7 Replies Latest reply on Oct 17, 2016 2:28 PM by Loretta Stiurca

    CommandManager not gone, just empty

    Tom Gagnon
    Tom Gagnon Oct 17, 2016 11:40 AM

      When opening parts or drawings, my CommandManager works just fine, but when I open an assembly, it looks like this:

      emptyribbon.JPG

      That is, all the other tabs are gone, and nearly all the commands are gone from what remains. I've never seen this before, and suspect registry corruption or similar. It worked fine just yesterday. I searched forum for similar, and others had entire ribbon hidden, not emptied like this. Ref. Spec: SW Premium 2016 SP3.0 on Win7 Pro.

       

      I plan to restore UI with Settings Wizard, which I hope will work, but wanted to know:

      What may have caused this (maybe it's avoidable)?

      Will this likely happen again?

      Could this be due to something outside of SW, such as Windows Update maybe?

      Is Settings Wizard the best solution, or would I need to shoot my productivity in the foot today with a reinstall?

       

      Thanks folks.

        • Re: CommandManager not gone, just empty
          Bob Van Dick
          Bob Van Dick Oct 17, 2016 11:54 AM (in response to Tom Gagnon)

          Tom,

           

          Have you tried turning it off in the View/Toolbars settings and turning it back on?

           

          Bob

          • Re: CommandManager not gone, just empty
            Tom Gagnon
            Tom Gagnon Oct 17, 2016 12:15 PM (in response to Tom Gagnon)

            What has not worked so far:

            Copy Settings Wizard has successfully restored archived settings. No result.

            Solidworks Rx shows graphics card is supported and the driver is up to date. (I avoided a driver upgrade available last week)

            One Windows update was applied yesterday: Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3177467). It cannot be uninstalled in the Uninstall an update part of the control panel, as the uninstall button does not appear for this update as it does for others.

             

            Time to call VAR.

            • Re: CommandManager not gone, just empty
              Loretta Stiurca
              Loretta Stiurca Oct 17, 2016 12:27 PM (in response to Tom Gagnon)

              Hi Tom,

               

              Sorry to hear you're experiencing issues! This looks like a classic case of registry corruption. The good news is that, if this is what I suspect it is, there's a quick fix.

               

              We'll give you a call to help sort this out soon.

               

              Best,

              Loretta Stiurca

              • Re: CommandManager not gone, just empty
                Tom Gagnon
                Tom Gagnon Oct 17, 2016 12:54 PM (in response to Tom Gagnon)

                Thanks Loretta and Joel for helping out.

                 

                Before I got your callback, I tried restoring the System State prior to updating KB3177467. After reboot, it worked. All my CommandManager items were returned as before.

                 

                At that point, I called back and reported what worked. Since this update was marked Critical by windows, I didn't want to just ignore it. So I went ahead and ran the same update again. It did not require a reboot, but I did so anyway. This time, the CommandManager worked as intended both before and after the update.

                 

                VAR suggested clearing out Solidworks from the registry, and allowing it to rewrite its registry entities upon reload as the default initial settings. Then, I was going to restore settings with the wizard. However, somehow it seems to have healed itself now, and isn't consistent.

                 

                It makes little sense, but I'm happy enough that it works now.

                  • Re: CommandManager not gone, just empty
                    Loretta Stiurca
                    Loretta Stiurca Oct 17, 2016 2:28 PM (in response to Tom Gagnon)

                    Hi Tom,

                    Thanks for the update! I'm so glad to hear that the problem is fixed now.

                     

                    I was actually just talking to Joel about this (I'm an engineer at your VAR!).

                     

                    What most likely happened is the following:

                     

                        1. Windows Update was installed

                        2. Registry corruption was introduced (either through a crash, another program, or another update)

                        3. We noticed SOLIDWORKS acting up

                        4.  We rolled back using System Restore which actually ended up restoring your previous registry settings (registry corruption fixed!)

                        5. We were able to re-apply the Windows Update without a problem

                     

                    The same problem could have most likely been resolved with a quick Registry Reset, so if you run into this in the future, please don't hesitate to give us a call - we can do this in a couple of quick minutes over a screen share.

                     

                    Have a nice week!

                     

                    Thank you,

                    Loretta Stiurca