This article will cover the initial setup that is necessary to get AutoCAD to sync properly via the Windows Client. This setup may change in the future, but as of Windows Client version 10.9+ and AutoCAD 2020, these are the settings which I have found to provide the greatest stability during testing.
Step 1
Ensure that the setting "Disable AutoCAD optimization" is unchecked from the Tenant Dashboard->Settings->Clients & Applications->Client Settings ->Mapped Drive Control. This setting was introduced to delay the sync by combining several changes into a single change. This is specific for users who save frequently or have the AutoCAD autosave feature enabled with short intervals.
Step 2
From Tenant Dashboard->Settings ->File Locking -> Setting, ensure that the following three settings are checked. All other checkboxes should be unchecked:
- "Enable distributed locking when accessing files" = checked
- "Lock file exclusively" = checked
- "Unlock file after it is uploaded" = checked
Leave the textbox empty for "enable scheduled sync for files with the following extensions when the file is locked." Then, add "acad.exe" to the semi-colon-separated list of "apply lock only to following processes"
(Note: If you use AutoCAD LT, the process name is acadlt.exe)
Step 3
In AutoCAD, execute the command "ISAVEPERCENT"
Change the value of this setting to 0. This will instruct AutoCAD to perform full file-saves as opposed to incremental saves based on white-spaces percentages. According to AutoDesk, setting this value to 0 will help to prevent corruption of the DWG file.
Step 4
Right-click on the folder where the DWG files are saved and enable offline mode so all external file references are always present locally.
Step 5
Double-click on your DWG file to open it from the mounted drive of the Windows Client with AutoCAD. If the File References does not automatically open, type the command "XREF" without quotes in the AutoCAD command box. From the File References window, right-click on each reference name that looks like a full path and choose to "change path type" to relative. This is important, because different windows clients may load with different drive letters. Ideally, you should structure your folders so the referenced files reside on the same directory as the parent DWG file, or in a sub-folder.
Step 6
From the Tenant Dashboard -> Setting ->Folder & Storage->Filters, append [.dwl][.dwl2] to the first two settings: "Files with following extension will be excluded from attached local folder (i.e.[.pst][.abc])" and "Files with following extension will be excluded from directory listing (i.e.[.qbw])"
The reason for this is that DWL and DWL2 contain basic locking information that AutoCAD uses to set locks in environments where two or more users may be accessing the *same* file. However, due to the Windows Client and the CentreStack cloud architecture, each user will have their *own copy* of the AutoCAD file in his/her Windows Client cache directory (%localappdata%\gteamclient\cache). So the locking mechanism is not necessary, and can actually make AutoCAD think that the program has crashed or the file is corrupted.
Here is a comment from an AutoCAD technician:
"The DWL files are created by AutoCAD when a drawing file is opened for editing. The data inside them is used by AutoCAD to tell you who has the file opened should someone else try to open the file. When the file is closed AutoCAD will erase both files. If AutoCAD crashes, the files will be left and then the drawing recovery routine will use them to alert you that a crash happened and these drawings may need recovery."
Screenshot showing the contents of DWL and DWL2 files
Step 7
Ensure there is enough space and cache size limit on the hard drive where the cache is being stored. To find out where the cache is, click windows client systray icon to open the systray menu. Select 'Management Console'
Under Settings, open 'Local Cache', ensure that the Cache Size Limit is adequate and that the disk has enough storage. On the example below, my limit is roughly 1GB (1000). Cache should be large enough to hold all the AutoCAD files to work.
Step 8
Lastly, ensure AutoCAD is set up to automatically generate BAK files for your drawings as a safety precaution. If your cloud folder is set up with versioning or in-place versioning, CentreStack is already keeping a full-version of each file each time a new version is uploaded. However, since DWG file synchronizations are usually delayed until the program is actually closed, the previous version in CentreStack may be older than the BAK file, especially if you have autosave configured in AutoCAD. To turn the BAK file feature ON or OFF in AutoCAD, execute the command "isavebak" with a value of 1 or 0 respectively.
If you have any issues, please open a support ticket by sending an email to ticket@gladinet.com.
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