Continue to Site

Welcome to MCAD Central

Join our MCAD Central community forums, the largest resource for MCAD (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design) professionals, including files, forums, jobs, articles, calendar, and more.

Hideous "Unknown File Format" Error

bemasamoje

New member
I've had two instances where SW's has crashed and corrupted files such that they have to be sent to SW's HQ to be repaired.


In my case I had some 10 files that were unusable (meaning I at a minimun lost the time it took to send them in to get repaired) and could have potentially lost many days of work.


Even the SW's backup files were tainted. Files that weren't even open at the time but had some association (i.e. in the assembly that contained the file being worked on when it crashed) were corrupted with the error.


Good new is that most of the file could be quickly repaired (though our IT people have a deathgrip on our network so I have to get a hold of them to get them from the SW FTP site)


Curious if anyone else has heard or had this error?


We can then talk about what kind of HW/SW config we're using...


JBR
 
I had files come in from a client of mine in SW2003 format. D/L
off of my FTP site. Decompressed them. Opened solidworks
2003, I could view the 'preview' window fine and it even gave them
their cute little thumbnail icons. When I tried to open I
received the 'unknown file format' error. I proceeded to try a
few more times. Then I figured I would just uninstall sworks and
reinstall. To no avail. I tried again, same result. I
then got rid of every sworks footprint (registry, clsids, file types)
EVERYTHING! Still didn't work. I ended up having to
format/install XP sp2 again. Then it worked fine. The
system my client is using was win2k, sworks2003 and I didn't think it
should be a problem, but...
 
Im running sw2007 sp2.2. I work on assemblies on a network. Usually this is nota problem, but twice in a year's timeI made the mistake of trying to export an IGES of a large assembly (for protel, or another customer to use). Every part is opened individually and converted to IGES in the active memory. Solidworks has crashed in this process. If that was all that happened it would be all right, but many of the component files become corrupted. They are part files, but you open them and they are blank geometry.


Many of the component parts have "-1" or even"-2" copies in the same directory. The same file name but with "-1" or "-2" after the file name. The part files are all blank geometry. The assemblies have unresolved instances of these parts. I have to find back ups of the components and copy them over the corrupt component files. If I open up the assembly after replacing the component files it is as if it never happened. I do not have ready access to backups of all the files so it is a big problem.


I have reported the problem to Solidworks twice and sent them samples of the files, but there was no repair. My guess is the files are lost. Can anyone tell me if there is a fix for the files? Similar problems?
 
bemasamoje said:
I've had two instances where SW's has crashed and corrupted files such that they have to be sent to SW's HQ to be
repaired.


In my case I had some 10 files that were unusable (meaning I at a minimun lost the time it took to send them in to get repaired) and
could have potentially lost many days of work.


Even the SW's backup files were tainted.
 

Sponsor

Articles From 3DCAD World

Back
Top