• crash

Crash Troubleshooting

If you start ArchiCAD, but it crashes during the launch, here are the steps you should take before calling Technical Support:

1. Try an other file or template - make sure it's not just one file, or not the template that you use. If it turns out that the crash is file-specific, send the file to your local tech support. If a template file crashes ArchiCAD, then there is a bad setting in it, most likely a bad attribute definition (e.g.a material or fill definition)

2. Delete preferences files - preferences files store your user-specific settings, like the Work Environment, palette shapes, tool settings, etc... deleting these could help, but be prepared that yo will lose your shortcut schemes, custom menus, etc. It's better to back up these files before deleting. Things to delete: everything in C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\Graphisoft\ArchiCAD[version] and everything in C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Local Settings\Application Data\Graphisoft\ArchiCAD Cache Folder

3. Delete registry - Don't do this if you are not familiar with registry settings!. The key to delete is: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Graphisoft\ArchiCAD\ArchiCAD[version]

4. Reinstall ArchiCAD - Reinstalling ArchiCAD takes 15 minutes, and maybe you can save days of troubleshooting. None of the files that you have created will be damaged.

5. Update drivers - Crashes are often caused by hardware drivers - mostly graphics card drivers, or less frequently by Printer drivers. Try to search for the latest one, or roll back to a previous one, if you have the latest.

6. Remove System plugins that have a general effect over the system; like applications that index files; modify the User Interface (i.e. the general appearance of system dialogs); or control the window/desktop management of the system

7. remove WIBU-key - With key removed, ArchiCAD will start in Demo mode. If that is successful, you either have a badly installed key, or a broken key.

8. Search ArchicadWiki and ArchiCAD-Talk - There may be some known crashes that are reported on these sites

Reporting crash

If all your attempts fail, then submit a crash report via the Automatic Crash Reporting system, then contact your local ArchiCAD reseller with the Bug-ID. You don't have to remember the Bug-IDs. They are logged in a file called CrashSubmissionLog.txt in C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Graphisoft folder. Send this small text file to your local tech support.

Note: Crash reports contain no private data, so Graphisoft can not contact you - You need to contact Graphisoft!

Processing crash reports

Graphisoft collects crash reports and analyzes trends and patterns. Similar crashes are grouped, and priorities are set by number of times a crash occurs. Therefore you greatly help us improve ArchiCAD just by sending in every crash report you have. Nevertheless, we highly appreciate if you write comments to the crash reports before sending it - describe what you were doing before the crash happened. If you know how to repeat a crash, please do contact your local tech support and send the file and step-by-step instructions, so we can fix it as soon as we possibly can.