AmandaBrady

55 minutes ago, Dermot said:

Did you click on the "Check Knowledge Base" button?  This will often take you to tech support article that will explain things in more detail. 

 

Did you get any error messages before you noticed the problems in your plan?  Most often when plans start misbehaving the program will display some kind of error message letting you know that there is a problem.  Sometimes people ignore these messages and then wonder why the plan is having problems.  You should never ignore error messages.

 

Did you save your plan after you saw the problems?  This is one way to get corrupted plan files.  Whenever you see strange problems in a plan, you should always do a save as so that you won't corrupt what might be a good version of the plan.

 

The bottom line is that this error message means that your plan is corrupt and can't be read.  The file header information is the very first thing in the file and when this data is missing or wrong then there is usually no way to read the file.  It's basically gibberish to the program.  The best thing to do is fine an archive or backup of the plan that is usable. 

 

You might also check out this tech article:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00960/message-the-plan-file-you-are-attempting-to-open-appears-to-be-corrupted.html

 

On a side note, you have given me no information that indicates that this is a new problem in 23.4.  My guess is that this is the result of a random program or system glitch and has nothing to do with the update.  If you experience this problem again, then you should contact our technical support team.

 

I may have, but I don't recall clicking on that button. No I did not get any error messages prior to any of these problems in the plan file and I did also save the file before and after the problems, but it was not a save as. Also at this point I have almost gotten back to where I was in the layout I was creating so I may just use your tips to try recover the file and for future reference. Due to my setting being auto archive daily rather than hourly a backup/archive file was not created for the work I had done. I was unsure if the problem was related to the update or not so hence posting it here as it was a new issue never experienced before the update on any file including ones that are much larger in size.

I did the update yesterday morning. I was working in chief all day yesterday with no issues then at the end of the day it started to act a little weird, I was placing a elevation view for an interior shot and all other ones I had placed I was using color fill and same with the last one I placed, but the last one ended up with no color fill. I went to the floor plan and the lighting fixtures in the drawings were showing as red boxes with X's through them along with all the other 3d items in the drawing file were black boxes with X's through them. Along with this the floor plans were also missing the room fill that was already there and walls were showing as just a pair of lines which isn't how I have it setup visually. I chose to save both the plan and layout files I was working in and fully close out chief which went smoothly and exactly the same as every other time I have closed the program. I went to open the layout file and plan files after a few minutes and got the pictured warning. I basically lost most of my days work as my archive at that time was set to do it daily and not hourly. Not sure if there is a way to correct the missing header information that is mentioned in the warning but that would be great so I can at least recover the work that I lost yesterday. Any help is appreciated.

Nathan

When sending a camera view, the image is always too large and I have to manually resize every image. Wondering if there is an easier way? I am wondering if there is a way to change the default setting for sending a camera view to layout space so that the image of the camera view is always the same size (ex. 4x7 instead of 5x8)?

42 minutes ago, rgardner said:

One thing to try is to turn the automatic preview off by default.  Open another file and unselect it and save.

Thanks for that tip - we were able to at least get it to export to a pdf in half the pages at a time. So an improvement for sure.

19 minutes ago, BrianBeck said:

Amanda,

 

Open Preferences and on the Render Panel check the option under Troubleshooting called Manage GPU Residency.   This should hopefully allow you to print the entire layout. If not please contact Technical Support with the plan and layout file and we can look into it further.

 

Thanks

Thanks Brian, we will try that and see if we can get that to work. 

Hi All, 

We are experience a fairly frustrating situation, and after exhausting the avenues I know of, I'm coming here for help. 

- We have a 34 page layout file, consisting of floor plans, elevations, 3D perspectives, and schedules. 

- All elevation and 3D cameras are set to update on demand

- File has printed perfectly fine in the past, up until adding in the schedules. 

When we go to print, the print dialogue box opens. Upon trying to load all of the pages for preview, it gets to page 30 and crashes. We can't stop the "automatic preview" button because if we hit cancel, it also crashes. We can't choose any other printer option because again, it can't get past the loading of all of the pages. 

I've purged the files, did a windows update, and tried printing on the other computers in our office. We're running robust new systems with 3090 cards, drivers up to date. 

Any insights here that could be helpful? We have a looming deadline and I'd really like to be able to get this thing off the printer! 

It won't let me attach the layout file here, says the size is too large.

Also, we are running x13

Thanks in advance. 

I am having issues with the finish schedule when there are multiple finishes in a room. I was wondering if there is a way to create a table and fill in the information manually? I'd love to break out the locations of the different materials and their information.

5 hours ago, MarkMc said:

While that is true the card does have to do with performance AND X13 is handling PDFs differently than in the past. Different cards might have issues at some settings.

 

In attached note the change in GPU usage; while in both versions the cards hit 100% the total avg use is a good bit higher in 13. There is also something odd going on (that I don't understand yet) with GPU memory allocation/use between the two.

Of note is the change in file size from 12 to 13 is minor at 300 dpi but huge at 600, far out of proportion. For reference the layout file is 11 MB and references two plan files 20.6 MB & 47.4 MB.

 

Thanks. This is what I've noticed that the file sizes have jumped significantly, and the hangups when trying to create the PDF file.

Thanks, all.

We will try adjusting the DPI when creating the sets. Our pdf file sizes jumped from 4MB to well over 20MB and the only thing that changed was printing it out of x12 to x13. 

We have installed x13 from x12 on all of our systems.....slowest card we are running is a 1080, and we have two 3090s in the other systems -- so was running x12 just fine, our drawing sets are large and there was no issues. 

