Spinning again

[owen]

Recently we have started experiencing lots of rainbow wheel hangs in Archicad. This always happens at the following times:

1. At Startup when splash screen appears
2. File>Open..
3. File>Save As..

It also occurs at random times when Archicad is left inactive for a minute or so, such as switching to another app and back again.

Each time the hang lasts for 30-60 seconds.

I thought it could be related to the cross-platform issue from AC9 but i'd never thought it was an issue with 10 and on opening the .plist file with PlistEdit Pro that toggle doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Server "Connection failed" warning

Anyway i have tried cleaning out my preference files and cache completely but the problem persists. Anyone experienced this before or any clues as to what it may be?

I'm pretty sure its network related but nothing else on the network is having any issues. ArchiCAD has always seemed to be very finicky about network connections

[Greg Kmethy]

Looking at your config, you are a possible victim of this NVidia bug:
http://archicadwiki.com/Bugs/Archicad_10_causes_system_crash_on_OS_X_%28Intel%29

About the hangs, maybe ArchiCAD is browsing your network for a WIBU key. Although, in this case you should get a notification about that. Nevertheless, you can optimize the WIBU serach if you specify WIBU where to look. This is described in karl's article here:
http://archicadwiki.com/TechNotes/Limiting_the_ports_that_WIBU_scans

The article applies to PC, but Mac is similar. You can access the control panel by clicking "WKconfig" - spotlight it. On the "Client" page of WkConfig, you can select only to enable Local (single key attached to your computer) or WkLAN (network key somewhere in your network) subsystem. If you have a net key, you can define a search list of servers - specify the server(s) where your dongle is. Then ArchiCAd will skip the rest of the network

[owen]

Thanks for the tips but no luck:

gkmethy wrote:
Looking at your config, you are a possible victim of this NVidia bug:
http://archicadwiki.com/Bugs/Archicad_10_causes_system_crash_on_OS_X_%28Intel%29

The problem is happening on a mix of machines .. G5's, Mac Pro and Macbook Pros - the Mac Pros are the only ones with the 7300GT.

gkmethy wrote:
About the hangs, maybe ArchiCAD is browsing your network for a WIBU key. Although, in this case you should get a notification about that. Nevertheless, you can optimize the WIBU serach if you specify WIBU where to look. This is described in karl's article here:
http://archicadwiki.com/TechNotes/Limiting_the_ports_that_WIBU_scans

The article applies to PC, but Mac is similar. You can access the control panel by clicking "WKconfig" - spotlight it. On the "Client" page of WkConfig, you can select only to enable Local (single key attached to your computer) or WkLAN (network key somewhere in your network) subsystem. If you have a net key, you can define a search list of servers - specify the server(s) where your dongle is. Then ArchiCAd will skip the rest of the network

I have directed WIBU to scan our server IP on the default WIBU port, as shown in the WkConfig on the server, but it has not made any difference.

It may just be a coincidence but around the time problem started our IT tech came in and installed a new ADSL router and configured a VPN connection. Not sure how this could have affected ArchiCAD but if anyone has any more ideas no matter how obscure ... its driving people here nuts atm

[Edit]

One more thing .. it rarely happens when working in a MOD file. It still hangs at File>Open but once the MOD file is open you can switch between apps usually without hangs. Regular PLN/PLCs always hang if AC has been left alone for a few minutes.

[owen]

Problem does not occur when running AC9 on the same machines.

There is a very brief (1-2 secs) spinning rainbow wheel at the splash screen as AC looks for the WIBU Key but in my experience this has always been there for OS X. Once in the program all is fine.

[Greg Kmethy]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the new router affects the problem. It could be that ArchiCAD is waiting for a network response, either for WIBU or libraries, and the response is slower than it should be. Please contact your local Tech Support in Australia - they will help you to troubleshoot.

[owen]

gkmethy wrote:
I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the new router affects the problem. It could be that ArchiCAD is waiting for a network response, either for WIBU or libraries, and the response is slower than it should be.

Well it definately appears to be library related. I just started up AC at home, 1-2 secs of spinning wheel until i got the 'No protection key' alert - this interval to look for the WIBU key is what i have been used to prior to the problem, although it should not really happen at all imo.

Started in Demo mode. Then had a few more seconds of spinning wheel before AC attempted to make a connection to the non-existent server, which I cancelled. I assume this is caused trying to load the last loaded libraries. It then span for another 30 seconds or so before reaching the Open/New file dialog. I understand this is not strictly the same condition as the network is not there, but this 30 second period is roughly the same regardless, so it is obviously taking a long time to find whatever it is looking for on the network.

Created a new file using the default template using default profile and then quite Demo AC.

Restarted AC. The protection key alert appeared immediately, and AC started almost immediately once Demo mode was selected. All up took less than 8 seconds including me clicking through things.

gkmethy wrote:
Please contact your local Tech Support in Australia - they will help you to troubleshoot.

I have actually lodged a support ticket with them several days ago and am still waiting on a response. Will give them a call tomorrow and see if we can sort it out.

Any more ideas from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

One more question .. is there differences in the triggers/frequency of AC9 and AC10 accessing libraries and the protection key over a network? It would appear something is different as the problem is not occuring in 9.

[owen]

Well i spoke to GS Australia and sent them an email with the results of some more testing we did. They will have a look at it but said it will most likely get booted up to GSHQ.

We have established it is definitely library related so the workaround at the moment is to copy ALL our libraries off the server and into a temporary folder on everyones desktop. Once files are relinked to these local copies the problem goes away.

At this point we are waiting for GS to get back to us with possible causes. ArchiCAD is the only program we are running that has problems with our network which is a pretty standard setup (Gigabit ethernet, OS X 10.3.9 Server, 10.3.9 & 10.4.8 clients).

[Anonymous]

Did this problem get resolved? My client (A10, Mac 10.3) is having a similar issue with a Solo project that gets a Connection Failed on startup. The Mac error indicates A10 is trying to reach an IP on the LAN that no longer exists. We have flushed caches and prefs, moved to local libraries, and have the WIBU key locally, but the error persists pretty much as described by the initiator of this thread. Any ideas???

[owen]

Dan wrote:
Did this problem get resolved? My client (A10, Mac 10.3) is having a similar issue with a Solo project that gets a Connection Failed on startup. The Mac error indicates A10 is trying to reach an IP on the LAN that no longer exists. We have flushed caches and prefs, moved to local libraries, and have the WIBU key locally, but the error persists pretty much as described by the initiator of this thread. Any ideas???

The problem was resolved - however as we completely recabled the office (CAT6), bought a new managed switch, an Xserve, upgraded all the various OS versions to 10.4.9 and reorganized our file structure (including the name of the file sharepoint itself) so I cannot be sure exactly what did the trick!

(this was going to happen anyway, it wasn't a hugely expensive stab in the dark)

Nothing came back from GS but as the problem was solved by the above we never chased it up.

You say it is trying to connect to an old IP - was this an old server IP?

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Owen.

The obsolete IP is that of a Mac on the LAN that was used both as a workstation and as the repository for common Libraries. It is not running Apple server software.

The spinning and connection failure goes along with the drawing when we move it to another machine. A new drawing created on the problem machine does not exhibit the problem.

Despite not being able to complete the connection, the drawing seems to have all its pieces.

Disconnecting the machine from the LAN (pulling the ethernet cable) eliminates the slowdown.