Autodesk: Does Autodesk Really Read Your Crash Report

The answer is...not necessarily.  It goes into a large storage system basically.  A file cabinet.  So when you have an issue, it collects that data, and places it with anyone else who is having that same issue and same file that may be causing the issue.  Be sure to write your comments in as that can help the Autodesk rep who may look at your file in the future to see if it was a bug and that an update could possibly fix your issue.

Here's what the process is:

When you get that lovely Fatal Error screen that comes up, usually another popup comes up right after it asking you to send info off to Autodesk.  If you're like me, you usually will be kind and send off some simple info of what happened and then go back to working, if your Autodesk product opens again.  Then usually after the 3rd or 4th time that has happened, your nice helpful comments turn to mean, hateful of all Autodesk products ever made comments.

You wonder does any of these reports really help me at all in the situation that I'm currently facing with my crashing Autodesk product.  Yes, it does help.  The process goes as this:

1. You crash.
2. You let out a scream that the whole office can hear.  Ahhh 
3. You click ok to the Fatal Error pop up and The Error Report comes up.
4. Type in your email and provide a description of what happened before you crashed.  This will be helpful to determine if it's 1 command that's causing the crash, or 1 drawing that is having an issue, or a certain file type that's crashing.
5. Once you click send to Autodesk, it will create a dump file that your Autodesk product you are using generated.  To find this file, go into your windows temp folder.  C:\Users\[your user name here]\AppData\Local\Temp.  There will be a zip file called "dumpdata.zip" that will contain 2 files within it: "acminidump.dmp" and "dmpuserinfo.xml".  These files get overwritten every time you crash so if you want o keep a report yourself of these crashes, I copy this out and place it into a separate dump folder so I know what file crashed and then I time stamp them.  If you want to know how to read a dump file click here: HOW TO READ A DUMP FILE.
6. An Autodesk bot will look into that info and pull up any information that it can about that error.  If it is a known issue, you're in luck as usually they have a patch waiting for it and all you have to do is download that patch and your on your way again.  If there is no info, then it goes into a  file system to be saved for future reference.
7. If you now are failing a lot and have no idea what's going on, go ahead and create a case at Autodesk.  Now when an Autodesk representative goes to assist you and you say to them, "I have been crashing a lot", they can look up your crash reports and see, yes that is an insane amount of crashes let me see if this is a known bug or not and needs to be documented.

So yes, this is very helpful information when you have a crash.  Please send as best detailed info on what happened right before your crash as that will help the Autodesk Representative that helps you out when you create a case.

I hope this helps!

Kevin Land

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What to do in a Fatal Error Situation.

Noooooooooo!!!!

Hello fellow CAD Station readers!

I recently had an interesting situation where AutoCAD 2017, would crash at random times while working.  It didn't matter if I was in a huge 3D drawing or a simple 2D drawing.  It didn't matter what command I was using either.  I could be saving and it would crash out or I could be choosing the line command and BAM.!  Goodbye!  Thank you for playing.  

1. So the first thing to do is to not panic.  Hopefully you saved recently and if not, your backup is readable or for instance, in AutoCAD, you have the Recover Manager working for you.
2. The second thing to do is to observe what is going on with the machine.  Is it failing on 1 command?  Is it failing on only 1 drawing?  Is something else failing as well?
3. Once you determine what is going on, you can then start to formulate your attack plan on how to fix this failure.

For me, the failures varied all the time while I worked and not for the same file.  Also, whenever I crashed, it would generate a dump file and send info off to Autodesk.  When I read the dump file, it would always show the same thing failing: AcadDM13.hdi  If you don't know how to read a dump file, please click this link here: HOW TO READ A DUMP FILE.

Rut Roh!  Google knows nothing!

Looking at google found nothing for this error code or for AcadDM13.hdi.  I was starting to get worried as when you do a google search and it says, I don't know what you're talking about, you know you're in for some trouble.  

I was busy at work though and this crash would happen at random so I just ignored it and saved constantly.  I would always save the crash report when it happened though and make sure to send it off to Autodesk so they had a list of every time I crashed.  If you're not sure what that crash report does, please click this link:  DOES ANYONE READ MY CRASH REPORT?

It wasn't until recently that I installed an update to Adobe Photoshop in the morning and AutoCAD 2017 would not let me in.  It would go through the License verification, open up, but I could not click on anything.  I also noticed that the Lotus Notes I had open was not working as well.  Very curious.  It was now or never to fix this issue.

So, this was the fault of something other than AutoCAD.  I looked at the AVG antivirus and checked out the Reports and noticed that it was stuck on an update and the last time it did a scan was March 2016.  It was now November 2016.

So I called my IT dept and they uninstalled AVG and reinstalled it.  The install bar stalled while reinstalling.  So we halted installation, restarted the PC, then retried the install for AVG.  It luckily worked this time.  We then had to reinstall the Firewall portion of it as it did not go through.  Once that was reinstalled I was able to start AutoCAD 2017 but I had lost my network connections.  We went back into AVG and clicked on Firewall and noticed that it did not allow File and Printer Sharing.  Once activated, everything works fine.

AVG Antivirus Firewall Fire and Printer Sharing ON!

So if things go bad and you're not sure what's going on.  First take a look at your system.  Is everything opening as it should?  Has Windows updates stalled and didn't go through.  Did Antivirus block something or get stuck in my case.

I hope this helps everyone else that has had a similar situation as me.

If you have any questions, please comment and I'll help as best as I can.

Best of Luck!

Kevin Land

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