X4 BUG VENT

[CEMENTHEAD]

I know its just my opinion but I believe X4 is the buggiest release ever. Crashed at least 4 times today, Tool bugs (tip angle and mystic tool property changes), Color bug, cant print shaded drawing, repaired NCI, and Verify has encounterd a serious critical error, notify somone. crash Sigh...

 

My autosave is now set for 5min.

 

MU1 me please!

 

Vent complete... Now I feel a little better

 

And yes I do appreciate all the new addons and hst like menus.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

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MU1 me please!

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No promises when but it's a Production Candidate which is after the Beta Phase. Should be relatively soon. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for saying that.

 

Hang in there. It's been VERY stable for me so...

[[email protected]]

Mine has been a LOT better since I renamed the config file and started over. I also found 2 directories for temp files and the one I didn't know about had 150Gb (Yes Gigabytes ) of temp files.

 

Mucho better now

[gcode]

Anybody having trouble with lots of crashes

should review this thread

[mayday]

As if locked operations arn't enough, hey lets make em ghost at the same time

WTF !!!!

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

quote:

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My autosave is now set for 5min.

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That could be part of the problem too. Autosave is a problem looking for a place to happen.

 

You ought to try the "backup files" feature instead.

[mayday]

funny how everyone comes up with basic functions one should not use because it will cause problems. Is a basic config file really the root cause of X4 trouble? No wait, its autosave, no Its the PC. OMG what is going on. Myself working in 5X on a job that should take 3 days has turned into 6 because everytime I open the file everything is locked and ghosted. so half my day is regening and deleting (repaired nci) out of the tool comments. what a waste of money. One would think a yearly fee would get you basic repairs in a timly manor. Wouldn't you?

a simple computer math function in the tool parm dont work. No one noticed?

I need a beer

[peon]

I was told the fix for the "repaired nci" error was discovered within a few weeks after the X4 release. Well where is it??!!! Another week goes by and I have to regen and delete the damn comments. Also told to wait for MU1 for the patch. What a bunch of bs!!! I want the fix NOW!!!

[mayday]

High paced, narrow market out there. We are lucky to be busy among a few. I would think CNC would take this time of hardship and attempt to make right with there customers. My boss dont want to hear the excuse's why its not running, they want to know when. My efforts show up at the machines, and when I cant get good code out in a timly manor I get the push. Try getting a 6 figure aircraft part done on an E machine with the garbage Mcam is putting out.

Frustrating to say the least.

I need another beer, and another cam system

Del?

cam?

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Some people see what you see and some don't. It's as simple, and as complex as that Mayday. I know you don't want to hear that, but that's the reality. Some people bang on the Beta Testers (not you necessarrily) "...Why didn't they catch that?..." Like we each test every function the same way. Whatever. Time to wake up and smell the coffee and realize that we all do things just a little differently. (Not you Mayday)

 

Of course NOBODY wants to admit they are using something the wrong way or don't know how to use something. That would just be heresy to admit that.

 

Also, not saying the NCI issue is not valid, I ran into a couple parts and a few toolaths that displayed that behaviour, and obviously some other Beta Testers did as well.

 

Some people have trouble with Autosave (which was nentioned above). I do not, and have IIRC hardly ever had trouble with it, even on large 250+MB files. I swear by it, some swear AT it, and others swear by back up. Who's right? Who's wrong?

 

Because the number of variables involved in executing a particular function is quite high it opens up a lot to possibilities. I've got customers that use CATIA, UG, Gibbs, Surfcam, Pro/Man, Esprit, Partmaker, and Delcam to name a few... believe me, they ALL have their own issues. If anyone is looking for bug free software, well, I'm afraid, you're probably going to have to write it yourself. Every link in the chain has bugs, that's why new drivers are always being written, that's why OS patches are being written, etc... Not making any excuses, not saying we should not demand more from our mission critical App we happen to use, just telling it like it is.

 

JM2C

[Leigh @ Kodiak]

quote:

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Because the number of variables involved in executing a particular function is quite high it opens up a lot to possibilities.

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[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Ooops, should say "... lot OF possibilities..."

 

Thanks Leigh for pointing that out.

[Leigh @ Kodiak]

Oh..i wasn't correcting you, just seconding the sentiment. I didn't even notice your typo either

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

[Bruce Caulley]

The problem is not the fact that there are bugs, just the way in which they are addressed.

 

My opinion is that prior to maintenance the bugs were higher up the list of priorities because otherwise they would never be able to sell the next release. Now with maintenance the next release is "sold" whether the customer likes it or not. As a result it now seems that the bugs have dropped down the priority list and the new features have moved up a couple of pegs. With what looks like a lot of contracted 3rd party content included I am not sure how CNC can put a harness on this problem.

 

Bugs need to be addressed with FREE patches monthly, weekly, daily or even hourly if that is what it takes to put this growing problem to rest. I say growing problem because I think it is something that is going to snowball and start to cause major loss of revenue if not addressed.

