Archicad 29 is unusable due to Teamwork errors. Please review a measure to provide a partial refund

[Lee KiSeong]

Archicad 29 is unusable due to Teamwork errors. Please review a measure to provide a partial refund of the Archicad 29 subscription fee.

Hello.

This is the first time in 14 years I have had such a terrible experience.

The client computers are Macs. The server is Windows 11.

The time servers are all identical, set to time.apple.com. (I even attempted to unify the time on the Windows server using the UTC method, but it was of no use.)

The error shown in the image below appears 3 to 4 times a day, causing about 30 minutes to an hour of work to vanish each time. I am suffering significant financial loss.

I converted from a perpetual license to a subscription and prepaid for 3 years.

The exact same issue occurs in SaaS as well. Only in version 29!

Graphisoft has completely failed with version 29.

What is even more despairing is that I have seen many reports of similar issues to mine in the community.

Yet, Graphisoft has absolutely no idea what the cause is.

I received a response telling me to clear the cache files and test again.

If the cache files are the problem, then why does version 28 work perfectly fine without issues?

Please take a look at what I have gone through over the past 2-3 days.

[Patrick M]

Lee, I see this error about 15+x a day. 
I don't know the volume of users you interact with, but I've seen this exact warning dozens of times across multiple offices, ranging from 2-3 practitioners up to 80+.
It has crippled some projects. One firm I consult with has gone from an average of 44 hours of overhead per month office wide to 154 hours non-billable/overhead in January and 102 hours in February.
So, count yourself lucky that you've only seen it rarely.
I have gone through the paces. Clean up the file. Clear the local data. etc. etc.
I have heard from graphisoft: it's probably your libraries, its probably your attributes, its probably your file SOMEWHERE. The hard truth is, this WAS an occasional issue through 2025. Once my clients switched to cloud service and AC29, it is a daily struggle.
I'm here to commiserate with the OP... this is a BIG problem. I have clients asking me to run evaluations on what it would cost to transition away from Archicad... I don't know Revit, but I'm running out of reasons to ask them to stick with Graphisoft.
I am thankful I have a team at Graphisoft helping me sort this out and look for a solution; but until I stop hearing how it's my client's fault, their files, their computers, their server configuration... until Graphisoft takes 100% ownership of the ****show that is BIMcloud in the year 2026, I have no argument when they tell me they want to move to Revit.
If archicad has teamwork errors because of local data problems, or libraries, or attributes, or polygons, or... then it is a teamwork problem. it is an archicad problem. it is a graphisoft problem. it is NOT an end user problem. We don't write the software. We aren't all expterts in how the software works. And we shouldn't have to be. BIMcloud has to work for all of us, not just those with the patience to deal with teamwork warnings or those lucky enough to not have them at all.

[Patrick M]

I'll repeat; it is definitely not something on Lee KiSeong's side. And if it is, it is Archicad and BIMclouds inability to handle whatever that is.
It is not my responsibility nor Mr. KiSeong's to dive through every possible reason files are failing to send to the bimcloud. I have people on a weekly basis asking me "how do I bill my time for yesterday, I lost all my work when I opened the file this morning?"
I brought these warnings up a year and half ago, and have been hearing for 12+ months how "it's something in your file". I now have 4 separate firms notifying me of catastrophic loss of work and daily warnings. If one person has an issue, I'd be willing to investigate what they did. If it were 4-5, I'd try to find a trend between them. When its 40+ projects across 4 offices and well over 150 users, this is not a practitioners problem, this is a software melt down.

