[jnack95]

Just wondering if anybody else can confirm that trying to save a project to a network drive (CIFS/SAMBA) takes forever (several minutes) and may sometimes crash windows explorer (win10)? None of my other programs seem to have this problem. It seems to open projects okay. Not sure if this is a bug or not but it's very annoying.

[drutort]

all of the SC versions do not seem to like remote or even usb drives, I tried to work of off my USB thumb drive and same issue it takes forever for a simple save. Move same file to local disk and works instant. Other programs run just fine off of thumb drive no problem! Wonder if they find a way to fix this, same issue I think for SC7-SC10

[jnack95]

Well I just spent two days trying to fix my network and connections and Sprutcam still takes about 10-15 minutes to save a ~ 10MB file on the network. I've tried many network adapter configurations, samba configurations and windows settings and nothing has helped. Every other program seems to work fine/play nice with the server and has decent write speeds. I have verified that the problem is present on windows vista too...so either something is wrong with my server/network, there is a bug in Sprutcam, or Sprutcam is intentionally crippled to work only from a local drive. Not sure, but I'm not going to waste anymore time on this. Guess I'll just use dropbox to save projects to...

[Phillyb24]

I'm pretty sure it only takes about 10 seconds to save it to your desktop and drag it to the network.. Generally, and being fresh out of school we were taught this, saving directly to a network/flash drive is bad management. If the network goes down or you wash your flash drive you are SOL.

[jnack95]

I'm pretty sure you're right about the time it takes to drag a file to a network folder. Thanks for the great tip, Captain Obvious. Saving to a network drive is done by millions of people everyday in 2016 and is NOT bad management. If they did not intend to support saving to a drive other than a local drive, it would've been nice to have a warning stating this is not supported. I'm still not sure it isn't a bug.....

[Phillyb24]

I'm pretty sure you're right about the time it takes to drag a file to a network folder. Thanks for the great tip, Captain Obvious. Saving to a network drive is done by millions of people everyday in 2016 and is NOT bad management. If they did not intend to support saving to a drive other than a local drive, it would've been nice to have a warning stating this is not supported. I'm still not sure it isn't a bug.....

I'm sure 10 seconds of one guy's time isn't worthy of a warning. FWIW, I just saved directly to the network and it did it just fine. Flash drives still take significantly longer but that's normal. From my personal experience, the network did go down for a day and business halted due to the lack of access to the files. So I'm speaking from experience on my statement. Wasn't telling you how to live your life but more a best kept practices with it in general so you don't end up in the same boat.

[jnack95]

I'm sure 10 seconds of one guy's time isn't worthy of a warning. FWIW, I just saved directly to the network and it did it just fine. Flash drives still take significantly longer but that's normal. From my personal experience, the network did go down for a day and business halted due to the lack of access to the files. So I'm speaking from experience on my statement. Wasn't telling you how to live your life but more a best kept practices with it in general so you don't end up in the same boat.

It is worth a warning if it nearly crashes Windows (or does crash windows explorer shell, in my case) and takes 15 minutes to save. How big was your file? Try saving a complex project with lots of fixtures and workpieces that is bigger than 5MB and I think you will see what I'm talking about. I appreciate your advice/opinion and, of course, that is what I'll do, but that doesn't mean there still isn't a bug in the software. Saving to a network drive/USB should be faster/better.

[drutort]

I'm pretty sure it only takes about 10 seconds to save it to your desktop and drag it to the network.. Generally, and being fresh out of school we were taught this, saving directly to a network/flash drive is bad management. If the network goes down or you wash your flash drive you are SOL.

my flash drives are usb 3.0 and are really fast write/read, also c drive is solid state, to desktop or even hd all saves area almost instant, maybe 1-2 sec but flash drive will almost freeze explorer and take way longer, while other programs with larger files save to flash drive just fine!

[Phillyb24]

my flash drives are usb 3.0 and are really fast write/read, also c drive is solid state, to desktop or even hd all saves area almost instant, maybe 1-2 sec but flash drive will almost freeze explorer and take way longer, while other programs with larger files save to flash drive just fine!

To each their own. I've encountered it with other software and was even taught not to do it. Saving directly to a flash drive makes zero sense in terms of security on programs anyways. Flash drives can become corrupt at the snap of a finger.

