The World of Computer Software

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ The World of Computer Software / The World of Computer Software.iso / r12bug9.zip / R12BUG.TXT next >

Wrap

Text File | 1992-12-24 | 41KB | 831 lines

Compiled by Mike Dickason [72711,3404] August 3, 1992 Initial posting Bugs 1-12 August 11, 1992 Second posting Bugs 13-19 August 17, 1992 Third posting Bugs 20-24 August 31, 1992 Fourth posting Bugs 25-29 September 12, 1992 Fifth posting Bugs 30-44 October 11, 1992 Sixth posting Bugs 45-50 Updated for R12c1 November 1, 1992 Seventh posting Bugs 51-62 December 8, 1992 Eigth posting Bugs 63-73 December 23, 1992 Ninth posting Bugs 74-84 The following list of ACAD 12 bugs and corresponding work arounds was compiled from a combination of problems I have personally encountered and from messages posted on the ACAD forum of Compuserve. I am not an employee of AutoDesk, nor did I compile this list to discredit AutoDesk. Indeed, I am quite happy with R12, but as with any program of this size and magnitude, there are some bugs. This is not an official nor a complete list of R12 bugs. It is meant to be used as an informative list to help other users who might be encountering similar problems. All of the problems on this list have been reported to and acknowledged by ADESK. If you know of any bugs which are not included on this list, I would be interested in hearing about them, solely for the purpose of keeping the list up to date. Unless noted otherwise, the bugs are present in the North American version of ACAD R12c1 for DOS. Numbers prefixed with an '*' are either new to this posting, or have been updated from the previous posting to include additional information. Those bugs fixed with the release of R12c1 have been noted as such. 1. If you run any command which accepts the new fence selection option to select items (like the trim command), any subsequent usage of the lisp function (ssget "f" (list p1 p2)) will generate a heap error and will either instantly reboot the computer or dump you out of the editor to the DOS prompt without saving your drawing. Fixed in R12c1. *2. Lantastic bug with DOS 5.0 and R12. Unable to run ACAD across the network, or edit any drawing located on the network without generating sharing violation errors. To solve the problem, download the file R12LAN.ZIP from the forum. This patch allows AutoCAD to run on various networks, including LANtastic, 3Com and DEC Pathworks, under DOS 4.0 and 5.0. See the README.DOC file included in the archive for specific instructions on how to use the patch. This patch is still required for R12c1. It has been discovered that the R12LAN.ZIP patch is also required on Novell networks running Map Assist, a third party program which allows Novell to work like a peer-peer network. 3. The Hitachi HDG driver shipping with R12 does not work with the Hitachi HDG 1111C and possibly earlier models. Need to download the file DG386.EXP from here on the forum. Fixed in R12c1. 4. The display filters for color with the DDLMODES command in R12 don't recognize the ~ wildcard. If you specify the color filter as W*, only those layers which have a color beginning with the letter 'w' are displayed, as expected. But if you specify the wildcard as ~W*, all of the layers are displayed instead of only those which don't have a color beginning with the letter 'w'. No known work around. 5. The layer DEFPOINTS is supposed to be an unplottable layer, but in R12 it is showing up on plots, regardless of whether it is turned on or off. Fixed in R12c1. 6. When Release 12 compiles a PFB PostScript font file into an SHX font file, it makes the font approximately 30% too small. If you insert some text with a regular AutoCAD font (such as Simplex) with a height of 2.5", it is drawn 2.5" inches tall. If you insert text with a converted PostScript font with a height of 2.5", it is drawn 1.7" high. No known work around. 7. The path to the R12 drivers is stored within the ACAD.CFG file. If you change rename the ACAD directory, or move it to a different location, then attempt to reconfigure ACAD using the "-R" switch, it will not find any drivers because it looks at the path stored in ACAD.CFG instead of the environment variable ACADDRV. The only workaround is to delete the ACAD.CFG file and reconfigure ACAD. 8. When plotting with R12, if you use a plot scale of 1/8=12, the plot dialogue box rounds the scale off to the nearest tenth and displays the plot scale as 0.13=12. It also plots the drawing at that scale. Use 1=96 to get a 1/8" plot scale. 