kicked out of pcdmis

[Carolyn McKean]

We have 2 retro-fit dcc machines and several arms. I never know for sure who
is going to be running the parts or what machine so I make what I call a
generic program with a 3mm probe. The operator then only has to go in and
change the probe and tips before running. The problem we are having is with
the dcc machines. If I leave the Z+ and Y- views up when I close the program,
when they choose the program it kicks them out of pcdmis. Sometimes this
causes a serialization error and the program has to be rewritten and other
times if you go to the arms and close the Y- view and then try to open it on the
dcc machine it will work. Has anyone else seen this before and what did you
do? I have called tech support before on this and they had me change some
settings, had the IT guy reinstall, and we still have the problem. It does not
happen EVERY time, but enough that I have to rewrite quite a few programs.
I am having a hard time keeping up with the new jobs right now without
having to rewrite!!! I program in offline only.

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

Backup, backup, backup. Once you get a program 'finished', you should back it up immeadiatly, then you will always have a 'safe' copy to bring back. Saves a TON of time and effort. This backup would be best on a CD or DVD, something that NO ONE can change (note, NOT a DVD-RW or CD-RW, no re-writting allowed).

As for the problem, I have never seen anything like that happen here, could you give us users a bit more info? Version and windoze platform.

[Don Ruggieri]

6 of 1, half dozen of the other

Matt is right, but I'd take it one step further. I tell my kids, make 6 copies!!!!

How many times I've heard "I typed my homework assignment and now its gone", and of course it always at 11 PM the night before its due.

[Carolyn McKean]

I am using Cad 3.7 mr2 windows xp professional. Our system is backed up
every night, but if I write something in the morning and it is corrupted in the
afternoon, backup doesn't help. I write anywhere from 5 programs a day to 30
or more depending on the complexity of the part.

[Scott Appleyard]

Not sure how well it will for your application, but one the probe has been changed and saved, you could make the program "Read Only" by right clicking on the program in its' folder and changing the properties.

[Don Ruggieri]

Make your own!

Carolyn, we are not asking you to hope that your program is in one of the nightly backups, we are asking you to make your own backups.

The IT department backs up hundreds (thousands) of files from all over the building. They make tapes, ship them off-site, etc. If you were trying to recover the payroll for last month, it might be worth pursuing it through them.

What we would like to see you do is to make your own backups, of just a handful of files. This could be as frequent as every time you write a program. Put it on a CD, a floppy disk, just copy it to a secret location on the same drive, or all three methods. If something goes wrong, you can get the original file back in seconds, not the 'hours' it would take the IT guy to retrieve it from a tape somewhere.

I know some people feel that a CD holds far more than a single PC-DMIS program, and feel wasteful at using one for such a small file. CDs are cheap! Much cheaper than the cost of re-writing the program. Also, with some CD software you can keep adding to existing CDs even after they already have data on them.

Anyway, the point is, make your own intermittent backups.

[T Miller]

The cd's have saved me more then once... I also back up to an external hd that I can take anywhere. most of the time it is 1 program per cd .

[Carolyn McKean]

I understand that you are telling me to back up to a disc or whatever is
available, my problem with that is we currently have over 10,000 programs in
our system. We have some repeat work but alot is new jobs. I can't save
everything to another drive and even if cd's are cheap, it would take alot of
time to find the correct one to restore. I could write a program today that
would not be ran for a day to a month, depending on the complexity of the job.
I need a fix for the error. I was hoping someone else had dealt with the
issue. Tech support has not come up with an answer for me yet!

[tking]

Just a thought, save your program as you normally do and then "save as" with an underscore 1 (_1) or some such technique. If the original gets corrupted open the "spare" and "save as" the original. Would be easy to find and quick to get you back on the road.

TK

[Carolyn McKean]

In my opinion it has to be a setting or something stupid like that, because it
only acts up on the dcc machines. If I remember to shut off one view, we don't
have the problem. But like I said, I do anywhere from 5 programs a day to 50
depending on the size and complexity.