911! Plotmaker/.pmk problems

[Anonymous]

I am completely stuck and need some emergency help. I have searched through several hundred posts and have found others with similar problems on AC9, but no definitive answer on how to fix.

INFO:
Running ArchiCAD 8.1.0 USA v.2 (2284) on
MAC OS X version 10.3.9 733 MHz PPC G4 w/1GB memory
All MAC network

I had originally started this project as a pln (solo project) then shared it and re-linked the .lbk to the new .plp. The .lbk was working fine and updating well for several days, though I was the only one using the .lbk though my computer. This has been pretty standard since I instituted Teamwork usage in my office and have not had this problem before.

Yesterday I was working on a teamwork project with a colleague. I was signed in as team leader, he as team member. He signed out of the .plp and opened the .lbk to edit it, made his changes, then saved it.

After that my Plotmaker started to hang whenever I'd try to update from thew .plp (I was the only one working on it at the time). I never was able to update successfully.

This morning I could not update the file either, and every time I tried to update, either a single drawing or a batch update, I'd get an error saying "Error while reading file: 1st Floor.pmk not found (256: FIle not found, connection failed)"

I systematically went through the process of trying to isolate the difficulty ( trying to import the drawing again; trying to import from the older .pln of the same file; trying to import from another .pln; trying to import from another .plp; opening a blank .lbk and importing all of the above; opening a previously untroubled .lbk and trying to update one of it's drawings; even reinstalling ArchiCAD [and checking and running the updaters to make sure I was using the latest version]) but it happens EVERY time I try to update ANY drawing.

I went to the Graphisoft forum where I usually find answers to such things and found others who'd had this problem and followed the instructions about setting the preferences to save the cache data in a folder on the server so Plotmaker will always know to look in the same place regardless of the computer that opens it (this was suggested as necessary to use Teamwork properly), saved the .lbk and re-launched Plotmaker. Still no change.

Now ALL of my Plotmaker files are doing this and I don't know what to do next.

Please help me ASAP. I appreciate your help. I'll pass on any help that comes from any source so you can help others who may encounter this.

[Anonymous]

I too have experienced this problem from time to time. Strangely enough it seems to work itself out on it's own most of the time, like it's alive or something. But the few times it didn't and I couldn't update any .lbk file and received the same errors you mentioned I forced quit Backround ArchiCAD and then tried to update the file.
I was told, by my friendly re-seller, that sometimes BGAC get's muddled up (technical term) and needs to be restarted to work properly.
I posted a problem sort of similar to this a week or so ago concerning the inability to see view sets in the AC .plp file when trying to import into PM. I was promptly sent an email from the Tech Support guys from Graphisoft and I sent them my file, all the way to Budapest, but haven't heard back from them.
I hope you figure this out. PM problems are the worst.

[Anonymous]

If you've had a plotmaker crash, or a server connection fail while PM is running, you have to force quit BGArchicad before trying to update the drawings. I've gotten this message now and again if people are working while (and after) I take the server offline for maintenance.

Also, when was the last time you cleaned out the AC and PM caches, and cleared the preferences? That could also cause problems that might span restarts of your machines.

Also, you might repair permissions with the apple disk utility. If something has gotten messed up and your machine is locked out of the file, you might get that message.

good luck - hth

wes

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input. Based on suggestions from others, I have done all of the things you have suggested, all to no avail.

Now the lbk will not only not let me update the section and elevation drawings that are already in, but when I throw them away and re-import them, they will import, but not update, and any details or floor-plans I have successfully updated show "modified" every time I open the lbk, even if I have not opened the pln.

I guess I'm going to start a new lbk and see if it does the same thing. I'm still stymied.

[Anonymous]

I'm having the same issues... Am interested if Graphisoft are addressing this, as Plotmaker problems are the most frustrating part of working with this software. It can really screw up deadlines (and, hence reputations). It's getting to a point where we have to factor in time for plotmaker stuff ups when putting together fee offers!
some issues...

Having to delete an re-import qv's because they won't update
Force quitting and restarting
ArchiCad not responding
Error while reading file:...
Importing a q.v and inserting it as a Plotmaker file (non update-able)
ArchiCad not responding

Any feedback or advise would be apreciated by many of us...

cheers, lp

(while i'm at it... why doesn't Plotmaker have an autosave?)

[Anonymous]

The only thing I can say is that I have abandoned Teamwork altogether. The experience I had as a Job Captain trying to get this to work right cost our company at least $5000 in time spent fiddling with the file, re-importing, and ultimately re-creating the entire lbk from scratch (even there I had some issues with updating).

Because of that one incident, I am no longer using any Teamwork functions (which of course means that I have to make sure that files are ready to work on by one drafter at a time). The loss of overall productivity we were hoping to gain has actually meant that I have fewer hours to give out to my drafters and I actually spend more time drafting.

I am very frustrated. I found that Graphisoft could offer no real solution to the problem at hand nor anything that would assure me that I'd not find this to be the case in version 9. I see by your post that it's true.

We've since upgraded to 9, but I still won't touch the Teamwork functions. Seems like a waste of a perfectly good idea.

Sorry about the bad attitude, but I can't afford to be the source of another such loss for our small company. I was the one, after all, who brought the whole idea up and instituted Teamwork...

[TomWaltz]

siteline wrote:
The only thing I can say is that I have abandoned Teamwork altogether. The experience I had as a Job Captain trying to get this to work right cost our company at least $5000 in time spent fiddling with the file, re-importing, and ultimately re-creating the entire lbk from scratch (even there I had some issues with updating).

I know I've said this before, but hopefully other people can learn from my experiences, or Graphisoft will actually fix the problem:

Because of that one incident, I am no longer using any Teamwork functions (which of course means that I have to make sure that files are ready to work on by one drafter at a time). The loss of overall productivity we were hoping to gain has actually meant that I have fewer hours to give out to my drafters and I actually spend more time drafting.

Every since 8.0, I've tested live links on a regular basis. Every service pack, every release.... I still find it to be about 70 to 80% reliable at best. Maybe it's a Mac thing, maybe it's a network thing, but that is an abyssmal reliability rate. Never mind the painfully slow updates, since PM cannot tell which views are actually changed.

The other alternative is to use PMKs on projects instead of linking directly to Archicad Views. It's more of a headache, but works 99% of the time.... and the other 1% is when someone accidentally changed their Publishing path and the "updated" PMKs are not being seen by Plotmaker. As much as I get made fun of for sticking with such an old technology, and everyone hates them, they work. And they work consistantly.

Of course, then there are Teamwork headaches over who owns the Viewset, but that occurs no matter how you place drawings in Plotmaker.

[Anonymous]

That settles it... back to PMK's for me...

-Horray Graphisoft!

(Maybe I should crack out my old version 7!)

[Anonymous]

Start sharpening your pencils and clean out those pens that have been sitting in your top drawer for the last 10 years.....

[TomWaltz]

andthen01 wrote:
That settles it... back to PMK's for me...

-Horray Graphisoft!

(Maybe I should crack out my old version 7!)

It's funny... the one of the few things I miss about our old CAD system (Arris) was that it's paper space/model space relationship was amazing. It pretty much did what Plotmaker/BGArchicad tries to do, except with zero rebuild/regeneration/publishing time. Although, their secret was one file per layer, and the sheets just loaded the layers and cropped the view of them. It made projects a real pain to keep track of!!

There was not much I miss (probably the only other thing was a "color override" for locked layers, and elements unlocked but not on the working layers. It sounds trite, but it was REALLY nice..... yeah, I think that's all I miss!