9. When you try to plot a R10 drawing it works just fine if you bring up the drawing in the editor. If you use the freeplotting feature by calling acad with a -P then it crashes with a EREAD error. The only workaround is to plot from within the editor. Fixed in R12c1. 10. The Calcomp plotter driver shipping with R12 produces erratic plots under various situations. Download the updated driver PLPCC.EXP from here on the forum. Fixed in R12c1. 11. The HP-GL2 plotter driver has a problem handling smart fills. and will exhibit problems with filled areas such as plines with a width. The only known work around is to use an HP-GL2 driver written for R11. 12. Here's a minor bug with R12's help command. Run the help command, and select "Index" from the opening dialog box. Double click on any item in the index list (I'll use 3D as the example) and the help screen for that item comes up as expected. Now select "Index" again and the index dialog pops up with the selected item still highlighted. Select "OK" to view the same item again and you get a prompt that says "Nothing selected." even though the item is still highlighted. To get the item again, you have to physically select it instead of just selecting "OK". 13. If you perform a PEDIT Join command on a polyline containing curve information, the resultant joined polyline is stripped of all the curve information leaving you with a polyline made entirely of straight line segments. No known workaround. 14. With a closed polyline, if you perform the sequence PEDIT, Edit vertex, Break, the command will not only break out the segment between the specified vertices, but it also removes the "closing" segment of the polyline leaving you with two separate polylines if you attempt to break out an interior section. No known workaround. Note: This problem occurred in earlier versions of ACAD and is not unique to R12. 15. There is a problem in the plot command when specifying MM as the plot units. If you change any of the default pen widths, each time you go into the pen parameters menu, the pen widths are multiplied by 25.4. This eventually leads to a general protection fault and ACAD crashing. Fixed in R12c1. To show this, run the plot command, set the units to MM, then select Pen Assignments. Start clicking on pen 1, and watch the width display in the bottom right corner. Each time it increments by a factor of 25.4. Click on pen 1 twenty six times, then select OK, then immediately select Pen Assignments again. You will get "FATAL ERROR: General protect exception" which immediately returns you to the DOS prompt without saving the drawing. Again, this is fixed in R12c1. 16. When plotting units are set to MM, retrieving a pcp file results in the paper size being multiplied by 25.4, even if the pcp was stored with MM units. No known work around. When restoring plot defaults from a file, make sure to check the paper size before you plot. Fixed in R12c1. 17. There is a problem with certain DIMVARS when DIMSCALE is not set to 1. It affects all DIM variables with distance-type values, like DIMCEN, DIMTXT, DIMASZ, etc. With these variables, if you are in the DIM command and you type in the variable name (like DIMCEN) and hit enter to take the default, the default value is divided by the value of DIMSCALE and the result becomes the new default. You can avoid the problem for now by setting DIM vars outside the DIM command (like other system variables), or by retyping the default value rather than using ENTER to retain it. 18. When using the new Shift to Add feature for building selection sets, the "Window" and "Crossing" selection options add to the current selection set instead of replacing it as documented. No known work around. 19. If you perform a Dview Twist on a drawing, then plot with a window, the coordinates of the window corners displayed in the new plot dialog box do not match the actual coordinates that were picked. Regardless of what the plot window shows, the actual coordinates picked are used for generating the plot. This appears to related to the variable "TARGET", which changes after a DVIEW, but never seems to be set back to its default value (i.e. start a new drawing, look at the value of TARGET, then do a Dview Twist 300, Dview Twist 0, and then look at TARGET again and it is different). No known work around. 