Layout files crashing

I am having a issue with my finished layout files crashing the layout program when i try and open them. this has happen recently with a couple of file. I would love to know what I am doing wrong to avoid this problem in future. I am working in version 2020.

Please let me know what i need to do.

It might help if you share one of the crashing files. Assuming it’s too large to upload directly, upload it to DropBox and share the link.

Your profile says you are using 2021. Please correct that.

What is the graphics card in the computer? You put “N/A” however the graphics card is very A.

its a Dell computer with a NVIDA Quadro RTX 5000
its 31 MB.
not sure if i have dropbox on this machine

Updated Profile

is there a “recovery” function in layout?

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There might be a recovered copy of the file but LayOut would first have to have opened it and I believe autosaved first. if there is a recovered file you should see it on the window with recent files.

BTW, you don’t need to have Dropbox on your computer to use it. Just open it in your browser and upload the file.

Got your file. Very likely the crashing is due to a missing reference file. there are a couple of viewports tied to an unidentifiable embedded SketchUp file.

How did you go about adding that file as well as all of the PNG images in the LayOut file? Looks like you were copying and pasting.

Some files could be purged from the LayOut file.

Looking at your main SketchUp model I see incorrect tag usage. Untagged should always be active. It’s not in your model.
Screenshot - 7_26_2022 , 2_36_48 PM

And all edges and faces should be created and remain untagged. Fixed.
Screenshot - 7_26_2022 , 2_37_13 PM

And purging unused stuff once in awhile is good practice.
Screenshot - 7_26_2022 , 2_37_38 PM
That reduced the SketchUp file size by about 69%.

I removed the viewports for that missing link file. I’ll send you a PM with a link shortly.

Thank you for all your help.
I want to digest this and reply, But It will have to wait until tomorrow. got some deadlines I’ve got to meet before he end of today.

Thanks again, this saved me a allot of work and time(i don’t’ have right now)

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1st, what did you use to open and purge the file? is there a way i can do this myself in future?

These are brought in from the scrapbook in layout. I embedded the images in all the scrapbook files because the layout files do get used on multiple computers in different locations at times, not just in the office. The files that created the images are centrally located on the server in the office for everyone’s use. image and text files are put together and grouped, then put in the layout scrapbook for use in documents as needed. is there a different way we should be doing this?

that defeats the propose of “TAG” or layers as they use to be known in my option. we put things on Layers (tags) to be able to turn them on and off as needed in different scenes. How should we be working with them?

I guess I need a course on using “tag”. some of this geometry in our files have been around since version 8 when we had layers.

I personally purge my file, others in the office my not. I’ll have to point that out to them.

Thanks again for all your help over the years on this stuff.

If you are referring to the SketchUp file, I opened it from LayOut by right clicking on a viewport and choosing Open with SketchUp.

For fixing the incorrect tag usage I used TIG’s Default Tag Geometry plugin from Sketchucation. For purging unused stuff from your model file I used TIG’s Purge All because it gives the report I showed. You can also use Purge Unused from Window>Model Info>Statiistics.

Understood on the embedded png files.

Some users will copy from SketchUp and paste into LayOut which will create an embedded .skp file reference. That disconnects the viewports in the LO file from the original SketchUp model so then edits made to the original model file will not come over to LayOut. My advice there is to never use Copy and Paste between one application and LayOut unless you clearly understand the implications of that.

No. It doesn’t. Correct tag usage involves leaving ALL edges and faces untagged. ONLY objects (components and groups) get tags. this is the same rule that applied when they were called layers. Tagging geometry makes your work much more difficult and more prone to errors. Unless you like the mantra, “Work harder not smarter” leave Untagged active at all times. Create and leave all edges and faces untagged, give tags to components and groups in your model. Note that groups and components don’t get put on tags. Tags get put on groups and components.

If you practice proper tag usage in SketchUp you won’t ever need to chase the tags when you edit the objects in the model space. Once the group or component is opened for editing to the raw geometry, it doesn’t matter what tag is on the object.

The above has applied in SketchUp since long before version 8. It really is quite simple to manage when you do it right. Maybe we should chat some time about tags.

See this on using tags as a starting point. From personal experience looking at hundreds of models from other users, my opinion is that the statement about leaving the pencil icon on Untagged isn’t firm enough.

As you could see with the file I looked at, purging unused stuff can really help a great deal with model efficiency. I didn’t look in your file to see what those 26 unused components were before I purged them but evidently they were large or heavy components since getting rid of them reduced the file size by about two-thirds. They were cutting into your modeling “budget”.

You’re quite welcome.

FWIW, I was able to open your recalcitrant LO file in LayOut 2022. It’s more tolerant of things like missing references.

why is this happening now?
I’ve been using Layout since 2016 and this never been a problem before now.

I know about the SketchUp options, is there a Layout option for 2020?

What “this” are you referring to? The missing references? I don’t know what happened to cause the LO file to lose the reference to that .skp file. In the “old days” it was even more common, especially with copied and pasted content because copying create a temporary file in a temporary folder which will get deleted. Before the change in 2020, the reference would not be embedded automatically. It would just point at the temporary folder.

As for purging unused stuff from the LayOut file, you can do that in Document Setup>References. The Purge button will remove any references that aren’t being used somewhere in the document.

its happening again this morning to a different file.
the purge function works great when the file is open, how do i do it to a file that will not open?

Could some kind of changes to the server file location be doing this?

You can’t really do that.

If you were to upgrade to SketchUp/LayOut 2022 I expect you could open the LO file as I was able to.

Yes! I didn’t realize that your references are to a server location. Changes to the server could definitely be a problem. It might be a momentary interuption in the connection to the server buring a save or autosave that is causing the problem.

Best practice would be to have all reference files for the project in a folder on your internal drive. If you are going to keep them on the server, upload the entire folder after you are done with it.

…and i am back to getting the splash screen when trying to open a sku file

Looks like you need to sign in to your subscription again. That needs to happen every 28 days.

signed in, its still happening…

this is a business account, the computer is always hook up the the internet. I thought it did that automatically.

Sign out and sign back in.

Nope. For a subscription license the user needs to ping the server at least once every 28 days.

This is suppose to be a permeant license.
I dont have an issue with my home licenses