[Patrick M]

case in point, these are a daily interaction since bimcloud SAAS + AC29:

[Patrick M]

its not jsut the warnigns, it bimcloud failing to sync with local data. local data randomly being overwritten by server data. hours or even days of work just vanishing without warning

[Patrick M]

I am just now going through a circus act. I have a 500,000 sq ft office park. 7 people have been cranking for weeks on, struggling with these warnings.
they need to get drawings in for permit TODAY.
Everyone puts a 300pt red stamp with their initials, to double check everyone is getting their send to go through. we have 5 people's signatures.
the bimcloud activity SHOWS send from everyone in the last 5 min. 
We are sending repeatedly. Repeatedly getting these messages. and the 2 people who have doing some of the most work (the work that is going to be the most time consuming to redo) can not see each others stamps on the plan view. Double check, they are on AC layer. Tried send only. Tried receive only. Server reports successful send and receive. Local data does not show verification marks.
so we are going to miss our deadline, and those two designers are going to be working through the weekend to get the drawings out by monday.
...
anyone saying this is 'their fault' or something in their file... honestly, I don't have patience for that **** any more.
this is, frankly, unacceptable.
I'm with the OP... we shouldn't pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, as a company, for software that we are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in billable time in lost work, missed deadlines, and the stress this is causing.

[schagemann]

Sorry to hear about all the trouble. And I am sure you probably already tried all you can to fix this on your side.

Assuming you are on macOS, have you tried nuking the TW Data and Cache Folders?

Also, and I may have missed this, if you are using BIMcloud SaaS, it would be interesting to see what latency your internet connection to BIMcloud shows...

[Patrick M]

I work with multiple offices on multiple bimcloud configurations. This is worst for my clients on SaaS. In speed tests, it happens even when up/down are 500/500 or better (business internet) and latency is about as good as it gets (IE <20ms).
It does not seem to get better, or at least is not a long term fix, to clear t/w data and caches. Even saving a pln and sharing a new file does not remove the problem. I have found that having teams leave the files regularly can reduce occurrences; but given that the server and the user side (local data) may not even indicate there are teamwork communication issues, leaving the project risks losing unsent local data when rejoining.
This has become such an impediment to effective work; my primary firm that was averaging 40-50 hours/month overhead is now seeing 100-150 hours/month overhead due to lost work, redoing work, and time spent trouble shooting these issues. There have even been talks about where the break even point is for switching everything to PC/Revit... at some point, continuing to burn billable time on something Archicad should be expediting a fix for just loses any argument against making a switch

[marcoariveross]

Hi Lazlo

What you say about large file sizes is true, but I disagree on one point.

I've worked on 10 GB projects with version 27, even migrating to 28, and we didn't have these problems. We were also forced to migrate to version 29, which was removed from the MEP functionality in earlier versions.

It does cause loading problems, errors like the one mentioned, and Graphisoft seems to have forgotten about us.

There are many bugs in this version. It seems like novice programmers are in charge now. Many of us love the software, but losing money due to bugs in unfinished products in the versions they release is becoming critical.

[Patrick M]

@marcoariveross yeah, same here. I had a file in AC20-27 (it was an 8+ year project). At one point, the main building file was 16GB. 
It was painfully slow. The team sometimes logged time to overhead because they'd have to wait 30-60 minutes to open the file. But that was BIMcloud basic, opening over a bottlenecked VPN. And even with that file, we had maybe 2-3 crashes/bugs per month. Practically no failed teamwork operations.
...
if Graphisoft wants to blame this on file size, why did file size not affect s/r reliability in 27 and earlier?
if Graphisoft wants to blame library management, why did bad library management not affect s/r reliability in 27 and earlier?
if Graphisoft wants to blame invalid geometries, polygon count, solid element operations, number of viewpoints, number of layouts, session report, attribute issues, or anything else that has been proposed... why did none of this seem to matter before AC27?
...
The thing is, we have basically been forced into a cloud service, cloud license, and of course we need to be maintaining current builds/versions, since they don't "support" older versions.
but its about time they started supporting at least the current version. This is not a "your file" problem. This is an "archicad 29 and bimcloud can no longer support your files" problem. And that can only be fixed on the Archicad/Graphisoft side...

[marcoariveross]

That's right. If they say it's a problem with the file, geometry, and so on... to me, that's more likely true, but that's because we use Archicad 29, and even less so with Bimcloud, since they're not yet optimized (even though they force us to migrate to supposedly have better options). Up until version 27, basic Bimcloud ran perfectly for us... Honestly, I don't know if writing here will do any good... Does it? Will they listen to us? Or is it just a way to vent and nothing more?