20. There is a bug with variable width polylines and the commands PEDIT and Undo. If you have a variable width polyline, then perform a Pedit on it and change the width to 0, then at the command prompt do an Undo which backs through the Pedit, the starting and ending widths of the first segment of the polyline will be applied to the entire polyline. The following sequence demonstrates the problem: Command: PLINE From point: 0,0 Current line-width is 0'-0" Arc/Close/Halfwidth/Length/Undo/Width/<Endpoint of line>: W Starting width <0'-0">: 0 Ending width <0'-0">: 3 Arc/Close/Halfwidth/Length/Undo/Width/<Endpoint of line>: 0,0 Arc/Close/Halfwidth/Length/Undo/Width/<Endpoint of line>: W Starting width <0'-3">: 0 Ending width <0'-0">: 0 Arc/Close/Halfwidth/Length/Undo/Width/<Endpoint of line>: 10,10 Arc/Close/Halfwidth/Length/Undo/Width/<Endpoint of line>: 20,10 Command: PEDIT Select polyline: Last Close/Join/Width/Edit vertex/Fit/Spline/Decurve/Ltypegen/Undo/eXit <X>: W Enter new width for all segments: 0 Close/Join/Width/Edit vertex/Fit/Spline/Decurve/Ltypegen/Undo/eXit <X>: X Command: U No known workaround. 21. Here is a bug with the R12 menu command. With FILEDIA=0, run the Menu command and type in the name of a non-existent menu. ACAD will report that it can't open the file and display the search path used. It then prompts "Enter another menu file name (or RETURN for none):". If you hit the return button on the digitizer instead of the keyboard, you will get a "FATAL ERROR: Null pointer referenced" "Do you want to save your changes? <Y> " The workaround is to use the keyboard for hitting the Enter key. Fixed in R12c1. 22. There is a problem with the pen parameters dialog box in the R12 plot command. The program is handling pens in groups of 10, ie. 1-10, 11-20, 21-20, etc. If you make a change to any of the pen parameters for pens 11-256, the corresponding pen in group 1-10 is changed as well. For example, change pen 11 to have a width of 1.0, then scroll up and look at pen 1. Its width will have changed to 1.0 as well. It also works the other way. Change pen 1 and pen 11 changes, and pen 21 changes, etc. No known workaround. 23. R12 has a problem with Wblocks and file locking when using relative paths to specify the drawing name. With file locking turned on, if I open a file with a relative path, then attempt to Wblock the drawing back to itself using the same relative path, ACAD reports the following error message: Unable to lock file .\MIKE File write locked by USER1 at 10:00 on 08/13/1992 The command sequence to show this... Command: OPEN File name: .\MIKE Command: WBLOCK File name: .\MIKE R11 didn't exhibit this problem. The only way to make it work in R12 is to type out the full path for the Wblock name, which is a pain when you have long paths for the file directories. The same problem occurs if you open a new drawing with a relative path then attempt to save it using the SAVE command. 24. There is a problem with any command which uses the new File Dialog box to allow for file selection. When you change the file search pattern so that it matches enough file names to require the slider bar to be used then slide the bar to the bottom of this list it jumps back to the top of the list. To see this, load a drawing with enough blocks to enable the sliders in a list box. Call DDINSERT and pick Block to get a listing of the blocks. Change the Pattern specification to anything that will retain the sliders (or just delete the "*" and enter it again). Then slide the list to the bottom and release - it goes back to the top of the list. It happens whenever you change the Pattern specification. However, it will work correctly if you do it a second time - only happens the first time after changing the Pattern specification. This problem occurs in every command which utilizes the R12 file dialog box. 25. The variable XREFCTL is ignored by the OPEN command. Regardless of the setting of XREFCTL, an .XLG file will be created when you open an existing drawing which already contains Xrefs. No known workaround. 26. With file locking enabled and FILEDIA=0, if you shell out of ACAD and delete the MNX file for the current menu then return to the editor and run the MENU command, you get: "FATAL ERROR: MENU1 1" The reason for the error is that ACAD keeps the .MNX file open, and when you run the menu command ACAD is trying to close a file which no longer exists. The reason for deleting the .MNX file was to force ACAD to recompile the .MNU which had been edited on a different machine and was newer, but had a date older than the .MNX file. The workaround is to change to a different menu, then shell out and delete the .MNX of the original menu, then change back to the original menu. 27. There is a bug in the implementation of the alternate-font- prompt-reduction (AFPR) mechanism. AFPR is a new feature in R12 which is supposed to cut down on the number of prompts for "Can't find font 'XXX'" when you open a drawing by substituting the font you specify for the first missing font for each remaining style in the drawing which uses the same font. Turns out that AFPR is case-sensitive, so if the first font was really entered as "helv", then it won't match the next one if it was entered as "HELV". No known workaround. 