DMclean Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Several times while working on a model today I noticed that formZ stopped being able to Undo. Of course this was usually noticed when I deleted something and then couldn't get it back withCommand Z. Rather a drag I must admit. Don't really know what the sequence of events are that is causing it. Saving the file and restarting Z seems to solve the problem... until the next time it happens. Anyone else had this sort of thing happen or know the sequence of events that could cause it to happen. I've had it occasionally in the past, but as I said it has actually happened three or four times today. A couple of times I've noticed it when a trivial command wouldn't get undone, but a couple of times it has been on Deletes. Thanks, Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsiggia Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Would an auto save (without saving undo info) trigger a reset? Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Doug For what its worth I have had this happen to me occasionally of the years. It did it to me last week on a large model that had many imported pieces of furniture from Turbo Squid. It is impossible for me to determine which piece of geometry is offending the program. Again, restarting the program solves the issue for the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Hi Doug et al, We have not seen the Undo stop working like you describe, but it is certainly possible that there is a particular operation that could cause that. (AutoSave should not affect the Undos though.) We will keep an eye out for anything that could cause such a problem, but if you have any further info, or especially if you can find a way to cause this to happen, please let us know so we can better address this issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanM Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Same problem here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisA Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Happened a lot in fmz6.5 not happening for me in 8.5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatMNTishman Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 I have found it happening recently on projects with the latest version software. I have not found a work around, and no I am not going to send in a project file. After a very busy fall working in FormZ, I find the connections to MacOS and GPU related features functions to be very buggy, inconsistent and unpredictable. -The disappearing undos. -The disgrace that is the component feature -The delay of XYZ snaps especially when over objects -The lousy performance of the material libraries and the sluggish update of the previews -Auto Save interrupting an operation and then crashing the program -Objects and Components that were clean geometry in V8 are no longer clean in v8.5 -Full Shaded view save now feature the return of the spinning technicolor wheel of death. -New generative tools introduced in 8.5 are unpredictable and really not useful. thats the short list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Dear Andrew, Sorry you are having some trouble. We do have some improvements for editing high resolution materials with very complex files and some Component improvements that for specific situations that are coming for the next update. However, we are not aware of the other issues you "mention." If you just want to complain, that is your right, but that does not really help. If we can reproduce a problem, then we can get it fixed, but if you can not give any more details, there is not much we can do. It is kind of like calling your car dealership and saying every other morning your car won't start, but you won't let them see the car, you just need it fixed. What can we - or they possibly do without any further info? If you are able to submit a report on any of the issues you mention, we will do our best to get it addressed ASAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hillsville Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Hi, I have the same issue with Formz's "undo function" quitting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatMNTishman Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Zweb, I dont believe I am complaining. I've listed numerous issues that many others in this forum have detailed. they are ongoing and hinder a great program and a creative workflow. Professional designers are not professional software de-buggers. Its my perspective that its up to ADS to take the feedback we provide and figure it out. I have submitted numerous files this year, only to be told that its something obscure to my file only. I've been using this software since the early 90's and the development pattern is the same. I understand that the features and the coding is a highly complex ongoing job of balancing features with stability, but my points are complaining. they are problems that remain unfixed or unstable. Its ADS charter to provide solutions and improvements, not me. I need reliable, stable platforms to do work, not improve software. The fact that so many of us here are interesting in helping is to your benefit, but its a privilege to have such passionate users, not a contract. Merry Christmas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Hi Andrew, We certainly do our best to test, diagnose, and improve formZ as much as possible, and formZ gives its users many more ways of interacting with a project than any other software. While this does allow your creative workflow to be incredibly flexible, it also gives rise to an infinite number of different combinations of working methods, some of which we never even anticipated. Even with "infinite testing" on our part (which we do as much as we can), we may still never repeat your methodologies exactly, and if we can't reproduce a problem, then it is incredibly difficult to determine a correction. Therefore, if you ever do find a combination of operations that is causing an issue, we will do our best to fix it ASAP. Thanks for being such passionate users. We will