Ikedcr

Yep, got that message too...which caused me to come look here for info. Seems kind of late in the release to be updating. Makes one wonder how that X14 release is coming along. :-)

I can only speak to OneDrive as I have not used Google Drive or Dropbox. I have used OneDrive for several years. My use is as a synchronization service as I frequently use an office desktop, home desktop and a laptop with Chief as well as everything else in our business. It has worked very well for me to have computers loading and sharing the most current files. Being that it is a sync service I don't view it as a backup - delete or overwrite a file and OneDrive does what it is supposed to do, deletes/overwrites in the cloud as well as all synced machines as soon as they are booted up. I don't recall any issues that I may have had, it just works for me.

If you are talking about the skinny profile of the brick where it meets the siding, ......and I'm not sure that is what you mean.....go into the wall specifications setup and make it so that the brick is thicker, say 4". I attached a screen shot.

For whatever its worth. I had the exact same thing occurring in a few months ago in X10. It came suddenly out of nowhere. A new video driver came out and after the update it never happened again. I have not had it happen in X11 either.

Looks like you got your laptop questions answered. Keep in mind that OneDrive is not a backup service, rather it is a synchronization service. If you screw up and delete a bunch of files or folders, or perhaps you get attacked and your files get renamed and encrypted, OneDrive immediately syncs all that. I know someone that inadvertently deleted a folder of photos, apparently it was a long time later that she realized it, it was no longer on her OneDrive either.....it had done exactly what she told it to do....... I use OneDrive and generally like it, but on more than one occasion I have done something boneheaded with Chief files and of course OneDrive was useless in recovering the previous versions because it synced the new one. If my Chief archives don't have it my real backups always have the old version.

Mick's reply probably has the fix for you. I had this exact same thing happening to me about 3 weeks ago. I updated the NVIDIA drivers and that fixed it 100%. No issues since the update. Ike

What David Potter said is probably the answer to your problems. I had this EXACT same thing happen to me two weeks ago. I updated the video card driver and that took care of it 100%.

I had a mouse cursor issue with my brand new laptop last week. GeForce GTX 1060 Graphics card. Different than what you have going on, but thought this might possibly be helpful. When I would switch view to a 3D and then go back to 2D the cursor would be present over the menu but would disappear when pulled down to the plan part of the window. Close and restart Chief and back to normal, but would occur ever single time when switching views again. There were also several times that objects - specifically a custom countertop and corbels from the library - would not show on a 3D view, but that was random and not repeatable every single time. Sometimes I could not get the cursor to select things either, again, random. Before calling support I updated the driver to a newer version and the problem is now gone. For whatever that was worth..... Ike

Vinnie, Scroll through recent posts on Chieftalk, you will see plenty written about what you are experiencing as well as some ideas on how to get your arms around it.

One of the best all around computer upgrades we have done in a decade. Well worth it in all respects. Ike

I agree completely with you assessment of QB Online. It is currently weak on features and capability. One of the things that I would think about is how difficult it is to switch accounting systems. Setting up the chart of accounts, cost codes (items) preferences, and a whole host of other things takes a large time commitment to get done correctly. And if anything is setup wrong, it haunts. There is the issue of your familiarity with QB and the learning curve with new software, no small thing. Unless you pay a consultant who is really good to set it up it can be frustrating and it will take longer than one would think it will. QB seems to be the most successful of lower end accounting systems and one can assume they will be around a long time and continue to supply good support and updates. I know a great number of people who hitched their wagon to the wrong software company and went through the torture of updates that crashed or were forced to change software because the company ceased to exist or ceased updating the software. An inexpensive laptop or desktop would run QB for many years and it seems the cost of buying a new computer would be roughly comparable with buying new software. Ike

Agreed with the other posters - you need to let it run more passes until you are satisfied with the result.

Bingo! That was it. I have no idea how that changed.....but my buddy the IT guy always says...." Your computer did exactly what you told it to do". Thanks!!!