28. Here is another problem with the DLDMODES command in R12. Start a new drawing, make a layer called ZEBRA, then run the DLDMODES command. Set the filter for the layer names to "Z*". Pick to select the ZEBRA layer, then rename it to MYZEBRA. At this point ACAD displays a message that no more layers match the specified filter, then places a string of garbage characters in both the layer name field and the current layer field of the dialog box. ACAD appears to be having problems when the last layer of a filtered display is removed from the list. Select OK, then immediately run the DDLMODES command again. On large drawings, this sequence is generating a "FATAL ERROR: NULL pointer referenced" about 20-30% of the time. No known workaround. 29. If you specify an old ACAD .MNU/.MNX file for the current menu name and there is a matching .MNL file in the ACAD path, the next time you run the menu command you will generate a fatal "HEAP MANAGEMENT Error #6" and get dumped instantly to the DOS prompt. Because your menu is named ACAD.MNX, AutoCAD finds and loads the ACAD.MNL AutoLISP file, which in turn loads ACADR12.LSP. Well, ACADR12.LSP contains (menucmd "Pn.i") calls to gray-out certain menu items (which makes little sense for your menu, since its structure is different). Anyhow, the (menucmd), when used on the LAST ITEM in a pulldown menu. The only workaround is to ensure that if using the (menucmd) function, that it is not working on the LAST ITEM in a pulldown menu. 30. The new variable PICKAUTO does not work. Regardless of its setting, ACAD allows you to draw a selection window (both window and crossing window) automatically at the "Select objects: " prompt. Setting PICKAUTO to 0 is supposed to disable this automatic windowing, but it doesn't. 31. There's a bug in the POSTSCRIPT sampleprolog. If you included the code-handling for linetypes, there's a line that refers to "acad-ltype-known", and another that refers to "acad-linetype- known". They should both be the same; if not, your printout will probably fail silently. In acad.psf, globally change acad-ltype-known to acad-linetype-known. 32. With certain Sparcstation configurations, the R12 DDEDIT command will crash ACAD when you hit the <Return> key to finish editing. The only workarounds are to use the change command to modify the text instead of DDEDIT, or to use the system mouse to click on the OK box. 33. If any portion of a block is visible within the graphics window it is included in a "window" selection set if the insertion point of the block is outside the graphics window. No known workaround. It turns out that this is not a bug and is performing as documented under the "Window Selection" command of the ARM. 34. After restoring a PCP file which has a default plot file name which contains a path, any PCP files saved (during the same editing session) will contain the default plot file name with path that was originally read in, instead of the current default plot file name. 35. When saving a PCP file, if the current time is less than 10 minutes past the hour, the leading 0 of the minutes in the time field of the PCP is dropped, i.e. 3:05pm is written as 15:5 instead of 15:05. 36. The TRIM command is not properly handling PLINES during a trim operation. To show this, draw two vertical lines, then draw a pline which crosses both lines. Run the TRIM command and select the two vertical lines as the cutting edges, then trim the left side of the Pline hanging outside the left line and then the part hanging outside the right side. Finally select the remaining pline section between the two lines. You have now in effect trimmed the entire pline. This trimming sequence results in a single vertex polyline which will cause errors if you attempt to DXFOUT the drawing and then DXFIN it into another drawing. No known workaround for both sides of the polyline disappearing. The workaround for the DXF problem is to perform an AUDIT before doing the initial DXFOUT. 37. When rendering using SVADI in dual screen mode, the Render option places garbage on the >graphic display< (note: ACAD menu still visible) in 1024x768x256. Turning off dual screen corrects the problem. 