Wildfire Crashes

I recently attended the Wildifre update training. The build code we were
using was 2003 3170. It was crashing quite often especially with mouse
movements--double clicking objects to open or drag. This was quite annoying
to the point of making the program unusable.

This was at a PTC approved training facility so I would think that the
hardware and software patches were current. Is anyone using later versions
of wildfire that are more stable. My company is thinking of migrating to
wildfire, but not if it crashes so often.

Your experiences would be appreciated.

 

: I recently attended the Wildifre update training. The build code we were
: using was 2003 3170. It was crashing quite often especially with mouse
: movements--double clicking objects to open or drag. This was quite annoying
: to the point of making the program unusable.
:
: This was at a PTC approved training facility so I would think that the
: hardware and software patches were current. Is anyone using later versions
: of wildfire that are more stable. My company is thinking of migrating to
: wildfire, but not if it crashes so often.
:
Wildfire is one of the most stable revs I've used (user since rev 18). My opinion
of 'training facilities', authorized or not, who present the software in such a
lame light did a disservice to you and to Pro/e. Complain to PTC, get some
accounting for the fraud of training that you experienced (unless you were taking
a Sysadmin course and learning to debug the software). But, no, the new software
'Built on Granite' has been the most stable so far. And as they move functions to
the Dashboard interface, I expect it to get easier to use, to work better and to
be more stable. The only question you might ask yourself is if you ought to wait
for WF II which is due out in March. Granted, you might not want to be the 'first
on your block' with the upgrade, you might wait until later in the year, but you'd
get a more mature Wildfire, more Dashboard features and have to upgrade only once
this year. Skip Wildfire and go for WF2.

David Janes

 

Yeaaa... Another Wildfire fan! I've got myself at a state where I've got
to re-install. I used Program Files as a directory and my Mechanica
doesn't really work. I've got 2003451 CD's in my office ready to go,
should I do that or go get the Wildfire II Beta? Not wild about Beta
stuff, would be cool to look at ... you're gonna say do both right?

Has anyone ever created a quality metric for releases... so 19 wasn't as
good as 18 huh? 2000i^2 was really bad right? That's where PTC sent the
apology letter?

-D


David Janes wrote:
snip

 

: Yeaaa... Another Wildfire fan! I've got myself at a state where I've got
: to re-install. I used Program Files as a directory and my Mechanica
: doesn't really work. I've got 2003451 CD's in my office ready to go,
: should I do that or go get the Wildfire II Beta? Not wild about Beta
: stuff, would be cool to look at ... you're gonna say do both right?
:
Ever the problem with 'testimonials' and self selected polls, such as the ones you
can do on an NG, is that experience varies wildly. The problem we have in
answering 'what is the typical experience with crashes' is that we don't have the
data, i.e. the kind that PTC has. And I doubt that even that is comprehensive. But
at least they can track how many of the calls are related to bugs in the software
that are so sever that they cause crashes and is this number going up or down.

Add to this another dimension: suppose that they had a pretty decent Beta testing
program and automatic testing and quality control in place so that they released
versions with minimal serious flaws. Yet, since I've known them, they release a
new build about every week and THERE IS NO QUALITY CONTROL ON THESE, NO BETA
TESTING! I'm sure I've run into or heard of builds which screwed up 6 things for
every one they fixed. Yet, the theory persists that the software is released with
a lot of bugs and gets fixed as new builds keep coming out. So they wait until WF
2 is out before updating to WF. And yet there's meld_b with a fairly late build
(five or six months after intial release?) of WF complaining about crashes. So, do
they get better or worse as more builds are released?

: Has anyone ever created a quality metric for releases... so 19 wasn't as
: good as 18 huh? 2000i^2 was really bad right? That's where PTC sent the
: apology letter?
:
I'm sure PTC has it, just try getting it out of them. Maybe that kind of stuff
comes out in lawsuits, like the Rand v. PTC one.

