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MCAM For Solidworks Glitch Support Thread


yosip1115
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Hey guys, 

I am a manufacturing engineer at one of the largest purchasers of Masuura VMC's in the US, though I program Okuma M560V VMC's primarily, and have a few more of them coming during Q1 2019.

I run Solidworks 2018 and Mastercam for Solidworks 2019.

I'm the only one here using mastercam for solidworks, our other programmer uses standalone. I am a CSWP so I justified the investment, and it has paid for itself. 

Unfortunately, I have ran into enough glitches in the past few months to make my head spin. Luckily my VAR is usually able to help me resolve 90% of them, but some are left unresolved. I figured some of you may have seen some of the unresolved issues that I run into, and that I can maybe get lucky here. That goes both ways...I use MCAM4SW for both 3 and 5 axis programming. I do full machine simulation to verify holder clearances, machine travel limitations, workpiece/machine interferences, and offline optimization of 5 axis (non-simul) programs. I specialize in deep hole drilling, and have a good amount of post processor development experience. I will try to browse around for others here who use mastercam for solidworks or who run Okuma VMC's so we can scratch each other's backs. 

 

Anyway, my reason for starting this thread... An unresolved glitch that just costed me about 1.5 weeks of work... I went back into my mastercam tab in solidworks after editing a sketch that was driving a contour (far from the first time), and my entire part program was missing.  No machine definition. No stock definition. No toolpath groups. Nothing. I am unable to create new toolpaths in that solidworks configuration, the buttons on the GUI do not work, so that helps me rest assured that it was not entirely my fault. If I switch to one of my other operations in other solidworks configurations then the toolpaths appear just fine and the GUI works. It seems to be some sort of GUI glitch. I did try resetting the solidworks GUI in REGEDIT with no luck, perhaps there is more I can do in there?

I am frustrated with this addon sometimes, but can't imagine going back to standalone since I am so familiar with the solidworks interface and have realized how much more I can do when the two are combined; using configurations to keep all operations in one neat assembly file, driving mastercam toolpaths off of solidworks created entities (2d or 3d sketches), using solidworks measurement tool, using solidworks assembly mates to set up jobs, there is SO MUCH mcam4solidworks helps me accomplish, with confidence. 

 

If anyone can offer a hand or has any questions that you think I may be able to help with, please let me know. 

-Mike 

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One issue that I have seen in the past was when the temp folder was being cleaned out in the middle of the day without the user even knowing.

What was happening was the user would be working in MCfSW which is saving to and reading from their "C:\Users\your logon\AppData\Local\Temp" folder. Problem being their IT department had set up a utility to delete everything from this location everyday at noon. So if the user was in the middle of working on a file when it went to read back in the temp folder data there was nothing there, causing the user to losing everything they had been working on.

So I would start  there. Browse to your "C:\Users\your logon\AppData\Local\Temp" folder . Typically there are hundred if not thousands of files and folders in this location. If there is not, then it's being cleaned out. Which is OK, we just want to make sure it's being done after hours or when all applications are closed.

We also noticed that one of our dealers just submitted a ticket on what sounds a lot like what you are describing here. So I'm guessing it may be your dealer? Anyways they mention the following:

"The customer was editing a solidworks sketch that toolpaths were driven off of. Began receiving a new notification that the component he was working on was locked and that he should unlock it to create any referenced geometry.

If this was you is that error message from SOLIDWORKS something you can reproduce? I can't say that I have ever seen that one before so you may have run into something that just isn't been taken into account. If you can reproduce the error and issue could you please send a sample assembly along with the steps used to [email protected] attn Ryan and we'll jump right on it. 

 

Thanks

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1 hour ago, gcode said:

I learned this the hard way by running CCleaner while I had a Mastercam session open.

The open file was ruined.

I now route all my Mastercam temp files to a folder in the root of C so my IT dept doesn't mess with it.

 

 

I should re-route for peace of mind. We do have security scans here that may be causing this, although my temp folder looks OK, there are files that date back to August in there. 

 

1 hour ago, Ryan Butt CNC Software said:

One issue that I have seen in the past was when the temp folder was being cleaned out in the middle of the day without the user even knowing.

What was happening was the user would be working in MCfSW which is saving to and reading from their "C:\Users\your logon\AppData\Local\Temp" folder. Problem being their IT department had set up a utility to delete everything from this location everyday at noon. So if the user was in the middle of working on a file when it went to read back in the temp folder data there was nothing there, causing the user to losing everything they had been working on.

