ArchiCAD 21 - Working between Win and Mac links' path problem

[Anonymous]

Hi,

We have a couple of new Windows in the office recently and realized there is a problem with the links in the file when we open the file in Window and in Mac.
If a link was placed on by a person on a Mac the person working on the same file on a Window wouldn't be able to see the drawing because the link was missing on his computer. And vice versa, the links placed on a Window would become missing on the Mac. Apparently it is because Win and Mac generate links differently.
Same thing happen to the publishing set. We had to make dupilcate publishing set for Win and Mac because the path for the same folder appears differently on MAC and Window:

On Mac: \\FUSE-SERVER._smb._tcp.local\FUSE-SERVER\FUSE_Projects\...\00__CURRENT\00__PDF

On Win: F:\FUSE_Projects\...\00__CURRENT\00__PDF

Does anyone has the same problem in a mixed environment like this?
How can we solve/work around this problem? Is there a way to make Archicad recognize the link regardless of whether it was placed from a Win for a Mac?

For us we kind of work around the publishing set by create different ones for Win and Mac but the links for img/DWG are the real problem.

Thank you in advance for all you help!

[schagemann]

Anh,

What type of server are you using?

In our experience the only way to ensure that macs connect to a SMB server in a consistent way that ARCHICAD can handle is as following (even in mac only environments):

1. use the Go > Connect to Server command... give all users the correct SMB path;

2. ensure that nobody connects in any other way and before they open ARCHICAD - one way is to disallow users to not save their server password... hard to enforce though;

3. in AC22 - not sure if you have access - there is an experimental feature in the Work Environment > Company Standards Schemes > Network & Update > Experimental Feature.... on macOS, which prevents macOS from auto mounting server volumes;

Hope that helps somehow.

[Minh Nguyen]

Hi Anh,

Thank you for your question and sorry for the experience!

I will have our Technical Support team take a look at this. From my knowledge, it is doable, but it is rather messy to carry out. In general, you need to enter a full path to the machine/drive in the network.

Nevertheless, I will reach out to you again here once we conclude the investigation. Thank you very much!

Best regards,
Minh

[Minh Nguyen]

Hi Anh,

I have received some help from our Techincal Support team. In short, you need to use Universal Naming Convention path in order to have the link works on both Windows and Mac. Allow me to explain in detail how it looks like:

If you have a common file server, which let's name it "COMMON", it is available through the internal network of your office. Therefore, the computer where you have this file server, must have a name. Let's call this computer "common-pc-w10".

Now, when you are in ARCHICAD, when you locate the file server, on Windows, use this: \\common-pc-w10\exampledrawing.pdf, while on macOS, use this: //common-pc-w10/exampledrawing.pdf

In this case, ARCHICAD can always find the proper path to the file server, no matter which platform you are working on.

I hope that this information will help you on this matter. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to me again!

Thank you very much!

Best regards,
Minh

[Anonymous]

Hi Minh,

Thank you very much for your help.

Could you please clarify further on the solution?

Our common file server is FUSE SERVER, for some reason when we navigate in Archicad to the same folder the path to the server is somehow different on Mac and Win:

On Mac the path is: \\FUSE-SERVER._smb._tcp.local\FUSE-SERVER\FUSE_Projects\1302_ARNCLIFFE_19 Dowling Street KCCS\00___DOCUMENTATION\07___ CD\00__CURRENT\00__DWG

On window the path is: F:\FUSE_Projects\1302_ARNCLIFFE_19 Dowling Street KCCS\00___DOCUMENTATION\07___ CD\00__CURRENT\00__DWG

Is it something in Archicad that we can do to manually change the path ? or is it something we need to ask our IT to look into?

I asked our IT if there is a way to make the path to our server read the same on Window and Mac and they said there wasn't.

We much appreciate your advice.

Kind regards,

Anh