[jnack95]

Saving to a flash drive makes perfect sense if you want to transfer a project from one computer to another. That's why network drives are also useful. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean others don't find them tremendously useful. I came here asking if anybody else could verify if Sprutcam has difficulty saving files to a network drive or if I should continue to try to troubleshoot my home network. I think I have my answer that Sprutcam does have trouble saving large, complex projects to USB or network drives. Maybe to some people that is a feature, not a bug. I'm not one of those people.

[mountaindew]

Could be a number of reasons why sprut has a problem with this. My first guess would be the c++ compiler used to create the program has some old or dated file/ disk management routines / code. Version 10 is same way and I have noticed this problem with a number of different programs. I save to a normal disk drive directory for my many projects and then copy the file to the usb stick or net drives with windows file manager. This also provides a backup if required because files are on both usb and disks.
I try not to fight things and find a solution so I can go onto next problem. There is no end to this program and the problems you can find using it and the results you can get with it.

[jnack95]

Could be a number of reasons why sprut has a problem with this. My first guess would be the c++ compiler used to create the program has some old or dated file/ disk management routines / code. Version 10 is same way and I have noticed this problem with a number of different programs. I save to a normal disk drive directory for my many projects and then copy the file to the usb stick or net drives with windows file manager. This also provides a backup if required because files are on both usb and disks.
I try not to fight things and find a solution so I can go onto next problem. There is no end to this program and the problems you can find using it and the results you can get with it.

I agree with you and something such as that is most likely to blame. I will save files to a local drive and transfer them as needed. The problem with doing this (for me) is that I have 50+ projects that need to be managed and I like to program them in my (home) office and then adjust them as needed at my machine in my garage. Transferring so many files like this gives me many opportunities to not capture changes, copying errors etc. I think dropbox is probably the best solution as is it syncs to a local drive across many platforms, but I just don't like putting stuff in the cloud (i.e. somebody else's server) when I have a perfectly good one here. I suppose I could set up rsync to do this if I ever get the time/inclination to do so. Anyway, I think Sprutcam is great software for the money, just wish it could save things better/faster.

[mountaindew]

After thinking about it more they could cripple this type of file operation to limit or discourage setting the program up to run over a network.

I understand the file management problem well . My average project with 30 parts generates 30+ drawing files, 30 igs model files, 30+ Cam files and 30+ g-code files for a total of about 120 files per project not including bakups, custom tooling and fixture models.
And I do one g-code file per part!, Many people generate a g-code file per side of part adding up to 6 more files per part or over 100 g-code files alone to track and update. This can become work to manage, no doubt about it!

[jnack95]

Yea, it's a real pain having that many large files to manage. I think it is more likely a bug as Sprutcam has a tendency to crash about once an hour for me. It seems that it is usually during save/io operations and then it freezes or the kernel crashes or it crashes explorer. Seems to be a fairly substantial bug. I think your first assessment was probably correct that it's some type of iostream problem, but it's impossible for us to figure out. I really like Sprutcam but it's very unstable. Anybody else have lots of random crashes? Really wish they would make a version for a stable os like linux.

[Phillyb24]

Yea, it's a real pain having that many large files to manage. I think it is more likely a bug as Sprutcam has a tendency to crash about once an hour for me. It seems that it is usually during save/io operations and then it freezes or the kernel crashes or it crashes explorer. Seems to be a fairly substantial bug. I think your first assessment was probably correct that it's some type of iostream problem, but it's impossible for us to figure out. I really like Sprutcam but it's very unstable. Anybody else have lots of random crashes? Really wish they would make a version for a stable os like linux.

I purchaed one of the CAD/CAM workstations from Tormach with my seat and I never have any crashes or major issues at all. One kernal error in two years. What version are you on for SprutCAM?

[jnack95]

I purchaed one of the CAD/CAM workstations from Tormach with my seat and I never have any crashes or major issues at all. One kernal error in two years. What version are you on for SprutCAM?

