[w i l l]

Does 'save as' Maxwell MXS work? I can't get this to work > nothing shows in the folder that I save into.

[JDHill]

It works fine here; could you provide any more detail? For example, what does the plugin's Log Viewer window say after you do this? And, what is the path in Scene Manager > Output Settings > Scene Path afterwards?

[w i l l]

I can't really because it just crashes. I can set the path in the scene manager and do 'export MXS file' but if I try and do file > save as MXS and save into any folder it either crashes or doesn't save.

[JDHill]

It crashes? Is there any error dialog? If you have the Log Viewer up before you use Save As, is there anything written there before it 'crashes'? I don't yet see how it's possible, because this:

I can set the path in the scene manager and do 'export MXS file'

- is literally the same thing that Save As does.

[Eric Lagman]

It doesnt work here either. I see it processing the scene in my task manager, but when I go to look for the file its not there. I searched my whole computer for the file and can only find a shortcut with the filename I gave it to save the mxs as.

On another note. My scene and image path output path in scene manager is still not being saved when I close sw and reopen.

Also the standard views top back front are getting exported to the mxs file. I thought this was fixed.

Im using Vista 64.

[JDHill]

It doesnt work here either. I see it processing the scene in my task manager, but when I go to look for the file its not there. I searched my whole computer for the file and can only find a shortcut with the filename I gave it to save the mxs as.

Should I assume when you say 'doesn't work' that you are or are not also experiencing some type of crash, as Will reported? If/When not, when it is finished exporting, where does the Log Viewer say that it wrote the MXS file to? Is it a regular local path? I mean, are there any issues with network, or since you're on Vista, do you have permission to write files to the target location?

On another note. My scene and image path output path in scene manager is still not being saved when I close sw and reopen.

I did not recall this being an issue, there was previously one where the Render Settings page wasn't saved, but this was fixed. Just because I have to ask - you say 'close sw and reopen' - are you also saving the document?

Also the standard views top back front are getting exported to the mxs file. I thought this was fixed.

That is what it is supposed to do. I think the problem you are referring to was one where SW cameras which had been deleted were still exported.

[Eric Lagman]

Ok I tried this time saving to my desktop. I have acess to save anywhere on my computer, but just tried there for simplicity sake. It saves a file there with only the first word of the name I give it. I told it to save as Studio Assembly and it names it Studio. I also have to click on the file and manually give it the .mxs extension for studio to open it up. So its working, but doing weird things. I tried typing .mxs after the filename then it keeps the extension. Now any saves as mxs after that it added the extension like it should. Very weird. Then I tried saving it to another drive and it puts the file there with only the first word in the name and no mxs extension. So the behavior is all over the place.

Here is the log. Note how it name it studio when I had Studio assembly in the filename. * line 97: MeshPartOrAssemblySynchronous, _notify, processing SW assembly...
* line 98: exporting Studio-Floor-1/Solid For Water using White Diffuse
* line 99: exporting Studio-Floor-1/Floor 2 using White Diffuse
* line 100: MeshPartOrAssemblySynchronous, _notify, assembly-export time: 00:00:00.0742140
* line 101: OnEndWriteMxs, _notify, EndWriteMxs returned: True
* line 102: OnEndWriteMxs, _info, The .mxs was written successfully, the path was: [ D:\Studio ]
* line 103: mxLogView.OnShowWindow, _info, sz=960x579h, loc=224,220(virtual), pWnd=1907906


Specifying an mxs path manually does not stay with the document even when I save it then reopen Solidworks. What is happening is it autmatically puts the path where I pointed the file save as command. If I save and close that path does come up. If I change the path manually and save, close and reopen it does not remember the path.

I did not realize all the standard views were supposed to get exported as cameras. Its easy enough to delte them if I dont want them I suppose.

[JDHill]

Thanks Eric, that got me looking in the right direction - this won't be a problem in the next version. I also changed things so that it won't permanently change the output path when you use the Save As menu command. About the stock 'cameras', I put in (yet) another user-pref that will cause only the current one to be exported.

JD

[w i l l]

Yes this is unpredictable.

(For example saving to desktop) Sometimes I click 'save as' and it appears to have gone through the save process (timer finishes etc) but there is no file on the desktop.

But sometimes I try and save and Solidworks just freezes (crashes) and I have to shut it down through Task Manager.

The problem happens both on Windows XP64 and XP32 plus Vista.

[JDHill]

Hi Will,

Technically, the problem is with having spaces in the saved path. The plugin splits up a string given to it to find what path you chose in the Save As dialog, and when it does this, it has a bug where it chops off the rest of the path past the first space in it.

As to crashing, it is important to differentiate between a crash, a freeze, and an exception report. Specifically, these would mean:

Crash: SolidWorks or any addin it has loaded has made a memory-handling mistake. This is not allowed, and Windows will kill the process. You should see a Windows crash dialog when this happens.

Freeze: there are many possible causes for this. It may also just be a long period of heavy processing. You should look at Task Manager to see what the CPU activity is - if the application is frozen, and there is no CPU usage, then you will need to kill the process, and there is not much way to know what happened. If there is heavy CPU activity, you may just need to allow it to proceed - this can happen, especially if you have a part with many faces, and it is multi-Material-enabled. Also, if you have the plugin option 'Export SW Multi-Materials', the situation may be similar, but it would apply when there has been no Material explicitly assigned. Previous plugins only generated Materials at the component and body levels - unless you want to use automatic per-face Materials, you should disable this option. Also, the first time the part is exported, there may also be extra processing which happens as SolidWorks generates its meshes, before they are able to be copied into the MXS.

Exception Report: there may be many reasons for getting this notification. It does not necessarily mean anything has crashed, it just means that in the course of normal processing, an exceptional (i.e. unexpected) situation has arisen. This report contains much valuable data, and can be used to find places in the plugin's code which can be made more fault-tolerant. It may also indicate that an error has occurred 'underneath' the plugin, and has been caught.