Plotmaker 9 Link Updating Speed (Very Slow)

[Anonymous]

From: BrianB
To: BrianB
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:08 pm
I've been having a problem with how long it takes Plotmaker 9 to update linked files. It will often take a few minutes for Plotmaker to find and open a file for updating. I'm currently using ArchiCAD 9 with a central master library which is based on a server along with the project files. There is currently only 3 computers using our server and they all have over a 1 gig. connection. It seems like plotmaker just has a hard time locating the project files it needs to open, because once they are found and opened plotmakers updating bar goes reasonably fast. Does anyone know the hierarchy in which plotmaker looks for these file links? Or does anyone have any suggestions in how the file structure of the libraries and projects files should be set up on the server to help Plotmaker find them quicker? All of our machines currently run Windows XP and are less than a year old.

[Anonymous]

Quite possibly the delay your are seeing is the time it takes for the background Archicad to start the program and open the file. Once open the updates usually do not take a considerable amount of time.

[Brad Elliott]

We have this exact same problem on an all Mac network. It happens when we try to update with the navigator pallette in the Drawing Usage window. There is a huge delay before Background ArchiCAD Starts. If we update through the Tree By Subsets window Background ArchiCAD starts right up. We have complained to Graphisoft before. Because of the size and nature of the project our Plotmaker file is linked to several sources and there seems to be a path checking bug that causes the huge delay (it can be up to 10 minutes). Once background ArchiCAD finally starts up it is fast as normal to update the drawings. By the way we pulled everything on to one computer to isolate if it is a network problem and we had the exact same delay so it is a code problem.

[TomWaltz]

.... and everybody makes fun of us for still using PMKs......

[Brad Elliott]

It still beats the heck out of PMK's. Jobs with only a couple separate files work smoothly.

[TomWaltz]

....Until the first time Plotmaker drops a few links back to PMKs and the only way to replace several links (just which ones you cannot always tell until they stop updating).

[Brad Elliott]

I don't understand the issue. If a file is dropped back to a PMK just relink it and re-enable it as an ArchiCAD project and it drops it right back in. It's just a quick scan of the drawing usage after an update. It is a lot easier to deal with this occasional (which Graphisoft says they are going to fix) problem than trying to track a PMK folder.

[TomWaltz]

The issue is that the Drawing Usage Navigator displays an "OK" status for the view that are unlinked.

From the day we started on Archicad, on 8.0, every single update that has come out, we've tried using the live links in Plotmaker. Every single service pack, every single release, and every time it has disappointed us. We tried PMKs, and while they are supremely annoying, we have also found them to be 100% reliable for our 30+ users.

Live linking Plotmaker to Archicad views cost us a lot of hours, and shows very little promise as a long-term solution, especially since all it does if open a background Archicad and create a PMK on its own, instead of you doing it yourself. Good idea, bad implementation.

[Anonymous]

TomWaltz wrote:
Live linking Plotmaker to Archicad views cost us a lot of hours, and shows very little promise as a long-term solution, especially since all it does if open a background Archicad and create a PMK on its own, instead of you doing it yourself. Good idea, bad implementation.

I agree with Tom here. I was having good experiences with the live linking since 8.1, working with modest file sizes and single source PLNs. Now that I am working with large (~500ksf) multi-building projects with multiple PLNs linked to single LBKs, I find that we are wasting too much time with slow updates and relinking drawings. I am especially intolerant of anything which causes hang-ups at print time. I do not like late nights, embarrassing mistakes, or blown deadlines.

We are now switching back to publishing PMKs, which has always been quick and reliable in my experience. I don't really mind, there are plenty of times when having the intermediary file is an advantage. (Kind of like having clutch between the engine and transmission.) On a similar note, I find it is often preferable to publish modules rather than hotlinking between PLNs (especially to link a file to a part of itself).

[__archiben]

Matthew wrote:
I find that we are wasting too much time with slow updates and relinking drawings. I am especially intolerant of anything which causes hang-ups at print time. I do not like late nights, embarrassing mistakes, or blown deadlines.

ah! the professor is beginning to feel the pain i was having back in london?

cheers!
~/archiben