For years I have copied Chief files to a USB flash drive and transferred them to a laptop with zero issues. The last week when I copy chief .plan files to the flash my laptop sees them as .pdf extensions NOT .plan files. This occurs if I read them directly from the flash drive or copy them to the laptop. Take the flash out of the laptop, put it back in the desktop and .plan files look and open normally. Only .plan files do this, layout files and any other type file read fine. Using X7, Win10 on both computers. This is not limited to the flash drive, if I email the plan, download it from OneDrive, etc, it does the same thing. I attached screenshots, one from laptop showing the flash drive with the odd PDF extensions, the other from desktop from the same flash drive. Anyone have a thought on what causes this? Thanks.

I use both...sort of. I used to use Drive exclusively but after upgrading to win 10 had some sporadic unpleasant issues. Signed up for Office 365 with a TB of OneDrive storage. It works like a champ, I sync between my laptop and desktop, and can access files with my phone. Been using it for quite a while with no bumps in the road. It is now my go-to application. I like that it stores my files on my computers as well as the cloud. I have not noticed any issues with Drive and OneDrive not playing nice with each other. Ike

That is a new one to me. I will use it often now. Ike

This was a GREAT thread. I learned how to fix 2 things that have occasionally haunted me over the years. Thanks everyone! Ike.

I never knew that. Great tip. Thank You. Ike

That is a great question. I started on Chief around 1995. I bought it from a local dealer by the name of Dan Bauman, he also trained me in his classrooms. Whatever version that was I mastered and as time goes on and Chief gets better and more complex my percentage goes down rather than up. Two nights ago I started teaching my son how to use Chief, we played for a couple hours. After we were done I bet my son would say I knew 99%. :-) I might have answered 75% right then. :-) Today I have been ray tracing three different kitchen designs of mine........so currently I would answer 20%. :-) I honestly don't know but a wild guess might be 35%. I can fight through another 40% and the final 25% I just leave alone. Ike

OK. The plan is done and to a large degree it was successful and a time saver. For whatever reason some of inputs took slightly longer to complete than a new plan created in X7. The most noticeable one was placing new walls, maybe a second or two longer to show up on the plan than normal. However, this was a pretty simple two story garage/shop addition without a lot of walls so no biggee. The one thing that was a bit of a puzzle was getting floor zero and floor one to meet, the heights just did not want to work right but after a few minutes I forced it to work right. At first as I made a change in those heights I got an error code. (See Attachment) I looked up the code and it says something like "no information on this error". I would close the message and move on normally without issues...and, I closed the plan and reopened and never got the code again. All-in-all it was a time saver for sure and worked well being that I pulled in a 13 year old plan. I was happy. But, the addition design was simple with little needed on the interior and no changes needed on the biggest most complicated parts of the original plan, so it seemed worth taking a chance on. Given the couple of idiosyncrasies I experienced I would not take a chance on this plan if I needed to invest serious time in the design, I would for sure create a new ground up plan in X7. Cheers, Ike

Thanks for the replies and advice, much appreciated. Since I am a take the easy road kind of guy - and some thought it would work - I tried using the old plan in X7. It took 30 minutes to update exterior materials and get a couple of heights corrected. I now have a 2 story garage/shop addition added on and so far everything I am working on and looking at acts normal and works quickly. I actually can't tell any difference between this plan and a newly created one......so far. I have a couple hours left to finish the first version of the plan but I believe it is going to be just fine. Out of curiosity I went inside and fixed up the kitchen materials and ray traced it. Zero issues other than the fact that what I expect out of materials, lighting and shadowing on a ray trace today is a LOT LOT more than what looked great to me 13 years ago. Thanks Again to all who helped me with advice. Ike

Greetings, I drew a plan in 2002, in Chief 6.0 give or take a version. Now the same customer wants a garage addition added on to the home. I successfully opened the old plan in X7 but of course lots of objects and materials are not there. There also look to be a few height and terrain issues but at quick glance they look pretty minor. I have very limited need - or really no need - to have anything show on the interior. I probably know the answer to the question but am looking for the easy way out......Should I use this old plan in X7 or will I be forever haunted? Opinions? I attached an exterior view of what it looks like opened in X7. Ike