BIMcloud warnings are getting out of control

[Patrick M]

here is a small sampling of the t/w warnings I have been trouble shooting the past week. This feels like something is broken... or theres something else at play here (my tinfoil hat is on pretty tight right now). And these are about 1/4-1/2 of what I've been sent:

 

  

  

  

 

[marcoariveross]

HI

According to the representative from Peru, Delta Cache is only for BimCloud On-Premise, the intermediate version of BimCloud. BimCloud As a Service doesn't work with Delta Cache... Does anyone know about this?
Why is Graphisoft having so many problems with a service that's steadily declining?

[Laszlo Nagy]

---

@jamesMorris wrote:

Even less, when a employee in the year 2026 tells you that +2GB is considered big 😂

---

Unfortunately, no hardware ever invented was fast enough for high-end software (this is not Archicad-specific). There will always be projects that reach and test the limits of hardware, which is why it is important to keep an eye on file sizes and divide them into smaller ones when performance becomes an issue.

By the way, I am not a Graphisoft employee as such; I am self-employed, working for Graphisoft as a contractor.

[jamesMorris]

This has nothing to do with hardware, but bad software. If Graphisoft can't handle +2GB files, that is bad software, not a hardware limitation. Or else you have to point out what exactly the hardware limitation is. 

If you don't want to be seen as an employee of Graphisoft, I would recommend removing the Graphisoft logo before your name, which should symbolize the forum user being an official employee AFAIK 😉

[Ernest Atanasiu]

I haven't worked on files that are less than 2GB in a long time. Our current BIMcloud contains 14 projects from which only 2 are less than that, all the others are much more, up to 12.9GB. This is the reported size of the local BIMcloud basic server, not a pln size. Dividing a project this big with external hotlinks would make me addicted to heavy medication, we barely manage iceberg method. We tried with a project that is made of 4 different buildings and updating takes up to 1 hour, same for exporting IFC or BIMx. 

I would say the problem here is not the size nor the time but the "moving target" problem as defined by Helio_Avila . I am fine waiting extra minutes to have a successful "Send" operation as opposed to 2 seconds and receive an error. BTW, there is no link between the size of the project and the rejection rate of the Server. In our case it happens in all projects, small or otherwise. The error messages come fast.
I agree, the hardware can't keep up with a fast software but the software should be flexible enough to take into account this, too. 

[torben_wadlinger]

Laszlo, dividing models into smaller models is a bad advice. How should this be possible? You often run into these bimcloud-problems while you are in the middle of your planning process with dozens or even hundreds of drawings and a huge amount of dependencies. The bimcloud is sold as the goto-solution for big projects especially the saas-bimcloud. The reality is that these problems are well known and documented for years and are still unfixed. 

[Laszlo Nagy]

So, what do you do when the project files become too large? You optimized your file, removed everything that would increase file size or slow it down, but it still causes performance issues?

[jamesMorris]

Almost two months ago, Graphisoft employee @Rubia Torres claimed:

"We will reach out to our local partner and reconnect with @Kevin Lee. @Ernest Atanasiu"

How did that turn out? Do you guys have any updates for us?

[torben_wadlinger]

I have already noticed elsewhere that “pass it on to the customer” is Graphisoft's new strategy.

So here are a few genuine, tried-and-tested tips:

0.) Create a project backup.

1.) Remove all DWG and resolved PDF files from the project.

2.) The same applies to point clouds, etc. that are no longer needed.

3.) Convert railings first into morphs and then into static objects.

4.) The same applies to facade objects. You may have to re-dimension and re-label views or details, so check this beforehand.

Alternative 1: Sometimes it helps to save these objects as a module or project and then re-integrate them as a hotline. However, this will definitely affect plans and destroy dimension chains/labels, so test beforehand.

Alternative 2: Copy the project and turn the copy into a layout project, i.e., relink all drawings.

All of this takes time, a lot of time. And therefore money. Money that neither Graphisoft nor the customer pays. But these costs are caused by Graphisoft. You have known about this problem for years! But it is not being fixed. In the end, they always say that the problem is not reproducible and is an isolated case. I know that it is not an isolated case, because I talk to colleagues in other offices, large and small. They tell me the same thing. Only they have already given up.

[Patrick M]

yes, it's been almost 2 years of me bringing up teamwork errors, malfunctions, glitches, and lost work. It has always been:
'it's because your server is on a raid drive" or
"it's probably your network configuration" or
"have you tried moving to a cloud server?" or
"its probably something in your files causing the problems" or
"it's probably your libraries" or
"it's probably your layers" or
"it has to be your attributes"
...
Moving forward, if there is a problem with my files, no there isn't.

There is a problem with Archicad & BIMcloud's ability to process my files.

I don't get mad at a 10d framing nail because the tack hammer I bought wont drive it... I expect the tool we are paying thousands of dollars per seat for to be able to handle the files we are producing; and to not require every designer in the project to be an expert BIM manager to keep it functioning.

[marcoariveross]

In our case, this happens with both large and small files... it's not a file size issue, it's a performance issue. With the basic BIMcloud paid service, it was faster. How can we improve? It takes us 15 minutes to upload a file at the start of the day. How can we improve the sending and receiving time, which is similar to the start of the day, aside from messages about connection problems or lost licenses, etc.? Selecting and reserving isn't that slow, but it's still complicated for us.