MicroStation Alert message - Connection was lost

I am using MicroStation Connect 16 and just recently I am receiving an alert message as follows: Unable to save design file. Most likely, network connection was lost. Do you want to Retry? I always select OK but this never works to save the file. MicroStation all ways wants to abort. The odd thing is I am working off my computer's internal drive and get this message frequently. However, when I am working off the company network file storage, I noticed that I do not receive this alert message and the file saves without any issues. I was thinking the issue could stem from a newly upgraded 1 TB SSD that I had IT put on recently because since then I have been receiving these alert messages while using the computer's internal drive using MicroStation. But when I am using AutoCAD 2020 or other software programs I do not experience any file saving issues. Only have experience in using MicroStation Connect while saving to the computer's internal drive. Has anyone else experienced this issue recently or in the past and what solution was realized. Is there some setting in MicroStation that I am unware about that could help this issue? It is necessary for me to work on file off my computer hard drive often and submit back onto the company's network storage. Since this issue now occurs, it has become most annoying and my productivity level is compromised. 

Thanks for you advice. 

Al Ebert

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  • Hi Al

    It sounds like a strange issue and not something I can recall experiencing. I've done similar where I would work off a laptop having synchronised project files. What I did was I created a folder (can't recall if it was in the C:\ or on an additional drive e.g. D:\) and I would then create a mapped network drive to that folder using the SUBST command (below that folder, I would have a folder for every project that I was working on and use FreeFileSync to synchronise back and forth as required). The drive letter I used for the network drive was the same as the server in the office so that reference files pathing was identical. Do you use a similar setup?

    Somethings other I would investigate:

    • Check your .UPF file has the correct permissions for writing
    • If you are working off your C:\, check you have write permissions for the folder, its files and all sub-folders & files beneath it (IT depts. can inadvertently apply restrictions without realising its impact)
    • Check the Symantec Anti-Virus settings. If possible, disable it entirely just to see if you get the same issue. A long time ago I did experience an issue with Symantec AV doing some sort of real-time scan each time a DGN file was selected in the File Open dialog, causing a delay of several seconds. Perhaps something similar could be happening with your AV.
  • Thanks for the reply Barry. 

    Yes this is very strange and my first thought I was that is is not MicroStation causing this issue, rather, it is the new SSD that was installed recently and that is when I first started to experience this issue. IT is telling me the SSD can't be the problem or I would be experiencing wide spread issues, which I do not. I do not have any auto sync commands as you have described. If I am working off  my C drive (even network connected) I do the updates to the file there and manually overwrite the file into the file share (drag and copy, paste and overwrite). If there is a a lot of files to do this then I use Beyond Compare software. I cannot disable the Symantec anti-virus to check it.  Again this issue appears to be sporadic and hit or miss. You never can tell if your file will save or not working off the C drive. It is a good bet tough it will not save during a working presentation session when the boss is watching. The only other time I had experienced this was with older versions of MicroStation (e.g.,V8i) and there were documented file share outages in which the network connection was truly "lost".  Sometimes this happens still but no where's near the frequency they use to occur.  I don't know how you lose a connection from your C drive that is new to me. I wanted to throw out the question to see if anyone else has this same issue with Connect

  • Hi,

    With the auto-save, it will save the changes after x-number of seconds of non-activity.  (X being set by a configuration variable).  That means that if you are constantly feeding commands to Microstation (without taking a breath), then Microstation will not auto-save.  (It is not continuous.)  If you take the x-seconds to drink some coffee, then Microstation will auto-save. 

    One thing that I don't like with Windows 10 is the default permissions.  I don't know where your folders are in the C drive, and what  permission Microstation has in that folder.  Make sure that you can do a save-as command in Microstation to the folder in question.

    One thing you can do, it modify a file, wait for the x-seconds, then check the file's modified date.  If it hasn't changed, then you have issues.

    --Robert

  • Unless your IT dept is willing to play ball and get involved to perform such test cases to rule out possible causes, it's unlikely you'll find a solution. There's no reason why an IT Admin can't RDC to your machine, temporarily disable the AV and/or the USB/External HDD restriction software, to allow some basic file-save testing with you. There is no way your IT dept can be 100% sure that the SSD drive isn't at fault.

    As far as I'm concerned, Auto-Save isn't even a factor if you still have problems with File\Save.

    One thing of interest which you mentioned:

    I was thinking the issue could stem from a newly upgraded 1 TB SSD that I had IT put on recently

    In my previous company, the machine I was using had a SATA HDD, but this was swapped out and replaced with an SSD. What is interesting is that the contents of the SATA drive were re-imaged directly to the SSD. If your IT dept did the same, it could be this that is somehow causing the issue. You might need them to instead reformat the SSD and reinstall Windows and the different software applications (including MicroStation) for the issue to be solved.

  • What is interesting is that the contents of the SATA drive were re-imaged directly to the SSD.

    This can lead to problems if the old drive is left as backup drive in PC as cloned drives will have the same disk signature. 

  • I've no idea if any hardware information is stored during the MicroStation installation procedure, but I would always choose a clean reinstall over copy the image of one HDD to another to potentially avoid any problems which could arise.

  • Yes I clean installed myself. I had to because our IT, from what I learned, does not install software from an imaged computer. They do not support MicroStation as AutoCAD is our official CAD software package for the company, thus AutoCAD was installed but not MicroStation. Again, this is difficult because it is not a constant issue, hit and miss when saving to the internal drive. It is like MicroStation cannot "see" the SSD sometimes while other times no problem. OR SSD has a hiccup and disconnects so MicroStation cannot "see" the SSD. Currently I am using the network drive without fail. It is lagging compared to local drive but I can save my work. It would be nice if when MicroStation cannot "see" a location to save the file, it would prompt you to "save to another location?" instead of "retry" the same location it was first directed to save.  

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  • Yes I clean installed myself. I had to because our IT, from what I learned, does not install software from an imaged computer. They do not support MicroStation as AutoCAD is our official CAD software package for the company, thus AutoCAD was installed but not MicroStation. Again, this is difficult because it is not a constant issue, hit and miss when saving to the internal drive. It is like MicroStation cannot "see" the SSD sometimes while other times no problem. OR SSD has a hiccup and disconnects so MicroStation cannot "see" the SSD. Currently I am using the network drive without fail. It is lagging compared to local drive but I can save my work. It would be nice if when MicroStation cannot "see" a location to save the file, it would prompt you to "save to another location?" instead of "retry" the same location it was first directed to save.  

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