38. Configuring for a binary plotter file with 1 pen causes AutoCAD to ask a nonsensical question, viz., "How many pens?". Also, the description for both the "AutoCAD file output formats" and "ADI plotter or printer" choices says "pre 4.1". 39. The DDEDIT command is supposed to accept 256 characters, but it only accepts 255 it only returns 254 characters. 40. On some systems AutoCAD will dump straight to DOS without a warning when you run the DXFIN command with FILEDIA=1 and enter the name of the file direct from A: with no floppy in the drive and answer "F" to the resulting "Retry, Fail:" prompt. The same thing happens with OPEN, (getfiled) and INSERT A:XXX. Same thing with drive B:, too. This problem seems to be caused by the floppy drive not being able to detect whether the drive door has been opened (change-line support). 41. In LISP, passing a "nil" instead of a 2D point to the new_dialog command generates a "FATAL ERROR: NULL POINTER REFERENCED". The following code demonstrates the problem: (setq di_dcl_id (load_dialog "dlgtest.dcl")) (new_dialog "dimensions" di_dcl_id "" nil) 42. With file locking enabled and FILEDIA=1, save the current file, make some changes, then shell out of ACAD and delete the .DWK file. Now end out of ACAD. You get an alert box stating that ACAD was unable to lock the current drawing. Select OK and the same alert box reappears. Select OK a second time and you are returned to the DOS prompt as expected. Do a directory of the file you were editing and you will see that there is a .BAK file and a 0 byte .DWK file, but no drawing file. Any changes since your last save have been lost. The same problem occurs if FILEDIA=0, except when you end there is no alert box displayed and ACAD appears to hang, but it is really waiting for you to hit "RETURN" to acknowledge the message in the alert box (which isn't visible). The work around is to either not delete the .DWK file while editing the drawing, or disable file locking in the configuration menu if file locking is not needed. 43. The DDCHPROPS command will not allow you to change an entity to a locked layer while both the CHANGE and CHPROP commands will. 44. There is a problem with the hatch angle recorded and reported by BHATCH. Draw a rectangle and rotate it 25 degrees. Then adjusted the UCS by using the UCS Entity Command. Hatched the rectangle and the angle displayed is 25 degrees. After applying the pattern and attempting to hatch again the angle displayed was 50 degrees. Apply it and hatch again and it reads 75 degrees. 45. The lisp expression (ssget "X" (list (cons 0 "INSERT") (cons -4 "=,=,=") (cons 10 (list 0 0 z)))) doesn't work. The z coordinate isn't being evaluated in the relational test with blocks. 46. Documentation bug. The ACAD Reference Manual index is missing references to these AutoCAD commands: GraphScr, TextScr, Redefine, Undefine, Script, RScript and Resume. 47. Documentation bug. The ADS Reference Manual example on page 108 which shows how to use ads_entmake() to generate a polyline is incomplete. The codes for the linetype and color were omitted for each VERTEX and for the SEQEND. If the linetype and color are not included in the ads_buildlist() command for these items, the AUDIT command will report several errors in the drawing after running the example as shown. 48. When plotting using MM units, if you specify any paper size other than MAX, the resultant plotted dimensions were 25.4 times smaller than specified. The workaround is to either specify MAX for the paper size, or multiple the desired paper size by 25.4 (e.g. 841,594 becomes 21361.4,15087.6) when entering the size. Fixed in R12c1. 49. Create a visible attribute on layer 0. Create a block called TEST which consists solely of the attribute you just defined. Make a new layer called HOWCOME and insert the TEST block onto this layer and enter "THIS IS TEXT" at the attribute value prompt. Freeze layer 0. The attribute value of "THIS IS TEXT" is still visible on the screen, as it should be since anything created on Layer 0 is supposed to take on the properties of the insertion layer. Now try to select the block using any command, including DDATTE, ERASE, MOVE, COPY, etc. and you will not be able to. The only known workaround is to THAW Layer 0. 