Drawing disappeared after saving it in block editor

[silverrey]

I just ran into this problem today on AutoCad Mechanical 2011 and can expand a little on what Preisner said.

 

The rest of the dwg was contained within the block that I was originally editing. They swap places, weirdly.

 

i.e. I was in my dwg 'Motown' and did a block edit working on block 'Rockfish'. I hit save while in block editor and the whole world exploded.

 

The way to fix it was to re-open Motown (which now only showed the contents of Rockfish and not the rest of my hours of hard work) and WBlock out Rockfish (which now contained the rest of Motown) on to my desk top. I then had to do a Recovery on Rockfish #2 and do a saveas to revert it back to Motown #2.

 

This worked for me, though there were still some funky things going on. the block Rockfish in the new Motown (#2) still had half of the dwg in it and the original Rockfish info was lost. I had to go back into Motown #1 and copy/paste the block info to recreate Rockfish in Motown #2. PITA!!!!!!

 

Hope this helps everyone! and remember - don't hit Save while in Block Editor in older versions of AutoCad!!!

 

I think they have this fixed in Mechanical 2015, and they do have a Hotfix for it for vanilla AutoCad & LT 2012, but I do not know if this works for Mechanical.

[Designer2060]

This problem is extremely frustrating! I lose entire drawings all the time. I hate AutoCAD!!! The only work around that I've found is to gingerly press undo after exiting block editor. This takes me back into block editor mode. I copybase the contents to the system clipboard to preserve the work I did in block editor before gingerly pressing undo multiple times to back out of block editor and back to the main drawing before I initiated block editor. Sometimes running audit inside of block editor will "clean" up the problem before backing out of block editor. When back in the main drawing, I run audit and always discover goofy DWG errors. I'll be glad when this problem is finally fixed in a few years from now!

[ReMark]

If you are losing entire drawings on a regular basis then you are either doing something wrong or you have a corrupted installation. I've been using AutoCAD for a very long time and can count on one hand, minus three fingers, the number of drawings I've lost in all that time.

[Designer2060]

I received your email and see the problem.

 

I was also able to reproduce your problem using the above conditions (previously I was trying a blank new file, not one with existing blocks/geometry in it). Auditing my file didn't find any errors either.

 

I don't know of any solution. I don't think the drawing is opening in the block editor when you reopen the file (rather it is opening in the normal drawing mode correctly). It looks like the block you had open in the block editor at the time of closing the program is saved as the drawing model space and the existing model space is overwritten/deleted. The other blocks are still defined, although if you purge the drawing you will find there are no instances of them in the drawing. Thus, unless someone else has an idea, I think you have to go to yesterdays file. This seems like a nasty bug in 2012 which should be fixed when the first service pack is released.

 

Edit: Seems to have been reported back in 2006 also; http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?7834-Block-Editor-bug

I tried to recreate it in 2010 and it didn't occur (model loaded up fine afterwards)

 

The bug is still here in 2015. It probably won't be fixed until 3 or 4 more years.

[Designer2060]

If you are losing entire drawings on a regular basis then you are either doing something wrong or you have a corrupted installation. I've been using AutoCAD for a very long time and can count on one hand, minus three fingers, the number of drawings I've lost in all that time.

 

ReMark, at least you allow for the possibility of a corrupted installation! But no, I'm not doing anything wrong, and my install is not corrupted. It works just fine 99% of the time. It's just that 1% that wipes out hours of work, so the problem isn't the uptime of AutoCAD but rather the cost/benefit ratio of AutoCAD. Yes, it is a real problem, and no you don't have to had experienced it for it to be real for someone else. I've also use AutoCAD for a really long time, but it doesn't lessen the reality of this problem.

[Designer2060]

Hi all

 

Sorry for update this old post, but today I had the same problem and finally I could solve it.

 

After search the web looking how to solve the problem, I found this post and wanted to explain how I could solve for the next colleague who happens the same issue. I work with AutoCAD 2014 Mechanical.

 

When I open the dwg "damaged", I can only see the block I was editing, but all the blocks are yet in the drawing, so I started to insert again the blocks one by one and, inside the block I was editing when press "Save" there was the whole drawing!

 

So if you have the same problem, just search between the existing blocks and your work will be in one of them!

 

 

Cheers!

