IMAGINiT Technologies Support Blog

Wipeouts plotting as black when used in Styles in Civil 3D 2021

Issue:

You have styles set up with Wipeout objects that have plotted correctly until Civil 3D 2021. Those objects now plot black (and the wipeout is not honored), when using the built-in AutoCAD PDF drivers (DWG to PDF.pc3 and AutoCAD to PDF (various flavors here).pc3 files)

Causes:

This is a currently known defect in the Civil 3D 2021 software. Autodesk Software Engineering is aware of this behavior and is investigating for a code fix in a future update. The reference ID is ACD-11504. There currently is no date as to when this defect may be corrected.

Solution:

Currently the only work around is to either use previous versions like 2020 to plot PDF’s, or to use a 3^rd party PDF driver (like BlueBeam, Adobe, novaPDF, etc.)

CTB or STB not used when publishing, but plots single sheets correctly

Issue:

You received a drawing from an outside consultant\vendor\resource and have saved the CTB (or STB) of their plotting standards to the same location as the DWG you are opening and it will plot correctly, but when publishing, the plot styles are not honored. You can also Fatal Error AutoCAD when attempting to preview the sheets.

Causes:

This is normal behavior. The CTB/STB is honored with a single sheet plot, since you are using the full AutoCAD engine. When publishing, it’s using a separate acad.exe process that only honors the file support search paths and doesn’t honor the CTB/STB location (where you opened the drawing from).

Solution:

You can either copy the CTB to your standards location (or to your local profile), or you can create a separate directory with other CTB/STB files outside your standards and add that additional path to your Plot Style Table Search Path in your AutoCAD options:

Civil 3D 2021: While Creating a Deployment Error 1315. Unable to write to specified folder

Issue:
Civil 3D 2021 While Creating a Deployment Error 1315. Unable to write to specified folder:
\\<Sever Name\folder structure to Deployment> \Img\x64\en-us\C3D\C3DPS\pf\Root\UserDataCache\Support\.
or similar error.

Causes:
This is a known error with the Civil 3D 2021 deployment. The cause is unknown at this time.

Solution:
1.) Create the deployment locally.
2.) Then move the deployment to the server.
3.) Use the How to move deployment knowledge Base article to update the deployment location.

How to move a deployment image to a different server or directory

BIM 360 – Cost Management recipient greyed out

By: Roger Weires | Applications Expert 

Issue: BIM 360 Cost Management, clicking on a line item to change the recipient, but the button is greyed out.

Causes: That is not a button. The box is letting you know that you do not have any recipients for this document.

Solution:

1. Go back to just the line items, as shown below.
2. Right-click where the “red” arrow is (Still in-line with the item).
3. Click “Generate Document”
4. A Generate Document screen will appear.
5. Then you can add a “Recipient”

If you require customer to edit the registry, add this prior to the steps:

Vault Pro Client Add-in for MS Office 365 is continuously becoming disabled in Excel and Word

Issue:
The Vault Pro 2020 Add-in for Microsoft Office 365 apps for Excel and Word are being disabled as they load on a Windows 10 version 1909 workstation. Before version 1909 the add-ins launched normally. Also, the Outlook add-in works normally with version 1909.

Further, Excel cannot be closed after checking in a file into vault, after the add-in has been reloaded.

Causes:
This was tested on a domain that loaded Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint as well as Microsoft Azure Information Protection. The Excel 2016 was running from Office 365.

Solution:
What was found to interfere with the Vault add-in was a Microsoft application called "Microsoft Azure Information Protection" inside Excel's Options.

Microsoft Excel Options (shown on a workstation in the Netherlands)

The confirmed solution was to uninstall "Microsoft Azure Information Protection" that appears in the Program and Features like this:

Once uninstalled, then Excel and Word were able to retain the Autodesk Vault Addin for Office 2016 and also check out, check in and close Excel normally.

How to set an Alias for the old Block Insert Command

By: Jeff Arbogast, CSV | Solution Center Team Lead

Issue:
Autodesk is now using a new Block Insert command.

Causes:
Autodesk chose to change the Block insert to a new design.

Solution:
• Open Windows Explorer
• Browse to C:\Users\<user name>\AppData (This is a hidden folder so you will need hidden files and folders enabled)\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2021 (or your software and version i.e. C3D2021,etc)\enu\Support\
• Find the file ACAD.PGP
• Open this file using Microsoft Notepad
• Once open select Edit>Find
• Search for “Insert”
• When you find this it should look like this example “I, *INSERT” The “I,” is the one key command Alias you will be able to use in AutoCAD. The *INSERT is the command the “I” key will launch.
• Change “I, *INSERT” to ” I, *CLASSICINSERT”.
• Save the file.
• Launch AutoCAD (or relaunch) and in a drawing type “I” and then select the <Enter> Key this should now launch the classic insert command Dialogue Box.

Use the adskflex_license_file system variable to point to a license server

By: Ken Williams | Tech Support Specialist

Issue:
When you keep getting the License Finder Dialog instead of obtaining a network license or you have created a new Autodesk license server and need to point your users to the new server(s) (multiple single servers or distributed servers).

Solution:

1. In the Windows 10, type environment variable in the “Type here to search” in the lower left.

2. Start to type Environment Variable and then click on “Edit the system environment variable”

3. Click “Environment Variables…”

4. Click New… under “System variables”

5. Type ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE for “Variable name:” and type 2080@ServerName (ServerName = your license server) for “Variable value:”
    Note: When adding multiple servers use a ; (semicolon) between them.

6. Click "Ok", Verify that it is set it in the window and now it's set!

7. Click "Ok" once more to close the environment variable window and start the program.

Changing Autodesk Default Download Preference

By: Heather Volk - IMAGINiT Technologies Technical Support

Steps:
1. Sign into your Autodesk.com account. (manage.autodesk.com)
https://manage.autodesk.com/

2. Go to the “All Products and Services” section.

3. In the upper right-hand corner, click on the “gear” icon to access download preferences.

4. The download preference window opens to display three options:

5. Select either of the “Support Approved” methods and click save.

**Note: IF you choose browser download, make sure the pop-op blocker is turned off to get all parts of the download. **

Result:
The next time you download a new product it will already be set to the correct preference!

3D Studio 2021 License information did not propagate through install during single product deployment

By: Jeff Arbogast , CSV | Solution Center Team Lead

Issue:
3D Studio 2021 License information did not propagate through install during single product deployment

Causes:
This is a known issue. Autodesk is currently working on it.

Solution:
To get past this make sure the Drive where the image is located has write permissions.

How to Extract the MSI file from the IMAGINiT Utilities for Deployment

By: Jeff Arbogast , CSV | Solution Center Team Lead

Issue:
You need to use an MSI file for a Deployment of IMAGINiT Utilities.

Causes:
When you receive you IMAGINiT Utilities, you only have an exe file.

Solution:

1. In windows 10 right click on the start button and select “run”
2. Type “cmd” and select “OK” (This will open the Windows command line).
3. Navigate to the folder you have the Utilities exe located in (You will need to extract the zip file first)
4. Once in the folder with the exe type this in the command line. (This is using the Civil 3D Utilities as an example)
   imaginitutilscivil3d2021.exe /s /x /b"c:\IMAGINiT" /v"/qn"
5. Select the <enter> key on the keyboard and your msi should be placed in the folder you specify.

Notes:
• c:\IMAGINiT this is the folder where the msi will be placed.

• Do not perform this on a system with the Utility installed because this could cause the utility to uninstall and this may not be desired.