ArchiCAD saving error

[jzarmin]

Hi there,

We have recently experienced a very serious saving error that threatens our ability to use ArchiCAD over our office computer network.

We use networked Mac's with the CAD files residing on an OS Server 10.3.9 G4 server and our workstations are OS 10.4 G4's and G5's. The network uses a 1 Gig Ethernet hub.

We had just recently upgraded all of our OS to the versions listed above. After that we installed the ArchiCAD tiger patch on all workstations. A few weeks ago we had installed the 3rd Hotfix ArchiCAD patch bringing our Build number up to 2045.

Here's the Problem:
When editting (from a workstation) a pre-existing archiCAD file that resides on the server everything goes fine until several saves have occured. Then we inevitably get a note:

"The file (file name) was saved successfully. ArchiCAD failed to delete the following temporary file: Orig_(random number)

We then notice a temporary file has been created next to the archiCAD file. The temporary file is undeletable(through the finder) until the server is restarted. More will be created if one continues to save. Also after closing the original ArchiCAD file, upon trying to reopen it we get a note:

"Integry Checking Error! The project data was damaged in the last step."
We get a choice to Continue working w/ risk of crashes or Force Quit to return to the last Autosaved version.

This error has occurred only since all of our OS and ArchiCAD upgrades. It also occurred when we were using OS Server 10.3.4 on the server. The error does not occur when the same corruptable archiCAD file is brought to a workstation's desktop and editted and saved there, avoiding the network and avoiding the server.

Anybody have any ideas? This obviously is a serious problem as any file we work on over the network ends up corrupted and unopenable!

thank you
Joe Armin
San Francisco

[__archiben]

jzarmin wrote:
The temporary file is undeletable(through the finder) until the server is restarted.

it sounds very much as though you need to review your server permission settings . . . ?

~/archiben

[jzarmin]

Hello,

We did go into the server and check permissions for the file and the folders in which it resides. They had already been set as "Read and Write" enabled for all the different users (the owner, the groups and others).

So it must be something else?

Joe Armin

[__archiben]

jzarmin wrote:
They had already been set as "Read and Write" enabled for all the different users (the owner, the groups and others).

So it must be something else?

not quite joe! the permissions could well be set to read-write, but the ownership of new files may still be set to the person who wrote them, not the person who's trying to write over them. shouldn't actually make too much of a difference, but things like that mean file ownership gets very confusing.

what i do is set the server sharepoint to define the permissions of everything within it. setting it to "Inherit permission from parent" means that anybody who saves a file on the server won't affect the permissions because they are being overwritten by the enclosing folder's permissions. and all you need to do is set the permissions of the top level folder and click 'apply to enclosed' once. the server does the rest . . .

~/archiben

[jzarmin]

Hello there,

I have been out of touch due to an office move. We're back now and still experiencing the saving problem. It looks as if others are experiencing the same problem. See:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=7622

for a thread posted by pdeppe under the title:

Error Messages - Bizarre Corruption


Archiben recommended doing the following,

what i do is set the server sharepoint to define the permissions of everything within it. setting it to "Inherit permission from parent" means that anybody who saves a file on the server won't affect the permissions because they are being overwritten by the enclosing folder's permissions. and all you need to do is set the permissions of the top level folder and click 'apply to enclosed' once. the server does the rest . .

However I am completely unfamiliar with setting sharepoints- does anyone know how to do so?

thanks
joe
san francisco

[__archiben]

jzarmin wrote:
However I am completely unfamiliar with setting sharepoints- does anyone know how to do so?

joe

you have to use the 'workgroup' manager - part of the server tools software - to define your 'shares'. these are basically folders on the server (or network if you get more technical) that the server serves to the 'client' machines in the office. i.e. your users.

these 'shares' then appear as separate volumes in the finder when you connect to the server. 'workgroup manager' is used to set the permissions and properties for each 'share'point.

see the screenshot below - note that i am in the 'sharing' settings along the top - you need to click the 'inherit from parent' box in the 'properties' tab of your selected and then go back to the 'general' tab and click 'apply permissions to enclosed'. this has the result of resetting all of the permissions within that share to those you've specified (also in the 'general' tab).

one thing to bear in mind: when you click 'inherit permissions...' there may be a several second delay depending on the number of files in the sharepoint.