continue to do our best to provide our users with the best, most powerful and reliable software available. Merry Christmas to you (and everyone else) too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMclean Posted December 17, 2015 Author Share Posted December 17, 2015 Regarding the Undo Quitting, it is rather erratic, and unfortunately one never notices it until probably much later than whatever caused it to happen. As you know though I am the "king of the escape key..." since I do so many things I regret and want to stop mid action. The disappearing Undo often happens or is noticed after i've done one of those. This may be co-incidental not causal though. Typical would the something like following... Use rotate with multi copy to copy a complex group of items with divide distance. Because of the complexity, there is lag in the appearance of the items on screen. Miss the clicking of the rotation spot slightly so now instead of being spaced in a circle the objects are not properly spaced, but because of the lag, the action is not completed yet. Hit Escape to ... escape. Repeat and get the positioning right. All is well. Go on and do a bunch of other things... Accidentally or on purpose delete something. Realize it's a mistake... no problem, just Undo... and that's when I find the problem. Purely anecdotal but since it's the kind of thing I do often it's a possibility. If I get a chance I'll try a few tests, but right now I'm too busy making these mistakes and problems on projects with real deadlines so it may be a while. Hope that helps in the search. Maybe if a few more people have any anecdotal evidence it will help narrow things down. Thanks for all your patience and attention to us on this forum. We are indeed "passionate" and I'm sure sometimes that can be a bit wearing. Thanks to everyone at ADS and all the "passionate" forum members for pushing formZ to get better and better. Happy Holidays to all... Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartjuan Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I am having the "undo no longer working" problem as well. As with others, I cannot reliably recreate it. I made as assumption that it was related to a network issue, because it seems to forget where the file ( temp file also??) is saved if I can get a better read on when it happens I'll post again but it happens once or twice a week for me. Bart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Usually works for me, occasionally doesn't. I take it as one of those signs to need to restart the program and / or my computer to insure against the risk of other issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 I have used many different modeling programs over the years and they all have their particular issues. There is no such thing as a perfect program. Photoshop is close but even I can crash it from time to time. That said I have been using Form.z since 1990 and I can say with certainty that their is a trend in the development process. They release a major updated version of the program and it becomes a work in progress as we all chime in with issues. Slowly over time these issues are resolved. Then they release another major update and the process starts over which can be frustrating for us production artists. This is the reason I seldom jump onto the latest version unless I know that I have a lot of time to commit to working it out. One thing that I have noticed in the latest release (8.5) is that I am having trouble figuring out just what I am doing that is causing an issue. Previously I could usually find suspect geometry or bad files based upon what I have done in the last hour or so. Now I am at a total loss to explain the issues from weird modeling results to slow response times. For example, yesterday I was working on a model that was built entirely in Form.z with very simple geometry and texture maps that I have used for decades. I saved it and went to bed. Today it will not open. It loads and the status bar gets to the end only to get the spinning wheel of death. Totally incomprehensible and unfortunately not an isolated incident. Of course the project is due in 48 hours and my only solution is to send the file to Tech. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Andrew, Yes, if you ever have an issue, please send the file and we will do our best to get you an answer ASAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 I feel for you Andrew. I suppose a smallish company running a complicated program pushing forwards does have a slower maturing time, especially when aspects are from other developers, and there is the feeling that it never catches up beyond what other, usually simpler programs, would be considered to be at the beta stage, but there is no answer to this problem and we users do need to invest a fair amount of time reporting issues as we come across them, and if we don't the improvement process will take even longer, or get missed. What Autodessys has as its strongest feature as you well know, is the superb tech support, which is the deal breaker apart from obvious strengths in the program. I'm quite a new user of FZ but got into this habit with the previous cad program I used for nearly 20 years, [which was also prone to hangs etc] : You really do need to get into the habit of save as new file every half hour to avoid risk of loss of significant work. The Lab 'File Incremental Save' extension with keyboard shortcut applied is invaluable for this in case you are not using it yet. I should add, for the sake of readers that through a combination of FZ getting better and my own working routines, I have not had hangs recently and only had an instance of a file not opening after an update, which worked after a second attempt, am finding FZ is pretty satisfactory now in my own recent experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 It is on its way. Unfortunately, I live in an area with slow internet and these files are often huge even when zipped. It will be there in an hour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 I feel for you Andrew. I suppose a smallish