Dermot

My best guess is that you changed your data folder in preferences to a drive that you are no longer connected to or that you later changed it to a new location. Another possible reason is that you have been working on multiple machines and have not properly transferred all of the necessary files between them. In either case, your plan files probably still exist but neither you nor the program can currently find them. There could be any number of other reasons that you can't find your files but I wouldn't be able to make any other guesses without a lot more information. You could always try contacting technical support and they may be more helpful because they are more far experienced with these kind of problems than I am. I would also strongly encourage you to review the basics regarding file management. We have a number of training videos and help articles that you may find helpful: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/search/?default_tab=all&q=file+management

If you need more control, you might want to try using the Transform/Replicate dialog.

This help article may be useful: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00805/editing-2d-cad-blocks-assigned-to-3d-symbols.html

"...nothing moves the sashes." Have you tried changing the Sash Inset?

Unfortunately, that's not a message that I have ever seen. I'm not sure if this is the result of a system problem or some corrupt library files. You may have to call tech support on Monday morning. If I was going to try things at home on a weekend, I would first start with a reboot of my system. For good measure you might also want to do a virus scan to see if there are any other problems going on. The next thing I would do would be to find the actual library files on the machine to see if they are still there and all have reasonable file sizes. It's possible that the ones you have are somehow corrupt now. In theory, you should always be able to just re-download the core libraries and be back up and running. As for any custom libraries that you have, you may want to look for your most recent backups of them and see if you can get one of them to work. I wouldn't bother trying to do anything with your custom libraries until you have the core libraries installed and working though. There is some more info about library problems here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-02772/troubleshooting-library-download-issues.html

By default, the program will calculate the living area using the outside of the main layer of your walls. You can change this to use the wall surface instead in your General Plan Defaults. I don't believe there is any way to have the program use the wall center line by default. You can also generate the living area polyline using the Make Living Area Polyline tool and then manually edit it as needed. Some more information about the living area tools can be found here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00424/changing-how-square-footage-is-calculated.html

"...and then export a picture." When you export a picture to a separate file, you have the ability to specify the actual image size. So in theory, you can create a very high resolution image if that is what you want. By default, the program will use the size of the screen though. That said, why not send it to layout as a live view instead? One of the advantages of a live view is that it will use the most appropriate image resolution when you print it out. It also has the advantage of being "live" so that if you change anything in the model, the image will look correct and you will not have to regenerate it manually. I would suggest that you play around with the live views to see if they might work out better for you.

It's the framing and their labels. Turn them off.

If the program is crashing when you are panning, than this is a far more serious issue then just a performance problem. Does the program crash in a predictable and repeatable way? Does it crash on both your old and your new machine? Does it crash with a brand new, relatively simple plan or just with one or more particular plans? Did you report this problem to technical support? As far as your performance problems are concerned, my best guess is that it is actually something in your plan causing the problems and not your hardware. It may be related to whatever it is that is causing the crashes or it could be something completely different. Someone here would need to do some low level performance analysis on the plan to give you anything more definitive.

I'm not sure how you were able to do this before since, as far as I know, the program has always worked this way. You can either display open risers with stringers or you can display closed risers with the bottom covered. There is no way currently to display the stringers and risers without the bottom. I can think of a number of workarounds to get what you want but the basic problem is that the program won't do it automatically. I would call this more of a limitation than a bug but if it's really something that you want changed, then you should probably submit a feature request.

I believe you will only see those lines when you have the layer for "Cabinets, Module Lines" turned on and when the program thinks the side is finished. You could try manually turning the side to unfinished and the extra line should go away.

Have you tried using the Layer Painter and Layer Eyedropper tools?

You can control the border on a per box basis by using a different layer. You can control the box contents by using a different layer set.

Automatic exterior dimensions can be set to locate Interior Wall Centers, the Primary Wall Side, or Both Wall Sides in the dimension defaults. As far as I know, there is no easy way to change how the program defines what the "primary wall side" is. And, as far as I can tell, no one has ever asked for us to do this differently. You might want to submit a feature request on this. There are several things you can do that might be faster than drawing all of your dimensions manually. After generating your automatic dimensions, you could try the following: - You could manually move the locate handle to the side you want. You just need to be careful that you don't drag it to the wall surface though. - You could use the Both Wall Sides option and then manually remove the side you don't want. Just drag the locate handle away from the wall to remove it. - You could try using the Reverse Layers tool on the interior wall. This should flip the dimension to the other side for you. Just be careful not to regenerate your automatic dimensions again or you may lose these changes.

The short answer is yes, Home Designer Pro should be able to do what you need. For a more complete comparison between HD Suite and HD Pro, have a look at this information: https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/products/product-chooser.html You might also want to download the trial version of HD Pro and try it out for yourself. You can find information about downloading the trial here: https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/products/trial.html If you have more specific questions, I would encourage you to call our sales team during our normal business hours.

If you turn on the tread surface and make your ramp open underneath, it might be much closer to what you are looking for. You can't automatically add framing to a ramp though.

