problem from occuring again. Unfortunately, this preference is file specific so you'll have to change it in all your layout books.

If anyone has tried this fix and it doesn't hold, or it's happening even though your preferences are set to the server, please let me know.

Re: Major problems with Plotmaker

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:41:03 GMT

Sounds like an interesting work-around, but it still doesn't address why it would be happening to me. One man company - one AC seat, on one computer. I will be eagerly awaiting the next patch to fix this, hopefully coming soon!