David Janes

 

David - You misunderstood me... I'm NOT crashing Wildfire 2003100... I
just need to reload because the Mechanica
translators don't work if you install under "Program Files" and I'm not
sure where my 2003100 CD's went. With 2003451 staring at me I might as
well go for it. I'll work on my self control and wait until March for
Wildfire2. Maybe I could spend that time and get BMX or MDO working -D

 

I take it back... I did just crash today. And while running Independent
Mechanica and Pro/E this Machine a Dell Optiplex pretty much did a face
plant and I had to shut everything down but Pro/E and then it came back
to life.

-D

 

They should give an apology letter for Wildfire, it's the worst
software revision I've ever seen or used. We upgraded many months
back but we still skip backwards to Rev2001 at every opportunity.
Wildfire is illogical, often unstable, poorly implemented and
unfinished, in fact whoever ordered it's release in that state should
be ashamed.

Worst gripes are:
1) Nothing makes sense - I'm forever searching for tools.
2) New color scheme is awful - I set it back to 2001 all the time.
When I've got time I'll list more!

It's also harder to select things. There may be some illogical way to
select things that are hidden in layers but we haven't found it. I
have to resort to making the layer visible so I can select things.

 

We have Pro/E Wildfire 2003490 installed in our server and I'm having a
problem saving an assembly file. Pro/E keeps crashing. My workstation is
dual Xeon 3.06MHz and 2.0G of RAM.

 

: We have Pro/E Wildfire 2003490 installed in our server and I'm having a
: problem saving an assembly file. Pro/E keeps crashing. My workstation is
: dual Xeon 3.06MHz and 2.0G of RAM.
:
You've just presented the best argument for moving on to 64 bit
processors/systems/applications. With 2 gigs of memory and likely, at least
another gig of virtual memory, you run the risk of attempting to store data past
the limits of 32 bit addressable memory. Especially with Pro/e and large
assemblies. Especially if you are not using very disciplined, top-down modelling
techniques to limit the size of models/subassemblies/assemblies. Additionally, if
you are modifying and regenerating models with large assemblies in memory, Pro/e
is constantly creating regen backups, meaning that sections, possibly large
sections, of this whole mess are duplicated in physical or virtual memory. You
could try setting regen_backup_using_disk to 'yes' to get some of the overhead
out of physical memory. But you really need to do things like create and use a
bunch of simplified reps, interchange assemblies which utilize shrinkwrap models
or even simple surface models as space claim objects, skeleton models, etc. (it's
a big et cetera) to reduce your memory burden on a severely limited system. Or, go
64 bit.

David Janes

 

Yes, 32-bit operating systems are limited to a maximum of 4 gigabyte (GB) of
memory addressing. This is what I did to resolve the problem of saving big
assembly file. I modified my boot.ini to include the 3GB switch and increase
my virtual memory to 3GB, install Pro/E locally and patch xtop.exe to access
more than 2GB of memory.

 

: Yes, 32-bit operating systems are limited to a maximum of 4 gigabyte (GB) of
: memory addressing. This is what I did to resolve the problem of saving big
: assembly file. I modified my boot.ini to include the 3GB switch and increase
: my virtual memory to 3GB, install Pro/E locally and patch xtop.exe to access
: more than 2GB of memory.
:
Excellent, you pushed the wall back, saved your company having to spend on new
hardware/software/operating system and bought them some time, maybe a year, at the
outside, 18 months. But, you hit the wall once, you know what that's like and it
looms, inevitably, in your future. Next time, there are no fixes.

David Janes

 

Yes there are. You throw that Microsoft garbage as far
as the eye can see and buy a real computer. An SGI, for
instance. A *real* operating system that's been 64-bit
for almost a *decade* and has a *real* file system and
has a *real* multi-user environment and does *real*
multi-tasking.

If you want to be a professional, you need professional-
level tools. Windows does not qualify.

 

Yes there are. You throw that Microsoft garbage as far

Get off that high horse, will you? 90-95% (at least) of 'professionals' you
are talking about are using Windows and Windows-based tools to produce
results that are certainly no less 'professional' in any measurable sense
than the small minority that still uses UNIX. I am no big fan of Microsoft
myself, but the small but very vocal 'kill Bill' crowd which you obviously
belong to is even worse. You've made some kind of a perverted jihad (not
that jihad can be anything BUT a perversion) out of a purely technical
issiue. Get a life!