If you try what Joe suggests, and you are still having problems, then the problems are most likely a system problem. Could be something like your anti-virus or an actual hardware problem but the most common cause of problems like this is your video card and the drivers. And yes, the preferences dialog does need to query your video card to get information from your video card so it could cause a lock up too. More information about trouble shooting video card problems can be found here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00106/troubleshooting-3d-camera-view-display-problems-in-chief-architect.html

If your friend is on the X12 beta test program, and sent you a file that was created in X12, you would not be able to read it in X11. Your friend is not supposed to do this by the way so you would want to let them know this. The only other thing I can think of is that the file they sent you is actually corrupt and the program thinks its from a newer version but it's just garbage.

I would try looking at these videos. Most of the concepts are probably still valid for X3. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/category/271/templates.html

Have you tried just turning off the posts in the railing specification?

An elevation view is really a mixture of the 3D model along with 2D cad annotations. The draw order of the 3D model is determined by the position of the 3D objects relative to the camera position. In other words, if you want one object to appear in front of another, you have to move the actual location in the model. You usually can't move 3D objects forward and back in an elevation view so it's often works best to do this in a plan view. The draw order of 2D cad can mostly be controlled by the same draw order tools that you have in plan views. You can move 2D cad forward and backwards so that one 2D object will appear in front of or behind another 2D object. You can also place the 2D cad completely behind the 3D model or keep it in front, but you can't mix it in between 3D objects. In your case, you were trying to create a 2D object (a simple cad box) and have it appear in front of one 3D object (the wall) but behind another one (the hood). There is no way to do this currently. The best way to get what you want is to modify the actual 3D model instead. This will have the added benefit of looking correct in all camera views and not in just the one you are adding the cad to. In your case, it is better to change the material that is on the wall (or the polyline solid, or the backsplash, or whatever the 3D object is) then it is to try and hide it with a 2D cad object. The goal is to get the pattern that is used for the vector view to match the texture that is used for the other render techniques. There are lots of ways to do this but as you have already found, X11 has a new tool to generate a pattern from a given texture. There are also tools to keep these things in sync if you need to change the scale or shift the position of them. More information about the Define Material dialog can be found in the training videos or by using the Help button directly from the dialog.

You will probably want to include which version of the software you are using because some of the suggestions below may not be in all products. The easiest way to get what you want is to just place the plant outside of the garden bed and then drag it on top of it. If you try to place a different plant on top of the garden bed the program assumes that you want to replace the current plant (which is why you should see the cursor change to the replace from library cursor). A garden bed is really just a combination of a terrain feature and a distributed region. You can also create your own terrain features without plants or create your own distributed regions with different plants. For example if you are trying to create a garden bed with a mix of plants you may want to create a several distributed regions using the same shape but with different plants and distribution parameters. Another thing that may help in some situations is that garden beds and distributed regions can be exploded. When you explode a distributed region, the program will automatically place a copy of each of the objects into your plan.

Another thing that can help in these situations is that if two angled cabinets are moved so that the front or back corners are connected, the program will automatically create a filler for the area:

I am not aware of any new issues in the latest update. If some people are aware of problems and did not report them to our tech support team, then we would not know about them and they are unlikely to get fixed. Every single time we release an update, someone reports a "new" problem with the update. Most of the time, they are mistaken. Usually, the problem is a system problem unrelated to the update or a pre-existing problem that was there before the update. Every once in a while, there is a new problem in an update and we usually post a quick fix for this as soon as we are able. There was a new problem in the 21.3.0 update and it was corrected in the 21.3.1 update that has been available since August. A full list of what was corrected in the 21.3 update can be found here: https://cloud.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/documentation/chief-architect-x11-update-notes.pdf At this time, we are not planning on any additional updates for X11 unless we find a very serious problem. There is no reason to put off getting the latest update.

As a general rule, SEH error messages are very bad things and you should never ignore them. Using the Send Report button can help us to diagnose these problems but it is not nearly as helpful as reporting this problem directly to technical support. Sending us the plan files along with instructions for how to reproduce the problem can really make a huge difference in giving us the ability to find and fix the problem. I went ahead and downloaded your posted plan and it does not give me any error messages. There can be a lot of reasons for this but I will give you some of the most common ones. First, if you have not done this already, you need to get and install the latest update. You should be using version 21.3.11. If you are still using an older version, then you do not have all of the fixes that we have put into the program to prevent these kinds of problems. Next, if you are frequently experiencing SEH error messages in multiple plans, and mostly when creating camera views, then the most likely cause of the problems is your video card. You should try updating your video card drivers to see if this improves. It is also be possible that you are having other system problems but these are less likely and harder to diagnose. If you have not rebooted your computer since experiencing these problems, then you probably should. For more information about SEH error messages, you might want to read this article: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00802/troubleshooting-exception-and-assertion-error-messages.html And lastly, if all else fails, you should contact our technical support team for more help.