"AEC dimension: opening / door/ window associativity initiation failed"

Some days, this blog just writes itself.

Today I had a support case were Civil 3D 2014 was crashing with the above message. I had some very unhappy campers on my hands. This was occurring on many files and seemed to be spreading. I have not been able to pinpoint an exact cause, and there isn't much you can do except clean the file as well as possible.

There are a few blogs out there that I used for my source material, so I'd be remiss if I did not give credit to the Autocad Devblog guys. The smarties over at Rand also had a nice post about this specific error.

Here is my writeup of how to avoid the error in the future.

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Regarding the AEC Dimension Error:

Note: These instructions are meant as a good faith effort to assist in removing the error message “AEC dimension: opening / door/ window associativity initiation failed” from a large batch of files in an automated manner.  This may not remove the error in all cases.

Before you proceed, complete the following steps:

1.       Make sure Civil 3D 2014 sp2 is installed.

2.       Download script pro from here.

3.       Download example script from here.

4.       Launch Autocad and suppress dialog boxes that may interfere with the scripts.

Go to AutoCAD options > System > Hidden Message settings and clear all checkboxes.

What this script does:

The script DWG_cleaner.scr does the following:

1.       Turns on all layers.

2.       Thaws all layers

3.       Purges registered applications, empty objects, unused items, etc.

4.       Audits (twice)

5.       Saves result.

To use the script:

1.       Unzip ScriptPro.zip.

This contains:

·         ScriptPro2.0.msi

2.       Install ScriptPro2.0.msi

3.       Save the script to a location on your hard drive.

4.       Launch Scriptpro.

a.       Click Browse

b.      Select the file DWG_cleaner.scr

c.       To add files to process, click Add From folder.

d.      Click the Settings button. 

e.      Click the Browse button.

                                                               i.      Browse to the path to ACAD.exe.

                                                             ii.      Click OK

5.       When you are ready to run the script, click the Checked button. 

 This will run the script on all of the files in the listing with a checkmark in the Name column.

It may take a while to process, but the result will be base AutoCAD files with the block and text exploded to plain text.

6.       When the script is complete you will get a message “Do you wish to view the log file.”  If it looks like everything went well, click No.

If you get any “Failed” messages, the most likely culprit is that a dialog box was not suppressed and interfered with the execution of the script.  Another possibility is that the file is too corrupt to open.  

IF The File Is Too Corrupt to Open or still gives the error message:

7.       Download an additional script here.  

8.       Extract the zip to a location you will remember.

9.       In ScriptPro, change the script by clicking Browse and select DWG_BatchRecover.scr

This script uses the recover command on the batch of files you choose. To use the Recover command, the file you wish to modify needs to stay closed, so you will change some settings in Script Pro to allow this to occur. 

10.   Click the Settings button. 

11.   Change the Settings to match the following dialog:

a.       Change the process timeout to 100 seconds (this allows large drawings to be recovered even though it may be slow).

b.      Place a checkbox next to “Run Script without opening drawing file”

c.       Click OK.

12.   When you are ready to run the script, click the Checked button.  This will run the script on all of the files in the listing with a checkmark in the Name column.

So - no guarantees, but if you have a whole lotta files to do something to, these little scripts can save you a TON of time. 

Happy Birthday Pier 9

Today was #TremendressTuesday at Autodesk, in celebration of the 1 year anniversary of the Autodesk facility at Pier 9 in downtown San Francisco.  Pier 9 houses an AMAZEBALLS workshop as well as several of Autodesk's consumer-facing product teams like Instructables, Sketchbook Pro and Spark just to name a few.

We were all encouraged to show our creativity through what we wore to work today. Not one to pass up an opportunity to dress in costume, I broke out the same shirt and custom Converse shoes I wore when I ran Bay to Breakers earlier this year. 

My office is a few blocks away in the 1 Market Street location of Autodesk.  However, I happen to be a docent at Pier 9, meaning that if someone wants a tour I can take people through and show off all of the insanely cool tools that are available to Autodesk employees and Artists in Residence. To use any piece of equipment, users must be trained. Safety is the #1 focus. Depending on the tool, training ranges from several hours to several days. There's also a test kitchen with a commercial-grade Wolf range that I drooooooool over.

In addition to the test kitchen there are four main areas of the workshop. There's the 3D print shop, digital fabrication shop, woodshop, and metal shop. Less glamorous, but just as cool (to me anyway) is the industrial sewing equipment and an electronics lab.

Many people ask, "Why does Autodesk have all that stuff?" Pier 9 is part test facility, part makerspace, part R&D operation and part playground. People are fabricating art, gadgets and customer models with much of the same equipment that would be used in a production facility. Walking through Pier 9, one cannot help but get excited and inspired to make cool stuff and think about design in a holistic way.