So I would start  there. Browse to your "C:\Users\your logon\AppData\Local\Temp" folder . Typically there are hundred if not thousands of files and folders in this location. If there is not, then it's being cleaned out. Which is OK, we just want to make sure it's being done after hours or when all applications are closed.

We also noticed that one of our dealers just submitted a ticket on what sounds a lot like what you are describing here. So I'm guessing it may be your dealer? Anyways they mention the following:

"The customer was editing a solidworks sketch that toolpaths were driven off of. Began receiving a new notification that the component he was working on was locked and that he should unlock it to create any referenced geometry.

If this was you is that error message from SOLIDWORKS something you can reproduce? I can't say that I have ever seen that one before so you may have run into something that just isn't been taken into account. If you can reproduce the error and issue could you please send a sample assembly along with the steps used to [email protected] attn Ryan and we'll jump right on it. 

 

Thanks

Hey Ryan,

Guess I posted in the right place. That is my ticket. I have identified a BUNCH of tickets since I started in the uncharted mcam4sw territory here. If you have any ticket history to look at, look into it, I am curious what you think.

 The support at my VAR is bar none, but can't help me when the software craps out... Like right now, I'm trying to do a zip2go to back up my other assemblies, and it is zipping out a different file than than the one I have open... Things like this scare the crap out of me. I have months of work teetering on this software... And sometimes it just decides to drop the ball. Now my plan C is failing... can't even zip2go!!! Edit: zip2go is sorted out. Glitch still not. 

 

As far as recreating the original issue goes, it is so intermittent that I can't pinpoint any input on my end that causes it and I haven't been able to recreate that popup scenario. I am not 100% on the "locked object" thing, but then again I have never seen that in the years I have been using SW. I think it was OK when I ex'd out of that locked object popup, but maybe I hit OK instead of ex'ing out when it decided to glitch.

 

I had an issue that was similar minus losing a bunch of work immediately following my mcam4sw install. About half of the GUI buttons wouldn't work, either my VAR sorted it out with me, or I ended up starting a new solidworks assembly. I think maybe the same thing happened here, only after I had created a bunch of toolpaths this time since the gui is acting up again...

 

 

 

 

 

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"although my temp folder looks OK, there are files that date back to August in there."

In that case I would be willing to bet it has to do with the error message you received just prior. I'll do a little Googling on that message and see if I can find some info online about what causes it and how to reproduce it.s

Now onto you zip2go issue. That is definitely not something I've seen or heard of before. Our zip to go relies heavily on the SOLIDWORKS pack and Go. Try running the Pack and Go and see if that grabs the correct files. Also are the files it is grabbing just from another currently open document?

"GUI buttons wouldn't work" This can happen for a number of reasons. After a SOLIDWORKS crash, when you 1st install a new version of the add-in, when switching back and forth between different versions of the add-in. In all cases the way to reset it would be to delete that reg key you mention above. The KB artical on this can be found here:  

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4 minutes ago, Ryan Butt CNC Software said:

"although my temp folder looks OK, there are files that date back to August in there."

In that case I would be willing to bet it has to do with the error message you received just prior. I'll do a little Googling on that message and see if I can find some info online about what causes it and how to reproduce it.s

Now onto you zip2go issue. That is definitely not something I've seen or heard of before. Our zip to go relies heavily on the SOLIDWORKS pack and Go. Try running the Pack and Go and see if that grabs the correct files. Also are the files it is grabbing just from another currently open document?

"GUI buttons wouldn't work" This can happen for a number of reasons. After a SOLIDWORKS crash, when you 1st install a new version of the add-in, when switching back and forth between different versions of the add-in. In all cases the way to reset it would be to delete that reg key you mention above. The KB artical on this can be found here:  

 

Zip2go is mostly sorted out thank god. Funky, but I was able to back up my work. It seems to be zipping the glitched assembly out too, but the one I need is in there and it works so that is all I need. The "cummins 411 3 axis cadcam assembly" is the three axis one that I lost the work in. The "cummins 411 cadcam assembly" is my 5 axis assembly that I opened to zip2go, and no, the 3 axis assembly was not open at the time... And this is after a CPU restart. Very, very weird, and probably related... 

 

image.png.725075ce516670cd20ca38c1e12f1dcf.png

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As a last ditch rescue attempt when a Solidworks file goes bad

try opening the SW model or assembly  in regular Mastercam making sure "Import MCX toolpaths" is checked

If the toolpaths exist, they will come into the Mastercam session.

You can then either finish your project in Mastercam, or import the toolpaths back into a fresh SolidWorks session.

Its not a 100% recovery, but better than starting over

 

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