disclaimer: all of the above i've found out through trial, error, blood, sweat and tears. i'm not a sysadmin and therefore i may be overlooking something. what i'm describing has worked for me in the past and formed the optimal solution for the companies i've worked for without any outside technical support. i also don't want to begin suggesting how you define your 'user' and 'group' settings: there are so many permutations possible that a discussion into how it could work for you would last many many pages. it's worth reading through the relevant sections of the OSX server software manual - even though i never understood all of it, there were concepts discussed that i could relate to and begin to think about re-working into my setup.

disclaimer no.2: the problem you're talking about, (also discussed here), often rears it's head when there is a permissions problem, however sorting out permissions may not solve the problem once and for all. i also get this error message intermittently when simply re-saving a PLN to my hard disk. admittedly not to the extent that you guys seem to be experiencing.

hope this helps.
~/archiben

[Anonymous]

Archiben:

Thanks for the reply and "inherit" directions. I will check this later this evening. Very clear - we'll give it a shot.

I especially can appreciate the "trial, error, blood, sweat and tears" part. This is how we also opperate - and btwn OS x and Arch 9 and old dog has a hard time with the new tricks!!!

Thanks again. Hopefully this will work for us.

Paul

[jzarmin]

Hello,

Ben, thanks for the clarification. I checked the server's sharepoint settings, and they were as you had recommended. I clicked "apply to enclosed" just for good measure. But afterward had the same saving error.

Then I did a test that an I.T. friend recommended. He thought maybe the problem was stemming from us working on OS 10.4 stations, accessing over the network files that reside on an OS 10.3.9 server.

He suggested testing whether the problem would occur when working between two OS 10.4 computers. So I placed an archiCAD file on one of our OS 10.4 stations, opened filesharing and then accessed the file over the network from a different OS 10.4 station, editted the file and saved several times. NO PROBLEM!

I'd be curious to see what Pdeppe's OS's are on the server and the stations?

Joe
San Francisco

[__archiben]

jzarmin wrote:
I'd be curious to see what Pdeppe's OS's are on the server and the stations?

sounds as though you have another problem in there somewhere then. but a server still does the basic serving tasks regardless of the numbers in the operating system. i've used 10.3 client with 10.2 server and now 10.4 client with 10.3 server. no problems like you describe.

in your 10.4 > 10.4 experiment, did you try then accessing those files with a third 10.4 system? permissions are a peculiar breed and if you're connected from one machine to another you automatically have permission to be there . . . so whatever you read/write will be accessible by you and the host machine anyway . . . (for example - saving something to another user's drop box or public folder doesn't automatically mean you will be the owner as it could do on a server....)

i'm sure it's a permissions thing rather than anything more sinister. what are your 'group' settings reading in the sharepoint's 'general' setup? do you have an office 'group' defined and all users added to that group? (again - this is done in 'workgroup manager' under the 'users + groups' tab...)

keep trying.........
~/archiben

[jzarmin]

Hi Ben,
Here's an update.

you wrote:

in your 10.4 > 10.4 experiment, did you try then accessing those files
with a third 10.4 system?

I did do so and did not have any problems until I, just out of curiousity, began hitting save repeatedly and in succession. You can, from the finder, see the temporary scratch files appearing and then disappearing at the same folder level as the editted CAD file. At some point, I received that same old error note saying that the temp file could not be saved over and the temporary scratch file did not disappear. At some point in this test I even received a note saying "permissions error". I closed it and then tried to open it and got the following note:

The project currently cannot be opened for writing because:
-another user is reading it, or
-a publishing process is accessing it, or
-a system level permission problem is preventing file access.

I then tried to open it again later successfully?!?

I did check the 'group' settings in the sharepoint's 'general' setup. We do have an office group defined and all users added to that group. All of the users are logged into the server using the same name and are added to that group.

My I.T. friend suggested placing our CAD file remotely on his OS 10.3.8 server at his office and editting it and saving it from our office OS Tiger computer stations as a test. It worked fine for quite a while with several problem-free saves until we finally got that same saving error. I just clicked "try again" and then it did write over the temp. file and the CAD file worked okay. I closed it and then opened the file successfully. So it was still buggy, but less so than working off of our own server.

Our next test will be to set-up a brand new sharepoint with the same permissions settings as our current one just to see if that makes a difference. Next test is then to update our server's OS to Tiger.

By the way, I really appreciate the time and ideas you're donating. Hopefully we'll all end up learning something from this weird problem!

Joe

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