I also purchased Sprutcam 9 with my Tormach. I keep updates current. To be fair, it seems that it only crashes when I am working with large projects (>10-15MB) with lots of fixtures. Happens even when working from a local drive. Seems to be pretty solid if the file is small and there are few or no fixtures. Makes me think it's some type of io bug....perhaps somehow related to the extremely slow save time to usb or network drive. Not that big of a deal but kind of frustrating when working with large projects...

[Phillyb24]

I also purchased Sprutcam 9 with my Tormach. I keep updates current. To be fair, it seems that it only crashes when I am working with large projects (>10-15MB) with lots of fixtures. Happens even when working from a local drive. Seems to be pretty solid if the file is small and there are few or no fixtures. Makes me think it's some type of io bug....perhaps somehow related to the extremely slow save time to usb or network drive. Not that big of a deal but kind of frustrating when working with large projects...

9 had issues with its integration with the graphics card. I would download the demo of 10 and look into an upgrade. 10 has been phenomenal compared to 9 (which was phenomenal compared to 8 in it's own right).

[drutort]

Yea, it's a real pain having that many large files to manage. I think it is more likely a bug as Sprutcam has a tendency to crash about once an hour for me. It seems that it is usually during save/io operations and then it freezes or the kernel crashes or it crashes explorer. Seems to be a fairly substantial bug. I think your first assessment was probably correct that it's some type of iostream problem, but it's impossible for us to figure out. I really like Sprutcam but it's very unstable. Anybody else have lots of random crashes? Really wish they would make a version for a stable os like linux.

IO's go through the roof with SSD's so I can not speak about regular HD's since I have been running SSD's since they came out on my desktops and laptops, what storage are you using? with SC?

You can also have it setup not to save everything if that helps? if files are big check the "project save options" Mine is in the middle, detailed would cause large files, try short maybe it will lower the file size? though short I believe does not save the tool path generation, so you will have to run all of your ops again, depends on what they are this could be no big deal but some 3D stuff can take time and that would be a waste of time to reprocess all of that.

I also uncheck "reset all associated operations when operation parameters are changed" because that is a pain, you can just move some ops around and now have to reprocess all of them! when I can do that manually as needed.


also what operating system are you using? I would hope your windows 7 and up!

[jnack95]

IO's go through the roof with SSD's so I can not speak about regular HD's since I have been running SSD's since they came out on my desktops and laptops, what storage are you using? with SC?

You can also have it setup not to save everything if that helps? if files are big check the "project save options" Mine is in the middle, detailed would cause large files, try short maybe it will lower the file size? though short I believe does not save the tool path generation, so you will have to run all of your ops again, depends on what they are this could be no big deal but some 3D stuff can take time and that would be a waste of time to reprocess all of that.

I also uncheck "reset all associated operations when operation parameters are changed" because that is a pain, you can just move some ops around and now have to reprocess all of them! when I can do that manually as needed.


also what operating system are you using? I would hope your windows 7 and up!

I'm just using regular SATA drives on my server and other computer. I'm also using windows 10 but have confirmed the problem on Vista. I tried various levels of saving information, but it didn't make any noticeable difference. Like I say, this only seems to be a problem for large files saving to USB or Network filesystems (USB is worse/takes much longer...like 30 min). Local saving is mostly okay.....but large files (15Mb) seem to crash pretty often for me. I'm not sure it's Sprutcam, but everything else seems to run okay and saves fine to a network or USB. I still don't understand what "reset all associated operations when operation parameters are changed" means but I would guess it has something to do with not saving settings for say, plunge feed. I broke several endmills because of this weird design of only saving work feed rates and not plunge feed rates with the tool (and in fact resetting plunge rate to 100% of feed rate for waterline clearing! at least it could default to 20%). I just save user operations now and that works better for me. Maybe that's what that that setting is for? Not likely I'll pay for an upgrade to Sprutcam 10 to fix basic functionality. I only believe in paying for added features. Fusion 360 seems to be a good alternative....if only it wasn't cloud based.

[drutort]

I only had files as large as 9mb but never had any issues with slow saves, maybe the bigger the file got it got a fraction of a sec slower, I believe that has to do with the solid state drive, maybe other programs are causing issues? any antiviruses? if you have them try to disable them and repeat the save to see if they do anything. I know that antivirus programs and regular HD's kill IO as the virus program runs and scans stuff constantly.