Steps to Report a Visualize Crash & Capture Log Fi

Hi Visualize Community,

On the developer side, SOLIDWORKS Visualize is a complex bit of software that creates a powerful application for our users to create amazing photo-quality content. And just like any other software, it sometimes crashes. That's where we need your help.

If you have a crash that happens often while performing the same task, and you can reproduce it every time, or if the same random crash keeps happening, then please follow the steps below and submit all this information to your VAR (Value Added Reseller). They will review it and send it to the appropriate channels within SOLIDWORKS Support team to document and resolve the issue.

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SOLIDWORKS Visualize generates logs that are created each time a Visualize session runs. The logs are generated in the folder: ‘C:\ProgramData\SOLIDWORKS\SOLIDWORKS Visualize\Log’. The log files from a session are overwritten each time the next session is started. Collecting a pile of data related to the crashing could be reviewed to see if any trend exists or hints as to the cause of the crashing. I recommend the following steps:

1. Make some folder on your machine where you can archive logs related to the crashes. Something like 'C:\Temp\SOLIDWORKS Visualize Crash Data'

2. Each time you have a crash and before you restart SOLIDWORKS Visualize:

Go to "C:\ProgramData\SOLIDWORKS" with Windows Explorer.
Open the folder of the current version you were using when the crash happened.
Copy the existing folder named ‘Log’
Paste that folder into ‘C:\Temp\SOLIDWORKS Visualize Crash Data’.
Go into the folder ‘C:\Temp\SOLIDWORKS Visualize Crash Data’ and rename the Log folder to append the date and time (I’d suggest the 24 hour time format). For example, ‘Log 2016-05-19-1320’ (year-month-day-time)

3. Lastly, in the pasted and uniquely renamed Log folder for each crash, please create a text file (call it crashnotes.txt) where you include a several notes. Such as the name of the file you were working on, exact steps-to-reproduce the crash (from launch to crash), and other observations that you think might be related to the crash or good for Support to know. Sometime we might follow-up and request the SVPJ file for further debugging. When this happens, you can include a stripped down version of your SVPJ to send to Visualize R&D, removing any intellectual property. Just make sure the crash still occurs.

4. Open a support ticket with your Reseller stating a crash has occurred and here is all the SOLIDWORKS Visualize crash data. Create a ZIP file of the specific crash data and send it to your Reseller. They will review the information and send it to the appropriate Support teams here at SOLIDWORKS for debugging.

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It looks like a lot of work, but these steps are very quick to go through. These Log files with the steps-to-reproduce infinitely help the Visualize R&D team squash the bug. Thanks so much for your help to improve SOLIDWORKS Visualize!

Brian HILLNER

Product Manager | SOLIDWORKS Visualize