company running a complicated program pushing forwards does have a slower maturing time, especially when aspects are from other developers, and there is the feeling that it never catches up beyond what other, usually simpler programs, would be considered to be at the beta stage, but there is no answer to this problem and we users do need to invest a fair amount of time reporting issues as we come across them, and if we don't the improvement process will take even longer, or get missed. What Autodessys has as its strongest feature as you well know, is the superb tech support, which is the deal breaker apart from obvious strengths in the program. I'm quite a new user of FZ but got into this habit with the previous cad program I used for nearly 20 years, [which was also prone to hangs etc] : You really do need to get into the habit of save as new file every half hour to avoid risk of loss of significant work. The Lab 'File Incremental Save' extension with keyboard shortcut applied is invaluable for this in case you are not using it yet. I should add, for the sake of readers that through a combination of FZ getting better and my own working routines, I have not had hangs recently and only had an instance of a file not opening after an update, which worked after a second attempt, am finding FZ is pretty satisfactory now in my own recent experience. Alan thanks for your response and I agree with you completely. I have not use the lab extension to save incrementally but I will look into it. Hopefully it will save files faster than the autosave function. As for reporting issues I need to make my point a little clearer. I know Tech wants us to try to recreate a sequence of events that causes an issue. However, what I did last night was typical of what I am experiencing on a weekly basis. All I did in this case was save the file and close the program. Now it is not opening. Two days ago I had a model that rendered just fine until it didn't. No reason. I constantly do Save As, Save a Copy As, Copy and Paste, and restart leading me to fill terra bytes of hard drives with dozens of variations of a project. This can lead to a lot of confusion when I am working on a dozen projects at a time over several computers. Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Andrew, it goes without saying file naming disciplines are essential [my preference is year, month, day, description, version, eg 151222Bloggs01001 because that way the latest file is always the last in the folder, but if you use several computers, [i only use 2] an indispensible tool is a large USB flash drive and the free program 'Free File Sync' on the 2way setting. Occasionally I use the mirror sync setting just for the FZ preference file. Free File Sync is superb, huge time saver and takes away the fear of a human error. http://www.freefilesync.org/ Just be careful what you click on when you download to avoid any unwanted extras from adverts. I never had an error, even with long file names, and encrypted files and I can rely on it to cope with keeping the files on my 2 computers in perfect sync at beginning and end of every session, and the usb drive provides the additional backup as well as being the sync vehicle. Hope that helps, and it saves the internet hog issues with cloud based backup systems. Best of luck with the file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Cooper Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 By the way, regarding autosave, I have it switched it off on the basis it might use precious resources at a time I or FZ need them for something else. The incremental tool gives more user control, with longer or shorter intervals according to the type of work being done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 Hi Andrew, We sent back a fixed file within 20 minutes of when we received yours. Did that file work properly for you? We would recommend that you run a hard disk scan of the drive where you saved the file. Does that find and / or fix any problems? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 I have downloaded the file and I am working furiously to get this project out on my deadline. Once I get it done I have 11 other projects to deal with so scanning my hard drive will have to wait until I leave for the evening. Norton does a complete system scan twice a day. Thank you for your help debugging my file. It would be really helpful to know just what was causing this issue. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 One thing to note: I had to re link all my texture files to this model from an old version of the model since the new version was corrupt. Once I did that (add to project) I noticed that the siding was of an older jpeg file. So I loaded the new siding jpeg file into my material parameter. Now for the interesting part: in both shaded work and shaded full the model shows the old siding. However, in Renderzone the new siding image shows up. Weird. This goes back for months now. It still seems that the image files are being cached somewhere and that the program refuses to purge the old files once a new one is loaded. I have had this issue on several models and even on a Maxwell model that was sent to a render farm. All the materials looked correct in my model but packaging to render farm loaded the old materials. Even if I copy the model and paste it into a new file the problem persists. This is why I asked yesterday in a different post if it was possible to purge the rendering memory like the old days. Tech suggested that closing and re opening the model will accomplish this. It does not. What is your take on this? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
setz Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 Sometimes in the past I had problems getting materials to update to the newer image. What I did was to change the geometry for the material preview from say cube to sphere or to plane and then the new image would load and the texture would then render correctly in shaded renderers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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