MasterCAM network file collision.

[stanektool]

Last night one of my second shift users came to me complaining about a loss of work.  He explained that one of the first shift guys had had the program he needed to work on open in MasterCAM on a different workstations and forgot to close the program at the end of his shift.  My second shift user spent a few hours making changes to the same file and then saved.  In the morning when my first shift user came back in and logged back on he was presented with a SIM lost error and an ok button to save his work, which he clicked.  Because our files are on the network the action to save the file by my first shift user overwrote all the work my second shift user had done. 

I've reproduced this problem in both MasterCAM x9 and 2018.  In both cases no file lock is placed upon the network located program.  I've run Process Monitor (Sysinternals) to watch MasterCAM, and sure enough; MasterCAM opens network file, copies network file local (C:\users\<username>\AppData\local\Temp\MasterCAM 2018), closes network file, opens local file.  Then during save it saves the local file and copies the file back to the network.  

I've gone through the MasterCAM config file a few times looking for a config solution.  The only thing I've found that seemed close was "Use Windows Temp Directory" under Files.  Unfortunately checking or unchecking that option does not solve the problem.  For now my mitigation is to require my users to rev the program when saving. 
 

[gcode]

I have reported this a few times and was told the solution was a few releases down the road, but there has been no fix to date.

You can actually do this on one PC.

You can open 2 instances of the same file, work on one all day, save the other file and wipe out a day's work.

I'm speaking from personal experience, because I actually did this once

There is a workaround of sorts.

Set up the file backup utility to back up to each user's My Documents.

That way a final copy of each user's work is safe in their user's file.

there will still be a loss of work, but it will be possible to salvage some of each user's work.

In my case I recovered 100% of my work.

I opened the network file the next morning and discovered that a day's work was missing, but my

backup folder had a copy of  the previous day's last save, so no work was lost.

This is something that desperately needs to be addressed.

I have no idea when that will happen.

 

[Seedy steve]

8 minutes ago, gcode said:

Set up the file backup utility to back up to each user's My Documents.

I like to have the backup fire into the folder of origin but with the name "Backup ss". that way you get a choice of back ups for all the different jobs.

Each station gets their own designation like "backup george" and so on so even if the same file is modified two places then you get both backups side by side.

[stanektool]

Another mitigation of sorts, along the same line as your backup solution, is volume shadow copy on the file server.  I have mine set to backup changes every 4 hours.  At least I can get back the changes that were over written by my first shift user.  

[Eric Allen]

We moved all of our Mastercam files into our PDM system. This had a few benefits. One is that the files are saved to a local drive, but still synced to the server. PDM also requires that files be checked out and you can see who else has it checked out and is working on it. Lastly, there is a revision history and you can quickly see any old version. I think this has been a huge improvement for even our small programming department.

[Metallic]

Why not just 'save as' a separate copy and then merge them later? Seems like it would be easy enough. Speaking as someone who has accidentally overwritten files on our network server, this is the way i go about it if i find a need to run multiple workstations using the same file.

 

Why were they editing the same live document...? seems like one person should program a program so that there is no confusion with regard to approach, machining, and tooling choices. maybe i am being obtuse

[SlaveCam]

2 hours ago, Eric Allen said:

We moved all of our Mastercam files into our PDM system. This had a few benefits. One is that the files are saved to a local drive, but still synced to the server. PDM also requires that files be checked out and you can see who else has it checked out and is working on it. Lastly, there is a revision history and you can quickly see any old version. I think this has been a huge improvement for even our small programming department.

I'm about to embark on the same quest. We have a document management system (M-Files) yet nobody uses it for what would be really useful. Controlling different Mastercam project versions!

[Seedy steve]

When we were prototyping  fixtures for blackberry, the volume of small jobs, with the speed of cutting plastics made for a world where approach was nearly irrelevant. three machines had a group of tools the same in each one. The carbide lasted for ever... it was great. we had those troubles some. also...

V9 will save wrong if u escape out of the tool path manager, then save it will miss your changes!

It took me years to figure out why files were saved incomplete because it was so erratic !!

[htm01]

i set auto save every 60min and after every op, also backup with just the name "bob"

[stanektool]

On 12/7/2018 at 11:08 AM, Metallic said:

Why were they editing the same live document...? seems like one person should program a program so that there is no confusion with regard to approach, machining, and tooling choices. maybe i am being obtuse

My guy on first shift forgot to close MasterCAM and log out at the end of his shift.  My second shift guy open the file on another PC wrote his part of the program and saved the file.  When my first shift guy came back in the next day he was presented with a Sim lost error which automatically saved his unedited copy of the file when he clicked ok.

[Goldorak]

Thats why we use a Product Data Management program ( Solidworks entreprise PDM )

[gcode]

11 minutes ago, stanektool said:

My guy on first shift forgot to close MasterCAM and log out at the end of his shift.  My second shift guy open the file on another PC wrote his part of the program and saved the file.  When my first shift guy came back in the next day he was presented with a Sim lost error which automatically saved his unedited copy of the file when he clicked ok.

I have Mastercam's backup utility set to save 10 copies of my file to my local drive

I have no idea how many times that has saved me from fat figured screw ups, dropped HASP connections and careless coworkers

No matter what happens, my last 10 Saves are secure on my hard drive. Even in a worst case situation, I can only loose

my last Save.

[Frank Caudillo]

1 hour ago, Goldorak said:

Thats why we use a Product Data Management program ( Solidworks entreprise PDM )

This is my thought as well. Trying to get CIMCO MDM implemented at my shop.