ArchiCAD 12 and Mac OSX 10.10 / 10.9.5 / 10.7.5

[Anonymous]

Greetings dear ArchiCAD community,

i am an architect from a small three person architects office in Germany and tend to this forum to seek help for a problem i cannot solve any more.

We are running ArchiCAD 12 build 2782 (latest build, no Teamwork) on three iMac's:

1. iMac Mac OSX 10.7.5 (My Workstation) with Codemeter Dongle runs without problems. Publisher works here thanks to Framework/Java bugfix from ArchiCAD see - > http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/downloads/AC12_PatchForJavaUpdate.html

2. iMac Mac OSX 10.9.5 with WiBu Key Dongle runs without problems, except that here i cannot get the publisher to work and save PDF. Bugfix does not work here. Java Version number is not normal as described in the patch from iMac Nr 1.

3. iMac OSX 10.10 with WiBu Key Dongle also runs without problems except the same publisher problem as on iMac Nr 2.

ArchiCAD support could not help, as this ArchiCAD version should not run on the operating system of iMac Nr.2 & 3, so to say in their words.

Anyone has an idea how to fix this problem or experienced something similar before i go deep into this ?

Further info will be provided on demand.

Please refrain from comments like:"Why do you still use ArchiCad 12..." as this is a pure objective and technical question.

Also please excuse any bad grammar.

Thanks in advance.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I just tested 12/build 2782 on 10.9.5 and was able to publish to PDF and to DWG without any problems. I'm using a Codemeter key.

I don't recall doing anything special to my system, so am not sure why you are not able to publish in your Mac #2.

[Anonymous]

Dear Karl Ottenstein, thank you very much for your reply.

Please excuse the very late answer but work has kept me very busy.

The Thing that you can publish on 10.9.5 is Interesting. Which Java Version did you use ?

In the meantime i tried some things to
solve the Problem with publishing, but did not succeed.

Removing JAVA and reinstalling the old JAVA version necessary for the publisher on iMac 2 & 3 did not solve the problem. The program still crashes when trying to publish. Well, on iMac 2 it would create one page sucessful and crash then whereas on iMac 3 it would crash immideatly.

Even considered downgrading OSX from iMac 2 & 3 to 10.7.5, but this would create problems with other licenses and programs currently running on these Computers, so i dropped this Option.

Running a Windows compatible subsystem like "WineBottler" to simulate an Windows Environment to allow Publishing were not succesful.

Request at ArchiCAD support Germany was repeatedly turned down.

Free software engineers for MAC systems were not found, just for Windows ( Well, those found for MAC were in no way what you could call a Software Engineer ). Please drop me a note if you know one. We promise prompt payment on hour base.

Further experience has shown that on 10.10 ( And recently 10.11 ) ArchiCAD 12 runs stable ( Without the ability to publish PDF), but on 10.9.5 it has problems with external drawings PDF placed in the program, leading to crashes from time to time.

I think it would be better to move on to ArchiCAD 20 and bring all MACs to one Version, as i think it is now time wasted trying to solve this problem.

Thanks in advance for everything.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Dragan wrote:
Further experience has shown that on 10.10 ( And recently 10.11 ) ArchiCAD 12 runs stable ( Without the ability to publish PDF), but on 10.9.5 it has problems with external drawings PDF placed in the program, leading to crashes from time to time.

I think it would be better to move on to ArchiCAD 20 and bring all MACs to one Version, as i think it is now time wasted trying to solve this problem.

Thanks in advance for everything.

Wow, this may be the record for the slowest conversation. 🙂

Sorry that you're still having such problems. I really cannot guess what might be wrong with your systems. Even with 10.11.6, I was just able to publish to PDF from AC 12 as normal.

Because nothing older than the current and previous versions of AC are supported, it would probably save the most time and money to upgrade as you propose. But, your problem with publishing seems an issue with your system that upgrading the OS doesn't seem to solve. You may have to do a fresh install of a newer OS, or a fresh install of AC followed by installing the most recent update/hotfix for that version.

But, before something so drastic, go to myarchicad.com and download a trial version of AC 20 and test whether it can publish to PDF. If it cannot, then technical support can at least help find out why - and the reason may be the same as the problem with older versions.

Just to check: you don't have a previous version of the PDF file selected in Finder when you try to Publish? See this known issue:
http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/troubleshooting/import-export/pdf/#Publishing_PDF_is_not_possible_o...

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Dear Karl,

too bad we don't get 1000 years old anymore, conversations over such Long times would be very interesting, as more & more experience flows in.

I have read the link you posted, but this was not the Problem, still thanks for the guess.

We tested AC20 Demo and publishing worked without problems, order followed shortly thereafter.

ArchiCAD 20 arrived in our Office last week an we are in the process of preparing/transfering our mastertemplate to ArchiCAD 20 before installing it on all Computers (After updating all of them to OSX 10.11). Had the usual troubleshooting and dongleswitching with the new version, nothing critical till now. AC20 runs fast and lean on the prototype pc.

As sidenote: we received a new iMac OSX 10.11 (The protoptype pc) recently and behold, after installing ArchiCAD 12 on this iMac the publisher worked. Too bad for AC12 it will be abandoned now.

So many thanks for your time and responses.

Best wishes, Dragan.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thanks for posting the update. Glad you can move forward. 🙂