50. When plotting from Paperspace, filled entities (i.e. arrow heads, fat polylines, solids, etc.) contained within an XREF but are on a layer which is frozen using VPLAYER show up in the plot preview and also in the actual plot. The following script demonstrates the problem. layer m solids solid 5,5 10,5 7,10 saveas DWG1 new DWG2= xref attach DWG1 0,0 tilemode 0 mview 0,0 15,15 zoom ext vplayer freeze *solid* All At this point, if you do a full plot preview, the solid is displayed even though the layer has been frozen. The only workaround is to freeze the layer in the original drawing instead of using VPLAYER in the drawing which contains the XREF. 51. Attempting to use entmake or ads_entmake to generate a polyline in R12 which uses the new continuous linetype pattern (PLINEGEN) will lock the computer everytime. The following lisp routine demonstrates the problem. (defun c:lockitup () (setvar "PLINEGEN" 1) (entmake '( (0 . "POLYLINE") (62 . 5) (6 . "DASHED") (66 . 1) (70 . 128) ; <<<<---- change this to (70 . 0) ; and it works but the ; continuous linetype ; is not displayed ) ) (entmake '( (0 . "VERTEX") (10 1.0 1.0 0.0) (6 . "DASHED") (66 . 1) ) ) (entmake '( (0 . "VERTEX") (10 5.0 1.0 0.0) (6 . "DASHED") (66 . 1) ) ) (entmake '( (0 . "VERTEX") (10 10.0 5.0 0.0) (6 . "DASHED") (66 . 1) ) ) (entmake '((0 . "SEQEND"))) ) The only workaround is to generate the polyline without the "128" code, then perform a PEDIT on the polyline and turn on the Linetype Generation. 52. When issuing the PLOT command from AutoLISP, the first prompt "Display, Extents..." is not issued unless CMDDIA set to 0. 53. In the international version of R12, in pull-down menus, placing "!." at the start of a menu label is supposed to display a check mark (tick), but it does nothing. Workaround: use extended character 251 (square root symbol) in place of the dot. 54. When plotting to a color Postcript device (PLOT, not PSOUT), the plot file does not correctly handle color changes when going from a filled entity with a color to a non-filled entity which has its color set to BYLAYER. For example, whenever a filled polyline is encountered, subsequent lines, text, etc. are plotted in the last filled polyline's color rather than in their specified color. The work around is to do a chprop and set every entity to its desired color instead of leaving color set bylayer. 55. RQEND isn't being sent to ADS applications when an Open or End is issued. No known workaround. 56. There is an incompatibility between R11 ADS apps and R12 in the area of ads_ssget() filters; R11 only supported filters for the "X" form of call, wherease R12 supports filters on all varieties of ads_ssget(). The problem shows up when you attempt to run ADS programs compiled for R11 using the ads_ssget functions with a "W" or "C", under R12. This will generate an error in R12 stating that the filter list is invalid (even though I passed NULL as filter list). The problem is that the R11 ADS.LIB didn't bother passing anything in the filter field for non-"X" ads_ssget() calls, but R12 is looking for it anyway. 57. When using the fillet command on lines that are residing on different layers, the fillet arc will be created on the current layer with the current layer color and current layer linetype rather than on the current layer in the color currently set by the color command and the current linetype set by the linetype command. No known workaround. Same problem applies to the CHAMFER command. 58. AME bug. The SOLSERVMSG (AME) variable cannot be set (back) to 3 in either autolisp or ADS. Executing (ap_setvar "SOLSERVMSG" 3) will confirm this. This variable can be set to 2 under the same conditions and can be set to 3 with the SOLVAR command. 59. ACAD has a highlighting bug relating to the new 31 bit display mode of R12. When you zoom in to a very small portion of the drawing and do a regen, then zoom out to display a much larger area without forcing a regen, any items which are then selected at a "Select objects" prompt don't appear to be highlighted. This wasn't a problem before release 12 because you could never zoom back out far enough after the first regen without forcing a second regen, but it is now possible with the 31 bit display. The only workaround is to do a second regen with the larger portion of the drawing displayed. 60. On a Novell 3.11 network using a network copy of ACAD, when two or more users attempt to start ACAD at the same time, they recieve a "waiting of ACAD.PWD, File missing or corrupt" message. If the users allow ACAD to continue to wait for the .PWD to open, they will sometimes get an "unable to open PWD file" message and then be dumped out to DOS. This is sometimes followed by an undeleted ACAD.PWK lock file that soon trashes the remaining users. The suggest workaround is when two simultaneous users attempt to log in at the same time, and the second one gets the message "waiting for acad.pwd...", have them press ctrl-c and wait a moment, then go into AutoCAD again. 