After upgrading everyone, making no changes to the existing files - when we got to print (either to the print or to a .pdf), the program completely freezes trying to load all of the views. Is there a setting we need to change up? Take 15+ minutes to print a .pdf really cuts into efficiency. 

Thanks!

Might just be missing something here, but I can't figure this out. 

I have a powder room that the base / casing is all painted the same as the door slab. In the hallway outside of this room, the base and casing is white. Is there a way to have two different door casing colours? Recognizing the jamb likely won't split in half and I'll have to have it one of the two colours.

Thanks, MarkMc. That must be what I'm missing. I'll try that. 

Thank you. In another file that was slow, I went in and changed all of the Update on Demand to plot lines. The only thing I found with that - when we printed, it wasn't as crisp looking from an elevation standpoint, it was almost blurry or fuzzy -- do you find that also, or is that a setting I need to adjust?

We have 5 systems in our office and one of our staff is working on a brand new system with the Nvidia 3070 video card:

Device name    DESKTOP-PAYTONO5SETKG
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz   3.79 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Running X12

The rendering and raytracing is lighting fast, no issues there. However, the layout files for this system are painfully slow. Barely move an elevation box over slow. I've exhausted too many hours trying to figure out what is up. The file size isn't huge (we have many more that are larger that this isn't an issue with on the other, older systems).  I will attach both the plan and layout file here. 

When she created this file, she was careful to use basic materials and 3D objects, nothing custom as a bit of an expirement to see if that changed anything, but no luck there either. It just seems to be really slow on this new system.

Viewports are set to Update on demand. 

It's not letting me upload the files here, saying they are too large. The Plan file is 21,647 KB and the Layout File is 18,240 KB.

Thanks in advance for any feedback or suggestions on what we seem to be missing here.
 

ahhh thank you - knew it had to be something simple!

Hello,

I am working in this file and the basement ceilings / main floor joists above have disappeared. I checked to see layers are on and now I am at a loss as to why they aren't showing up. I know they are they there because I can see the gap where floor joists should be. 

Any insight or help would be appreciated!

Black_Prelim.plan

I'm hopeful someone can give some insight before I go hunting down a computer tech in my area that can help. 

Here's my system: 

THREADRIPPER 1950X 3.40 GHz (16 Cores) 32GB DDR4 240GB SSD 3TB NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti 11GB 802.11AC WiFi Win10 Home 64-bit

Prior to this I had an MSI laptop that was well outfitted. The gentleman who recommended this new current system suggested it should be noticeably faster running Chief X10. He recommended going with more cores than I had on the laptop and a few other things that I can't remember (it's a bit greek to me). 

Anyways - I feel like I maybe don't have the machine optimized for the 3D Portion. It's painfully slow to load camera views, to move around in 3D, even in line drawing, and from the very outset of a file when there are only simple walls and floors. 

I found the wayfair catalogue and a few other catalogues would bog down the file when I used pieces of content so I haven't even installed them onto this one yet. 

It's slow even loading the menu screens in addition to being slow in 3D. 

Any info is greatly appreciated -- I have been looking through the files but finding mostly suggestions on minimum requirements and this system seems to have a lot higher specs than recommended. Which then leads me to believe I have some settings in the computer not optimized, or in the program. 

@javatom those are light fixtures....

Hoping to get some insight into cleaning up wall intersections where the framing gets exposed. Picture below - have solid railing wall intersecting into the half wall around the stair opening and the wall looks like it's cut open and the framing exposed. 

I also ran into this on an invisible room definition butting into a wall. I've been filling it with Poly Solid but there's got to be something I'm  missing in a framing setting perhaps?

Hi Everyone -- looking for some advice on a computer system. We are currently running MSi GTX1060 laptops and for the most part they do OK. We are getting into some large full-house plans and finding it gets bogged down quickly when we're trying to go through the house and make changes on the fly with clients. 

We'll move to desktop systems in our office for this purpose - so if anyone is rocking a great desktop system that is superfast, I'd love to hear about it!

Thanks Javatom. 

No imported pdf files, all lights removed, zero cad blocked items in the file. 

I've narrowed it down to items from the Wayfair Trade catalogue, and based on how realistic they look I'm assuming they'd have a high face count?

Since upgrading to x9, I've been experiencing some major slowdowns when adding certain objects into a file. I can't quite pinpoint what or why, so wanted to hop on and see if anyone else has had this problem as well.  I'll be working away in a plan and all is well and good, quick editing in 3D as far as changing materials and textures goes, even with a plan full of lights turned on. I'll start to add in furniture and it seems certain objects just completely bog down the file to the point that I can barely work in it. I'll delete all of the furniture objects and the file is still super slow until I basically start over from scratch. 

I have quite a few of the manufacturer libraries downloaded and will pull from those, but have not added any objects of my own into the library. 

Any insight is appreciated. 

Here is the start of my plan.  I was trying to figure the roof out before I got too far into the rest of the details. 

As mentioned before I built this roof based off the "storey and a half" tutorial so the roof layer is showing up on main floor.  I am just looking to manipulate the back wall of the 2nd floor that has living space so we have more headroom.

Sanderson.plan

Need some help / suggestions on how to draw roof on a non typical 1.5 story house.  The 2nd floor starts halfway through the depth of the main floor and lines up with rear house wall (see attached picture).  The 2nd floor overlooks an open to below section on main floor where the roof would have a 12:12 pitched vault to allow for headroom on 2nd floor. I watched the video tutorial for 1.5 story houses but it doesn't let me manipulate the one wall on 2nd floor to allow for the additional headroom against exterior wall.  Maybe I have to manually draw this roof but thought I would check here if anyone knows an easier way.

Thanks!

drawing1.pdf

Thanks, Joe!