PlotMaker/BGArchiCAD is driving me nuts.

[Stuart Smith]

Here's the situation:

ArchiCAD 8.1v2/PlotMaker 3.1v2 (Mac)

.lbk file located on a server, with drawings imported from a .plp located in the same folder as the layout book.

My coworker opens up the layout book and updates the drawings. All library parts from the 'ArchiCad Library 8.1' (which is in the ArchiCAD application folder on her local drive) are missing. However, library parts from the project library (located on the server, in the same folder as the .lbk and .plp) are loaded.

My coworker saves and closes the .lbk and I open it up on my machine, and update the drawings. Everything is as it should be, all library parts are loaded. Hmm.

We try it again on her machine, and the parts are not loaded.

What would cause her copy of BGArchiCAD to not load the ArchiCAD library, while mine loads it just fine? We've tried trashing the PlotMaker preferences as well as all the Graphisoft preferences. We've tried deleting and reimporting the drawings.

The last thing I can think of is that my machine is on OS X 10.3 and hers is on OS X 10.2. Would that do it?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Is each hard drive named exactly the same on both machines? I ask because I have heard that if the path is named the same on both machines this is not a problem. I have not relocated all of the libraries in our office yet, so I'm interested in the answer to this problem.

[SeaGeoff]

I experienced the basically same thing. So I exploded the 8.1 library and put it, as well as the office library, on the server. Shared projects and templates now point there and it has worked well. Load times are only slightly longer than with local .pla but we don't yet have a ton of office parts so that may change over time.

Clearly AC and BGAC should start their search paths from the directory where they (the applications themselves) are located. Then HD and user names wouldn't interfere.

Better yet, library parts should load into the file as they are added to the project, similar to the .pla. The process of loading libraries would become very fast as they would simply be pointers. Files would all act like archives and therefor be portable without having to sweat having everything perfect at the destination. And BGAC wouldn't have to load any libraries at all to do it's work.

[__archiben]

the issue of library paths and mac networking has been a thorn in my side since the release of archiCAD 8. i think we've got it sussed now, but not without a lot of trouble. there are several of my posts around this forum addressing BGarchiCAD library loading woes - do a search! in one post i did think that the issue was something to do with static and dynamic file paths. resolving this could help:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=6438&highlight=library+path#6438

or . . . :

Geoff wrote:
Better yet, library parts should load into the file as they are added to the project, similar to the .pla. The process of loading libraries would become very fast as they would simply be pointers. Files would all act like archives and therefor be portable without having to sweat having everything perfect at the destination. And BGAC wouldn't have to load any libraries at all to do it's work.

yes! the 'matthew lohden solution' as always is three steps ahead of GS!!!

~/archiben

[Laszlo Nagy]

The following ArchiGuide Tech Note is about this issue, I believe:

http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/archiguide/SearchMethodofBGAC.html

HTH, Laszlo

[Anonymous]

laszlonagy wrote:
The following ArchiGuide Tech Note is about this issue, I believe:

http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/archiguide/SearchMethodofBGAC.html

HTH, Laszlo

I've never seen the error message, but have had missing library parts when updating in plotmaker. Is the message only in Windows systems?

[Stuart Smith]

Making the names of the respective local drives the same solved the problem, the local ArchiCAD Library was loaded.

However, this behaviour is not very intuitive, and very un-Mac-like. Saving a relative path to local libraries seems to make more sense to me.

Thank you all for the help.

[Anonymous]

working in teamwork will solve the problem, too, provided you do one thing...

when the library manager comes up and asks you to find the AC8.1 library located on another local drive, DO NOT "remove" that library from your list. Instead, just select your local library and add it to the list.

the next time you log in, AC will remember to look for your local library, and it will show up properly. The library on the other machine will still show up as missing, but its not a problem since you've already got one loading.

On a recent large teamwork file, my team had about 6 AC8.1 libraries in the "missing libraries" column - one for each teammate's local drive. Seems to work just fine, and I kinda like being asked to doublecheck which libraries I want to load when I open the project.

still a workaround though. GS needs to resolve the pathname problem for solo projects.

HTH
wes

[tsturm]

Weston,

Nice idea about attaching the AC 8.1 library for each user. We stopped using a remote 8.1 library some time back as the time it took to load this .pla was much longer than the time it took to attach a local one.

We will need to try the multiple idea. Currently, we only put the Office standard and any purchased libraries on the remote machine (server). This way as the Office standard gets new parts people can get the updates without the hassle of trying to determine which parts are current.

BGArchiCAD was a great idea. It allowed us to open more than one project to copy and paste items around. We liike using it for detail work between large wall section details and the wall sections/building sections.

We have chosen not to allow Plotmaker to launch AC to update the drawings. We like to have AC running at the same time. If a drawing needs to be updated, we jump to AC update the drawing and then go to PM to update the link.

[Anonymous]

BGArchiCAD still seems to struggle with libraries, especially with Teamwork. It appears that the library paths used by BGArchiCAD are read from the Teamwork draft preference file rather than the .plp file paths. Therefore if libraries don't load properly it is worth trashing the draft preference file and seeing if this works.

Somehow it also seems possible to have a library path name that is valid in the teamwork .plp but not valid in BGArchiCAD. This can be fixed by signing in with exclusive access, removing offending libraries and adding them again and then sending changes. Have done this today for a project we could not get to work any other way and finally got the objects to appear.

We stopped using a remote 8.1 library some time back as the time it took to load this .pla was much longer than the time it took to attach a local one.

We are still using a network ArchiCAD 8.1 library, but using cache libraries, this seems to work OK and speeds up loading of network libraries.

Suggestion. if BGArchiCAD can' find a library couldn't it display the library manager and get the user to find it?