Toolpath groups turning into Machine groups?

[Zoober]

I have a couple parts, left and right. RH part complete, with 200+ ops divided into 13 toolpath groups. All good.

Now, I save as a different file name, import (geometry only) the left hand models, and save as a new file name. All still good.

Close MCX, and reopen the new merged file. All of my toolpath groups are now machine groups.

I can replicate this every time. Before I send this off to QA, does anyone have an idea what I may be doing to cause this?

TIA

[kujo763]

That sounds familiar to me, I don't think this not uniquely a X4 problem though. That is from X3, still not fixed.

 

Erik

[Zoober]

Thanks Erik, I am on X3...

[Mike-T]

Yes, I've seen as well. not neccessarly from importing ops either. (X3)

[somename75]

This happened to me a few times with X3 also, but I was unable to replicate it. Every time it trashed the file and had to go to a backup

[Bruce Caulley]

I haven't seen that since X1

[Leigh @ Kodiak]

I used to get it in X3 as well. I was always able to recover from it by making a new machine group and toolpath groups, then moving my operations back into them.

[Mark Baker CNC Software]

This has happened to me also but I was unable to re-produce it. This was with beta X4 and I had hoped it was fixed.

 

If anyone knows the steps that caused this and can reproduce it, please let me know. If we can't reproduce it, its not going to get fixed.

 

Zoober if you still have the corupt file send it to me. I'll send it to the programmer to see if he can find anything out.

[Ray H.]

We get this importing previous created files from say x2 or x3 and upon merging into a X4 file that I use as a template. I get this. I believe it has to do with WCS and older files or possibly the .MMD files. Same held true when importing X2 into X3. I correct myself because it is not import but File merge pattern.

[Slick]

Mark. This is becoming a big gripe with our programming staff.

I have been trying to narrow things down but have not resolved the problem.

 

It is related to using older, updated files, i.e. X2 to X3 etc. But we have had it happen with a brand new X3 file, the only thing related to an older version of MasterCAM was the machine definition and tool library. This leads me to believe it has something to do with the Machine Definition and when/how it was imported to X3.

I was able to eliminate the error messages we were getting when openning the file.

When we upgraded to X3 we did not bring over "MILL DEFAULT.MMD", "MILL.SET" and "ALL COMPONENTS.GMD". All of these files were set up as default paths in our configurations. (I hate typing this much... blah blah blah.).

Anyhhow's these files are there now, we no longer get the error message but still get the "magic trick" of toolpath groups disapearing.

 

We are saving our files if you would like to take a look at them.

 

I am going to create new Machine Defintions and assign it our converted post to see if this solves the problem... (I hope!).

[j.nguyen]

Hey slick were are you at these days? Don't have your number or your e-mail. Mine is [email protected] shoot me an e-mail when you get a chance. Cheers! Jamey

[left coast lefty]

We have the same problem, Zoober. Has this been sent in yet?

[Leigh @ Kodiak]

Just had this happen on a file. For refference, it is strictly an X4 file. it was fine when I saved and closed it 5 minutes ago, then when I went back to the file again to check something, the "magic trick" showed up.

 

For the record, it took me less time to fix it than it did to write this post.

[Mark Baker CNC Software]

Slick, I've only had this happen to me once and after hours of trying to duplicate the problem I haven't come up with the right steps to reproduce the bug. I've only seen it happen one other time on another persons system and they weren't able to reproduce it either.

 

If anyone can come up with the steps to reproduce the problem, I'll write it up. Without being able to reproduce it, the programmers won't have any direction to follow.

[Zoober]

Mark, if you are interested, I can make this happen every time with these two files. These are very similar parts to ones I sent Pete for a different reason.

Let me know how you want them, ie: zip, zip2go with MC CD etc. They are native X3 - I don't have X4 on my PC yet at all.

email me at rbrunson at true position tech DOT com. no spaces

I can provide exact steps to make it happen. I ended up just creating TP groups and draging ops into them. Got rid of the excess MC groups, and all else was good. It did on a couple occasions scramble the order of some ops, but I could not replicate that.

[Jim Evans from CNC Software]

Zoober,

 

Load each file and create a Zip2go file and send them along to [email protected] with the detailed steps. Might want to reference this post in your email to QC.

[Zoober]

Mail sent to QC.

Thanks!

[Zoober]

QC says it is fixed for X4.

Here is part of their reply:

quote:

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......The cause of the problem in this instance is when you use Merge Pattern to bring in a file with Geometry Groups (status bar / Groups). If you delete these groups from *********.mcx, save the file, and then import it into the original file, this will not occur. This was logged as bug number cnc00049337.

 

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I will be looking at my groups from now on. I rarely even go into group mgr, so it did not occur to look in there.