 

Bruce

[Mr. Wizzard]

I am not a Mcam pro, by any means. I have only been a daily user since the first X. I used 9.1 in school.

 

That being said, I have become, what i consider, quite proficient at programming up to but excluding 5-axis. I am only beginning to play with the 5-axis stuff. I am able to program very complex shapes, surfaces, HST's on various lathes and 4-axis mills.

 

I cringe whenver a new release comes out, because I know it will be weeks, perhaps months of finding out all the issues that will come up that will prolong anything I try to do. Fighting the software daily to find out what work-around I need to perform and what things I should just not try to do becomes extremely frustrating!

 

IMHO, bugs should be the priority, not "new" features. Adding new features to existing bugs only compounds the problems. Are the verify crashes acceptable because I can fix it with the purchase of more verification software? How do I justify to my company the purchase of Vericut because the software they already payed for will not work right?

 

Love-Hate relationship.........

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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Bugs need to be addressed with FREE patches monthly, weekly, daily or even hourly if that is what it takes to put this growing problem to rest. I say growing problem because I think it is something that is going to snowball and start to cause major loss of revenue if not addressed.

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+1 gazillion

[Watcher]

quote:

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Bugs need to be addressed with FREE patches monthly, weekly, daily or even hourly if that is what it takes to put this growing problem to rest.

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+1 gazillion

 

I just can´t understand why they do not ship a patch to address at least these critical bugs... I would understand they postponing a critical fix in the CAD kernel, but as a CAM system, it´s hard to find workarounds for some of the reported problems... a CAD model it is static... once you have found the workaround you won´t change the model... but a toolpath needs to be optimized, reviewed, as you cannot justify dumb moves at the CNC machine... unless you are the shop owner...

I rememeber that some years ago CNC software used to release patches for some situations... We did not see any public patch since X.. why? Is that considered some sort of weakness? Does they believe that they competitors will use it against them?

I simply don´t understand why they prefer to pile up bugs over bugs after each release...

 

JM2C

[neurosis]

quote:

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Some people see what you see and some don't. It's as simple, and as complex as that Mayday. I know you don't want to hear that, but that's the reality. Some people bang on the Beta Testers (not you necessarrily) "...Why didn't they catch that?..." Like we each test every function the same way. [Roll Eyes] Whatever. Time to wake up and smell the coffee and realize that we all do things just a little differently. (Not you Mayday)

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Do they rely solely on volunteer beta testers? Or do they have any kind of internal beta testing going on?

 

If I were going to be passing blame on anyone it would be their QC department. Not a bunch of people volunteering their free time. I would think that your job as a volunteer beta tester would be to find the bugs that "slipped" by QC. Not completely debug the code.

 

I totally agree that there are bugs of some sort in most software. There just seems to be an abnormally large number of them in MC.

[Thee Rickster ™]

quote:

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quote: Bugs need to be addressed with FREE patches monthly, weekly, daily or even hourly if that is what it takes to put this growing problem to rest. I say growing problem because I think it is something that is going to snowball and start to cause major loss of revenue if not addressed.

 

+1 gazillion

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I concur.

 

Many lost hours of modeling and gramming

time due to 'addressed' bug issues that are only available to maintenance customers when CNC wants to let its customers recover from them.

 

I hope they create a weekly bug patch program for all.

[gaijin_2007]

quote:

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The problem is not the fact that there are bugs, just the way in which they are addressed.

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+1

Yep, there's a lot to be said for monthly updates like you get for PowerMILL.

As CNC Apps Guy said there's bugs in all software but it's how quick they're fixed that counts.

[Don S at Barefoot CNC South]

The bugs that get me are the ones that are not consistant just now and then, like the blue apply button, I must of hit the blue apply instead of the green after changing the type of tool comp, and it didn't change thus scraping an aircraft part that was almost finished. When the boss asks what happened what can you say....I forgot to use the work around for a bug?

[Hitachi]

I think X2MR2 SP1 had the most bugs, X4 has been very stable for me. I do agree that X4 should have been more thoroughly tested before being released as many users are having issues with bugs, why rush out the newest release only to frustrate the users who depend on this software on a daily basis?

 

Elco1971

MX4 Mill L3 Lathe L1 5X

SolidWorks 2007 SP3.1

[mayday]

I see op-lock more often in 5x paths. here is nci output from a locked operation. and output after unlocking and regening the op.

 

fist difference line found in file compare, there are more in the nci file, note the dec place where the change is. So somthing is round to the 8th place. Is this causing the repaired nci?

 

-1.58942223 0.35395633 -0.04550632 -1.58942223 0.35897023 -0.17040572 -1. 20 0 0.19180166 0.03936664 -0.98064387

 

-1.58942223 0.35395633 -0.04550632 -1.58942223 0.35897023 -0.17040572 -1. 20 0 0.19180166 0.03936663 -0.98064387

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

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Do they rely solely on volunteer beta testers?

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No.

 

quote:

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...do they have any kind of internal beta testing going on?

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Yes.