61. When using ACAD with QEMM 6.0x, the setting of the MAXVCPI switch is ignored and ACAD uses all available memory. The switch is honored if you are using HIMEM.SYS, or no memory manager at all, but not with QEMM 6.0x. The work around is to use the Pharlap configuration switches -maxx 0 -maxe 0 - maxvcpi XXXX, where XXXX is the size in bytes of the amount of memory you wish to restrict ACAD to. 62. With FILEDIA=1, if you have a repeating menu command such as [Fan]*^c^cinsert c:/acad/elecsyms/fan which attempts to insert a non-existant block, the ACAD alert box pops up stating that the block can't be found. When you click on the OK button, the box instantly reappears because the command is being repeated. The work around is to click on the OK button and then instantly hit the ^C button. It might take several tries, but ACAD will eventually stop running the command and return you to the command prompt. 63. ACAD does not allow the valid DOS filename characters "`~!@#$%^&{}()'" to be used with the NEW, SAVE, WBLOCK, and SAVEAS commands. Interestingly enough, the commands OPEN and INSERT do allow these characters to be used. Because of this discrepancy, it is possible to open an existing drawing which contains these characters but you won't be able to save it back to the disk with changing its name. 64. There is a problem with the Epson printer driver having to do with where it places the origin of the drawing. When plotting, the driver feeds about 2" of paper before plotting, making it difficult to line a plot up with the paper. Apart from rolling the paper back a few inches the other option would be to use R11's plep.exp driver from the Driver Update Disk that shipped with R11. 65. Having Limit Checking turned on prevents the you from configuring your tablet menu. Attempting to configure the tablet menu with Limit Checking on results in the message "Outside Limits" being display for each corner of the menu. The work around is to turn it off with the command, LIMITS OFF. 66. With file locking enabled, start a new drawing and attempt to DXFIN a .DXF file which contains errors. ACAD will generate an error message about the invalid DXF file, then re- initialize the drawing editor so that the current drawing name is "UNNAMED" but it leaves the .DWK file for the original new drawing. You then have to delete the original .DWK before you can attempt to start a new drawing with the same name. 67. The command DDIM does not work transparently, even though it is documented to do so. The only workaround is to run the command from the "Command:" prompt. 68. When performing a Zoom Extents within a viewport in Paperspace, ACAD is incorrectly computing the drawing extents based on every entity in the drawing instead of only those thawed in the current viewport. To show this, start a new drawing, then place a circle at (5,5) with a 10' radius on LAYER1, then create a second circle at (1000,1000) with a 10' radius on LAYER2. Set TILEMODE=0 and create then use MVIEW to create 2 viewports. Run VPLAYER and freeze LAYER1 in one viewport and LAYER2 in the other viewport. Now perform a Zoom Extents in each viewport. ACAD is zooming over the entire model space instead of just the object space. No known workaround. 69. Using GRIP editing on 2D polyline vertices, ACAD allows you to change the vertex elevation by osnaping to a point in the drawing with an elevation different than the vertex. When you do this, ACAD updates the polyline header and the vertex you are editing to reflect the new elevation, but it doesn't change any of the other vertices within the polyline. If you perform an AUDIT after doing this grip editing, ACAD reports errors with a non-planar 2D polyline. 70. When plotting to the HP Draftpro EXL, changes in the pen speed settings or color assignments seem to cause lines to be erratically plotted partway through a medium size plot. No known workaround. 71. The new TRIM with Fence option does not work correctly with polylines which cross the trimming boundary more than twice. The only workaround is to keep repeating the trim command until all of the polyline is gone. 72. Call REPLAY to replay a TIFF file. Select a file from the dialog box by double clicking on the file's name. Works perfect. Call REPLAY again. ACAD defaults to the file entered before. Click OK: "Error: can't locate file". Press RETURN: "Error: can't locate file". Double-click on the filename: This works. 