 

I am glad to see this post. Yes, I can see all of the other blocks, but I don't understand what you mean by insert the blocks one by one. Do I have to "redraw" my drawing from these blocks, or do I have to insert 1, 2, skip a few and THEN press save? Does the drawing magically revert to what it was prior to the block editor debacle? Do I have to save, close and reopen? I pressed save, but it's still just the stupid block I was editing with a few of the blocks scattered around that I reinserted.

 

I also don't understand your meaning when you say "just search between the existing blocks and your work will be in one of them".

[Designer2060]

I am glad to see this post. Yes, I can see all of the other blocks, but I don't understand what you mean by insert the blocks one by one. Do I have to "redraw" my drawing from these blocks, or do I have to insert 1, 2, skip a few and THEN press save? Does the drawing magically revert to what it was prior to the block editor debacle? Do I have to save, close and reopen? I pressed save, but it's still just the stupid block I was editing with a few of the blocks scattered around that I reinserted.

 

I also don't understand your meaning when you say "just search between the existing blocks and your work will be in one of them".

 

I'm searching, but I don't see my original drawing. I inserted every block from the block list. It's like the drawing is there, but I don't see it. Is it really tiny or something? Is that what you mean by "search between the existing blocks..."?

[ReMark]

I see you are using AutoCAD 2015 which I am as well despite having 2016 installed. I have not experienced the problem that seems to have you at your wits' end in all the time I've run 2015.

 

I think Preisner is referring to the fact that unless purged the block definitions reside within the drawing and it is entirely possible to insert them either manually or via a custom lisp routine.

[NARESH]

Type BEDIT command

 

It will open all block list in your drawing just check all blocks by scrolling. and click on your workd and you are done.

[ammobake]

lol I'm confused.

So if I read this correctly, AutoCAD saved your "working" DWG file from within block editor (before you closed block editor) which resulted in the program saving the contents of the entire drawing within the aforementioned block?...

 

Yikes!

 

-ChriS

[Dana W]

16 hours ago, ammobake said:

lol I'm confused.

So if I read this correctly, AutoCAD saved your "working" DWG file from within block editor (before you closed block editor) which resulted in the program saving the contents of the entire drawing within the aforementioned block?...

 

Yikes!

 

-ChriS

That is exactly what had happened. It was a known issue for a few years back then.

 Thankfully the issue was fixed by AutoDesk a few years ago, don't remember when.  Newer versions now close the block editor before saving the drawing.

 

The fix for the old issue was to "insert" the block containing the original drawing into a completely new blank drawing, and then explode it.  One can insert the block from inside the brand new drawing by navigating to the old drawing while executing the INSERT command, and then clicking the browse button on the pop-up dialog. 

Edited July 12, 2019 by Dana W

[Mudlarkin]

Hi I have had a related issue in AutoCAD 2021. The program crached whist in block editor, Fatal Error. WHen i recovered the drawing the model space only contained the block i had been working on and nothing else! desply fustraiting that this is still a bug... any ideas? 

[Stiben]

Hi All,

I have just come across the same issue as the person who started this topic 11 years (!!!) ago. I use AutoCAD Mechanical 2022.

I didn't find a way to restore the drawing to the previous state but found a way how to extract changes I made since the previous revision of the drawing. 

I noticed despite seeing now only what was in the block I was editing, all the other blocks are not gone. They are just not visible - I don't know how it works. I used Block Edit to find relevant blocks (rev. 8.3 file) I have changed recently and opened them. Then I opened the previous file revision (rev. 8.2), which I keep as a separate file and copied changes to the same blocks from 8.3 to 8.2 and saved the rev. 8.2 as new rev. 8.4 to keep a record of all changes made. Now I have rev. 8.2 which is before the crash, rev. 8.3 which is the crashed file and rev. 8.4 which is all good and has all changes made since rev. 8.2. 

This might be a way around and not a real solution to solve this problem, but by the end of the day I have not lost my recent work and I am happy about it. I hope it helps someone.

[veffari]

I had this problem. But got the drawing back this way:

Open Autocad

Type RECOVER

find your corrupted drawing

Let Autocad recover it. 

 

Worked for me. 

I hope that helps.

[Shehan01]

Hi All,

I have just come across the same issue as the person who started this topic 13 years (!!!) ago. I use AutoCAD Mechanical 2022.

I didn't find a way to restore the drawing.