I'm working with ViaCad since round about 8 years and the last tolerable (tolerable is not really good enough) stable version I used has been the ViaCad Pro V10 with Powerpack. Since I used ViaCad the first time it had some bugs that hadn't been solved in all following versions. I don't talk about program features that aren't doing what they should do but about situations where the program crashes without any error message. The only way for the user to solve that kind of problems and to prevent losing data and reducing waste of time is what some other users of this forum mentioned several times before... Using the save and auto save function exessive. That would be ok for a beta test and is comparable with wearing a belt and suspenders and as a precaution a parachute and a safety buoy. If that's the only way to work with ViaCad Pro the program doesn't deserve the Pro in it's name. Some month ago I made a really big mistake although I should have learned from past experiances with ViaCad Updates and orderd Version 12 Pro with Powerpack. And I must say it's really a big improvement: While in Version 10 the program crashed maybe 2 times a day Version 12 crashes at least 10 times an hour. While in V10 the crashes followed something like a pattern the crashes in V12 seem to be totally random. And not even saving in short sequence helps a lot because saving a simple file neeeds more than 2 minutes in V12.

I'm sure that nobody will be able to find a solution for this problems with such vague error descriptions. After working more than 30 years in software developement for IBM I would be able to give precise error descriptions, but because I'm not using ViaCad for fun but for my business, I don't have time to waste for making a job I would expect to be done by the ViaCad developers team, especially after the price for ViaCad Pro is meanwhile high enough that I would expect a professional development team.

Conclusion: After watching the progress of ViaCad over the last years I came to the conclusion that apparently the main focus of the developement team lays on the integration of new functions to keep pace with new requirements for CAD solutions like 3D-Print compatibility and so on. Regrettably bugs in the basic functionality seem to have a very low prioity and this makes the programm unusable for professional purposes even if the price suggests it's made for professionals. Some of the 'so called' amateurish free CAD solutions are running more stable, offer better support and have more functionality.

So whoever thinks about buying ViaCad 'Pro' V12... If you wanna waste time and money, feel free :-)

At least we are all in the same boat, if that's anything to go by. I went to sharkpro v12. I've had crashes, strangely not as many, however I'm saving a lot more and I started to think if that was something to do with it. Maybe it cleared some weird memory thing or something - I don't know.
The main ones for me recently are the access errors. Came at a bad time, had about 3 of them now, literally can't do anything about it.
I found that the program does store crash dumps, although with the "support" for the program somewhat lacking I too wonder where it's going?
Reported numerous problems, no sign of them being fixed, no response, or if there is a response they don't seem to listen or come back with any sort of actual fix. Even the new releases don't come with a bug fix list. So you'd never know what they are actually fixing?!?!?!?

@L.Banasky

<<<< and it was actually fixed in Build 1559 >>>>

My actual Build is 1550. When I use the build in 'Current Version' function I get linked to the punchcad update site where I get the message that Build 1550 is the current build and therefor there is no update necessary. So maybe 1559 is for SharkCAD only.

With V12 I have much less bugs than with V11....
Though, I get ACIS errors for some complex "solid subtract" operations + for some history tree "remove feature" leading to big mess.
I sent to Tim & Todd.
It seems that some of it will be solved soon ...
Fingers crossed.
JL

oh,

i'm realy upsade/angry with the versions 11 and 12 of ViaCad Pro.
And the version 12 of SharkCad.
And i'm total with you: pay money for an upgrade and what you get is an unuseble downgrade.

But i found hope in the last two days.
I worked with SharkCad (version 1559) two days,
and i can not believe, i had no crash.
O.K. it was very simple i had to do, only extrude some lines , but no crashs :-)
Hope it will be similar, when i'm not afraid anymore to use version 12 ;-) for more difficult objekts

Sometimes solids with very fine and precise 3D details would not accept to subtract.
I get an Answer CIS error like screen grab.
I noticed that a complex feature tree, with a lot of "remove feature" add new feature in history makes it worse.

Sometimes rebuilding completely the solid with the most simple feature tree history makes it work OK

Sometimes not.
This is why I sent the files to Tim (over 100Mb).
He confirmed the issue and is looking into.

Kind regards,

JL

many thanks for your info ! - here are some profound background reports on the famous Acis Modeler/Math kernel:
https://www.spatial.com/news/2020-1-0-1-Release
should be checked and compared with Tim Olsen....imho
with regards to the actual status of ViaCAD/Shark....
regards
G.

<<<<I do find that if I have imported models (sat files from mcmaster carr) and I have many copies of them, the saves take a long time>>>>
Hi grumpygeek,
This was fixed in Build 1559.
Larry

o.k, today i used SharkCad 12 (1559) again, with polar duplicate, booling, cut out and blending.
specialy, blendig was not possible to use "comand-Z"
i saved and reopend th last version of my object.
Somtimes Shark copied my object many times instead of doing undo.
if anybody is interested i could upload the file

not possible, the zip is still 21MB