73. When using the HPGL/2 driver with R12c1 configured for a color electrostatic. With CMDDIA=1, run the PLOT command and save the settings to a .PCP file. Cancel the plot, end out of ACAD, then restart ACAD. Set CMDDIA=0, run the plot command and attempt to read in the .PCP file you just saved. ACAD generates an error for each pen number stating that the pen is out of range. The only known workaround is to restore the .PCP when CMDDIA=1 instead of with CMDDIA=0. *74. There is lockup problem with a combination of DVIEW, LTSCALE, DRAGMODE, and INSERT using a block containing entities with non-continuous linetypes. The following lisp routine demonstrates the lockup: (defun c:lock () (setvar "dragmode" 2) (command "._zoom" "w" (list 1999995 499995) (list 2000105 500100)) (command "._line" (list 2000000 500000) "@100,0" "") (command "._chprop" (entlast) "" "lt" "hidden2" "") (command "._block" "lock" (list 0 0) (entlast) "") (command "._dview" "" "") (command "._ltscale" 50) (command "._insert" "lock" (list 0 0)) ) Start a new drawing with no prototype, run the lisp routine and ACAD will lock up the system. If I remove the call to Dview, leave the line's linetype as continuous, leave LTSCALE=1, or turn of DRAGMODE, the lockup problem disappears. *75. With CMDDIA=0, if you plot to a file and there exists a subdirectory with the same name as the plot file, ACAD will display an alert box stating that the file already exists and prompts to erase it. For example, the current directory is \DWGS, and there is a subdirectory call \DWGS\HOUSE. Perform a "del *.plt", then plot to a file called house. The alert box shows up stating that the file already exists even though there are no plot files in the directory. *76. Drawing created with R11 which contain XREF's and have VISRETAIN=1 aren't handled properly by R12. When these drawings are opened in R12, all of the layers contained within the XREF's have their linetypes changed to continuous, regardless of how they were set in R11. The only workaround is to open the drawing with R11 and set VISRETAIN=0 before attempting to open the drawing with R12. *77. The command DDMODIFY overwrites the AutoLisp command (ver). This occurs because there are several places in DDMODIFY.LSP where the program does a (setq ver ...), which effectively reassigns the symbol ver from a subroutine to a variable. *78. There is a problem with the Houston Instruments plotter driver in R12c1 when using a single pen plotter. The driver will ask for a pen swap at the wrong time depending on the drawing being plotted. The work around is to use the HI driver that shipped with R12c0. *79. If you give a shape name about 35 characters in a shape file, it will crash on the second invocation of the SHAPE command on the SparcStation, and crash intermittantly on a DOS machine. The only workaround is to restrict the length of shape names. *80. There is a bug in R12 that corrupts the DOS interrupt IRQ7 handler when exiting from ACAD. This problem show shows up only on certain machines and is evident by the appearance of a Phar Lap Error: 10025 or Phar Lap Error: 10026, both of which require a re-boot. To fix this problem, download IRQ7X.ZIP from here on the forum and use it to patch ACAD. *81. The values and their meanings shown for the VISRETAIN command in the help dialog box are backwards. What HELP shows for VISRETAIN=0 is really what happens when VISRETAIN=1, and vice versa. The ARM also has this reversed on page 588. *82. R12 doesn't correctly display or plot certain circles with non-continuous linetypes contained within a block. The following lisp routine demonstrates the problem. (defun c:showme () (setvar "ltscale" 1) (command "._layer" "make" "hidden" "lt" "hidden" "" "") (command "._circle" (list 0 0) (/ 3.0 32.0)) (command "._block" "no_show" (list 0 0) (entlast) "") (setvar "ltscale" 48) (command "._insert" "no_show" (list 0 0) 48 "" "") (command "._zoom" "e") ) If the block is exploded at this point, the circle will show up with a hidden linetype. To make the circle display correctly without exploding the block, the LTSCALE must be set to a value less than PI/2 (1.5706 works). *83. The lisp expression (ssget "X" (list (cons 0 "ARC") (cons -4 "=,=,=") (cons 10 (list 0 0 z)))) doesn't work. The z coordinate isn't being evaluated in the relational test with arcs. *84. With HIGHLIGHT=0, using "U" to undo the previous selection while in the "Select objects: " prompt acts like HIGHLIGHT=1. To show this, load a drawing with 5000+ entities, do a LIST, and at the "Select objects:" prompt type ALL. ACAD reports XXXX entities selected. Now type "U". Instead of instantly reporting that XXXX entities were removed, it takes several seconds for the message to appear. Now if you type ALL again, ACAD takes much longer than the original time to report XXXX entities selected. No known workaround.