Major problems with Plotmaker

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Aussie John]

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

[Anonymous]

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...

[Anonymous]

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.

[Ben Odonnell]

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

[Anonymous]

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).

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.