DXF-DWG Translators and Server Permissions

[Da3dalus]

I'm not sure if I found a bug, a feature, or if I'm going crazy. However, I'd like to check to see if this is a common issue.

I have created several DWG Translators for various file import and export scenarios. These files are kept on one of our servers, so updates are immediately available to everyone in the office. This is actually as recommended in the documentation. Everything has seemed to be working fine, but recently, one user noted that he was having problems.

His DWG files were coming out all wrong, and the engineers receiving the files are complaining. When I look at his machine (we are an all-Mac office), each of the translators appears, but is locked.

This, I assume, is because this Standards Server is set to Read-Only for most of the staff, so important templates are not overwritten. This is a pretty typical setup, I think. I do not have any problem, nor do any of my power-users who have write access to the server.

When he tries to Save As… DWG, the translator reverts to one of the defaults, and ignores the translator he selected. Therefore, he can't get the right results. On top of that, he's complained in the past of translators being grayed-out, or not there at all! Is this behavior expected? Does the computer have to have write access to the place where translators are stored? Or might I have another problem?

I'm now wondering how many files have gone out from junior staff that were wrong, and they probably didn't even know it was a problem (and the engineers wasted time exploding and changing layers, assuming we're a bunch of ArchiCAD morons). I'm going to have to audit DWGs to find out.

[Eduardo Rolon]

I have the same issue even with write-access to the server.

[Barry Kelly]

They still import as locked even if you place them in the user folder where the default translators are stored.
It seems that by importing them they become locked.
Barry.

[Da3dalus]

My solution for the time being was to Duplicate the Translators he needs, which creates an unlocked copy that works correctly. Unfortunately, it will not update if I ever have to change anything.

I still have to look around to see if this is the case on all other computers without write access. In my free time, I guess.

[Anonymous]

A late reply, and possibly unrelated to the original post, but I was wrestling with this just now...

One thing worth checking if translators appear to randomly become locked when they should not, is whether the translator xml file is from an earlier version of archicad than what it's imported into.

I noticed having locked translators and wanted to find out what was happening. Long story short, in this case, editing the translator xml-file's <Version> tag value from "39" to "40" unlocked the translator in the archicad list.

We recently upgraded a project from 19 into 20, and the old (AC19) translator files when imported into AC20 seem to have gotten locked. This also neatly explains why duplicating the translator file would unlock it; the duplicate is probably being built from scratch to accommodate new translator features and thus will have the correct version value.