Program Crashes

[VVPTD]

Good Morning All!
I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing the same issues I am with crashes to the program. My PC-DMIS software seems to crash at least once a day and it has already crashed 3 times before 8:00 AM this morning. I could be creating a vector point or just altering a dimension and it will suddenly close the program without any warning. PC-DMIS recognizes that it crashed and asks to send the error reports. The IT company that we have says that it is the software and not the computer, although all my other programs crash as well (Solidworks, Mastercam). I am using 2019 R2 and my computer has 32 GB of RAM and an i7-7700 CPU processor, which should be plenty. Does anyone else notice that it crashes a lot? And if you did, how did you solve it? I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software but the problem still exists. Thanks in advance! -Victoria

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

graphics card? Can't do this with a built-in graphics card.

[VVPTD]

I have a NVIDIA QUADRO M4000 graphics card
DAC Type: IntegratedRAMDAC
Total Available Graphics Memory: 24544 MB
Dedicated Video Memory: 8912 MB
System Video Memory: 0 MB
Shared System Memory: 16352 MB

[NinjaBadger]

Use the nvidia control panel (right click on desktop for option) and make sure that it's using the nvidia card for PC-Dmis (it's pretty intuitive how to do so but ask if you can't find it)

[VVPTD]

Hello! I was able to find my way to the NVIDIA control panel and I am under 3D Settings -> Manage 3D setting, however, I do not even see PC-DMIS listed as a program on my computer. Am I in the right spot?

[NinjaBadger]

Yes - you will need to 'Add' it them tell it to use the nvidia GPU

[VVPTD]

How do I go about adding it? When I am in the program settings section I am able to see a list of the programs installed but PC-DMIS does not appear. Is there something I need to do directly to PC-DMIS so it shows up on the list?

[Kp61dude!]

You mentioned MasterScam and SolidWorks, does Pc-Dmis crash when any of those programs are opened? I remember a few years back that we wouldn't dare install Pc-Dmis on any machine running any of those software.... it's been a few years since that bug went away and I've ran all at the same time without any issues.... but has the problem came back for '19 R2???!!!

[Mike Ruff]

I have PC-DMIS 2015.1 CAD++, SolidWorks 2018, Adobe Acrobat, and Outlook all day long, and Word, Excel, and/or Chrome are used daily as well but I don't typically leave those open. I have never had PC-DMIS crash because of any sort of interaction with the other softwares running at the same time before. I don't have any CAM software on my computer so I can't say anything about Mastercam though

[Kp61dude!]

I never had issues either. That used to get preached back in the day, maybe not as much here on the forum but around the area I worked. It was tribal knowledge, it was so bad folks had dual machines one for PcDmis and another for general stuff (email, ERP, CAD, etc.) those days were some bizarre ones!

[VVPTD]

Hopefully I will not have to do that! Our computers are supposedly the "top of the line" but it seems that they can't handle simple tasks, let alone large programs. We have been going back and forth with IT about that for months now. Fingers crossed that we find a solution soon!

[louisd]

are you getting a blue screen? On my lemon-CMM, we get a "iaStoreB.sys" "DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL" blue screen of death almost once a day...

[VVPTD]

No I have never gotten a blue screen. The program just crashes as if you would hit the Exit button and it doesn't even turn grey as other programs do when they are not responding.

[TheElk]

louisd, I bet your lemon-CMM is using a Dell... I'm assuming you don't use a RAID. Uninstall the RAID drivers and the problem will go away.

[AndersI]

What antivirus software do you use? Can you disconnect from the network and turn off the antivirus, to see if that has any effect (probably need help from IT for that).

Are the part programs stored locally, or on the network? If network, test using a local copy instead, to see if that helps.

[VVPTD]

The IT department has disabled the antivirus that they used and there were no changes. PC-DMIS is stored locally on my computer and I have tried going as far as to uninstall and reinstall it, but still no change. After some research I believe that it may be the graphics card or our processor is not capable of handling everything it is tasked with.

[Disal]

What antivirus software do you use? Can you disconnect from the network and turn off the antivirus, to see if that has any effect (probably need help from IT for that).

Are the part programs stored locally, or on the network? If network, test using a local copy instead, to see if that helps.

This helped us. I had one machine that PCDMIS kept crashing on and IT turned off the antivirus, have not had problems with it again. But i don't have any of these other apps on it

[ctw00]

PC-DMIS is good for 1 crash a day usually. Sometimes its less! This is anecdotally across multiple machines with PC-DMIS 2010 through about 2017 on PCs provided by Hexagon. It seems to be standard operating procedure. Sometimes its when you open a program, sometimes when you edit something or save the file.

[louisd]

I adamantly disagree. We run 2012MR1 on three machines 24/7 with no signs of software or hardware crashes, for MONTHS.
Even then, when any of the CMM's PC's or hardware/physical components encounter a crash, it's >90% operator induced.

[ctw00]

As I said it is anecdotal.

[NinjaBadger]

I agree louisd.

I have very few crashes on most versions from 2012 onwards.

[vpt.se]

This could be something your IT department should do, but anyway:

- test the RAM for errors (memtest)
- check if the temperature (CPU/GPU) is getting (too) high (making the software crash)

Since you have SolidWorks and MasterCam crashing too, it seems more of a "generic" cause.

[VVPTD]

I agree, but unfortunately our IT department seems incapable of even plugging a USB in properly. I have started to conduct my own research and I believe that our graphics card may not be up to par with all that it is expected to do. We use the NVIDIA Quadro M4000, which is a good card, but I don't believe it can handle multiple applications running at once. I am not a computer person, but I believe that the card needs to be updated. Does anyone agree of am I just looking too far into this?

[vpt.se]

The Quadro M4000 seems to be quite adequate - I am having a hard time seeing that it wouldn't be able to cope...

Have you checked for any clues using the Event Viewer?
If you run PC-DMIS solo (not together with Mastercam/SolidWorks), does it work better?

[VVPTD]

The Event Viewer was not able to locate any of the crashes or errors. I have run PC-DMIS without any other software open (besides email) and it still crashes out of nowhere. We had a meeting with the IT company today and they said that it might in fact be the resources the computer has and it is not built up enough to have all programs together. We will see I guess! Thank you for the guidance!

[JaredHess]

This might spur some other ideas.

https://support.hexagonmi.com/s/article/My-PC-DMIS-software-keeps-crashing-What-do-I-do-1527312033212