I am having trouble with objects simply disappearing from one day to the next in ViaCAD 6 Mac (build 853). A few days back when I was working on a file, everything was fine, but today when I opened it, a bunch of lines were missing. Funny thing is, I called back the older version from 2 days ago with Time Machine. I hadn't made any changes in the layer containing the group which is now missing a bunch of lines, and comparing the two versions, the object counter says this layer contains exactly the same number of lines in both versions. However, a good 20 or so lines simply are not there. I've tried Select All, Deep Select cursor, ungrouping, changing pen color and width, nothing - they simply are gone. A friend of mine with whom I collaborate on projects (not this one) has been complaining about this for some time, but I thought it was maybe some problem due to the fact that he uses a French language operating system. But no, no I've got it, too!

MacBook Intel Core 2 Duo 10.5.8

Yep, tried all that stuff, no dice.

Here's some screen shots:

http://www.polettipiano.com/CAD/original.tiff

http://www.polettipiano.com/CAD/corrupted.tiff

Interesting thing is that you can see that the object count for both files shows the same number of lines, even though quit a number of them are obviously missing from the corrupted file. Stranger yet, the according to the number of objects for that layer in the Concept Explorer, there are about twice as many objects as the object count menu shows. There's something VERY funky going on here.

More so, it seems to be getting worse. Yesterday, I copied the correct version from the old file and added it as a new layer to the corrupted file. Today I opened it and everything is gone from that layer except for single rectangle. At least the object count menu is correct, it tells me I only have 4 lines. Somehow, that does not instill confidence...

Is it possible for the copy of ViaCAD itself to become corrupted and start doing strange things?

Ciao,

Paul

Thanks for the hope, if no tangible fix!

Really bad thing is that my colleague who been complaining of the same problem for some time now is still using TurboCAD. We've done a major job together, drawing an antique piano for the collection of the Cite de le Musique in Paris, gong back and forth between Turbo and Via with no real problem except (until now) his disappearing objects. I've been telling him for about a year now he should switch to ViaCAD, 'cause it is not only much better, but doesn't have the disappearing object problem. So I've now got a bit of crow to eat...

:(

Would really like to know if a newer build is available. I like ViaCAD a lot, but this is not fun!

Thanks,

Paul

Running build 853, which is the most current.

The first bunch of disappearing lines were in fact part of a group. They were originally created in the layer in which the group still resides. The older version of the file which still has all the lines has them grouped as well. As far as I can remember, there were no changes to that particular layer between versions. The group was duplicated in another layer by means of copy/paste, and then that entire copy was scaled up slightly. Funny thing is, this scaled copy is still intact, while it is the untouched original which has lost some lines.

The most recent catastrophic loss of everything except the outer rectangle was in a copy of the group transferred between files, made by simple copy and paste. I was trying to restore the complete group to the file with the missing lines, so I opened an old version (thank God for Time Machine!), copied the intact group, and then pasted it into a new layer in the file with the lost lines. That process appeared to go fine, everything was there, and I worked with the file for a good half hour thereafter, saving several times, before finally closing it. The next day when I opened it again, Bingo! No lines...

Looks like they did a few more builds for Windows. I'm on Mac. When I select Current Version from the help menu, it tells me i am running the most current version.