and don't forget
no spaces in PCB component names !
it will accept them (and even propose them) but they are 'not a good thing'
Leo, you seem to have had more than your share of this sort of problem
are you sure you don't want to use the DDB :)
in either casa i would think a new computer would not be a bad thing
given all you have gone through
worst problem i have had was sch files going corrupt on file save
not PCBs, just schematics
they were in a DDB
i finally tracked it down to the network hardware connection
i replaced the NIC and the 150' cable and *never* had that problem again
Dennis Saputelli
_______________________________________________________________________
Integrated Controls, Inc. Tel: 415-647-0480 EXT 107
2851 21st Street Fax: 415-647-3003
San Francisco, CA 94110 www.integratedcontrolsinc.com
Leo Potjewijd wrote:
At 01/06/05 19:20, Brad Velander wrote:
Leo,
my libraries are typically much larger (10 - 40MB) than the
size mentioned in your reported size. I have never seen a problem.
I don't think that the reported size is correct. Do you have
the libraries stored in a DDB file? Have you compressed that DDB
library file recently? DDB files can get quite large when they are not
compressed regularly.
Well folks,
it took quite a bit of bit-digging but I finally found the cause for
Protels' sudden interest in it's navel (didn't know it even had one,
until yesterday afternoon :): for reasons as yet unknown the offending
library was corrupted, big time.
It started out fine but after twelve or so components the information
was complete rubbish. Luckily I have the same setup with a 10-generation
auto-backup every 10 minutes on three PC's, so I only needed to add one
component to be back in business.
Brad: as a result of many earlier system crashes (on totally different
PCs) I use the Windows file system for storage exclusively. Pro: no
compression needed (ever) and all files are visible/manipulatable
outside Protel. Con: directories look a bit cluttered.
Note: our software developers had also noticed several qugs (quirky,
bug-like events) in MS Access..
For those interested, while digging I found the really, really hard
limits concerning PCB libraries:
1) a library can be a maximum of 4,294,967,295 (2^32-1) bytes long
2) component names have a maximum length of 255 characters
3) a component can be comprised of 65535 elements maximum
4) each element is stored as an ASCII 'record' of maximum 65535
characters long
Point 4 surprised me, too. After all, it is supposed to be a binary.......
Point 1 (and 4) effectively limits the maximum number of components
because the file is sequential and internally uses 32-bit unsigned
numbers for navigation. However, for all practical uses this is equal to
no limit at all.
I now suspect the PC's hardware to produce intermittent memory and/or
harddisk faults; they seem temperature related (most other crashes and
failures occurred in the summer). Various memory test programs revealed
nothing so far. Maybe I need a brand new one.....
More backups and checks then, I hate to lose another day on this sort of
crap....
Thanks,
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