Hi - I am having an issue on and off where I cannot save my model. When I try to save it says “Save Failed - The save operation could not be completed. Please try again.” However if I wait or try again later it still does not work. This means that sometimes I just refresh the browser because there’s nothing else I can do. When I get back into the model sometimes my recent work is is saved and sometimes not. The autosave is set for every five minutes but judging by work being lost I don’t think this is being done properly all the time. The file I’m working in is a little large (last I checked ~13 MB) but I’ve already reduced it as much as I can. It doesn’t seem to be an issue with my internet connection because I have 32 mbps download and 40mbps upload through work’s ethernet. Any advice appreciated. Thank you!
13 Mb shouldn’t be too large for a SketchUp Go file. You say you already reduced the file. What exactly did you do to reduce it?
Can you upload the file to the 3D Warehouse?
Can you download the file to your computer?
The same thing happens to me from time to time. It is a good practice to save frequently instead of relying on the automatic save. When this happens to me, I start saving after I complete making each component. That way, I don’t lose very much.
To reduce the file - The file contained large jpgs which had been scaled up as an aerial base for the buildings, so I deleted any extraneous ones and other unused geometry.
I have uploaded the file here
Downloading - When the model is active and struggling to save and I try to download the file, I get a message which says “Error - An error occurred while downloading the model” and I get the spinning wheel of death which freezes everything up completely. When I subsequently refresh and go to the home page, I can download the file without issue. When the model is active and it is not struggling to save, I have no issues downloading from the model view page rather than the home page.
Did you also purge unused components and unused materials?
Looks like I’ll have to wait a bit to be able to get your file from the 3D Warehouse.
Can you share the file you donwloaded? Upload it to We Transfer or DropBox and share the link.
I was just able to download it from the Warehouse so no need to upload it elsewhere.
Thanks - I believe I have purged unused components and materials from the last successful save but I’m having trouble finding how to double check that
I could probably stand to try to save more often, but the problem is it won’t always save when I ask it to manually either.
I fixed incorrect tag usage …
Then I exploded the aerial images into textured faces and reduced the image size a little.
See if this file behaves better for you.
241008_Somerville Model d.skp (2.5 MB)
FWIW, you should have a look at Google’s Terms of Use. They prohibit the use of their imagery as you are using it here.
Thank you Dave, can you clarify what you mean by incorrect tag usage? I am not so familiar with SketchUp and have mainly used Rhino in the past.
& Thank you for the tip re- terms of use.
In SketchUp all edges and faces should be created and remain untagged. Only components and groups should be given tags.
Tags are used primarily to control the visibility of groups and components in the model. Leaving all edges and faces untagged means there’s no chasing active tags as you work. When you edit the objects you’re editing untagged geometry. Simple and straightforward.
So to fix this file, did you basically just unassign tags to anything that wasn’t a component or group? You did that so fast… But when I create groups and tag them, aren’t I essentially making them from faces and edges? But somehow that’s not an issue? Sorry I’m just trying to understand how to avoid repeating this mistake and slowing down my file in the future. I appreciate your help!
Yes. Well, at least to the edges and faces in the model.
I used an extension in the desktop version to do this quickly. In SketchUp Go you would need to either edit each group as well as any component definitions, select the geometry, and then set it to Untagged in Entity Info. Or you could delete the existing tags, remake them, and assign them to the groups and components.
You’re making the groups to contain the edges and faces but when you give the tag to the group, it only goes on the group, not on the edges and faces. Think of the group as a transparent container like a jar of olives. When you put give it a tag, the tag goes on the jar not on each olive.
If you give geometry tags you can wind up creating headaches for yourself as you edit the groups/components. If you need to go into a group to edit the geometry you first need to find out what tag you’ve given the geometry and then make that tag active. If you don’t do that you wind up with different tags applied to different bits of geometry. Then you can wind up with parts of objects disappearing when you make tags for other objects invisible.
By leaving the geometry inside the groups and components untagged and leaving Untagged active at all times, you don’t need to know or even care which tag has been applied to the object. Once you’re inside to do the editing, everything is untagged. The workflow is simpler, faster, and you’re not so likely to induce errors into your model.
Ah the olive analogy worked perfectly to explain, thank you. I inherited this file and when I tried to change the material of some groups, I could not, but it seemed to be because the faces within those groups had already been assigned a material, I could not change the material of the group. So I had to go in and manually change those faces to the default material. Seems like another symptom of all this. Thank you very much!
There’s a heirarchy for materials. Those applied to faces overrid those applied to object containers. And if you have nested objects – objects inside of objects – materials applied to the inner objects (child objects) override materials applied to the outer object (parent object).
Usually the best practice is to apply materials to the faces inside instead of to the objects. That does require opening the object container for editing. If the objects are instances of a component you only need to edit one to apply the color to all of them. There are some exceptions to this but usually you’ll want to apply the materials inside. Another analogy: Think of the geometry inside the group or component like a sandwich and the container like a ziploc bag. If you want to put mustard on the sandwich you would open the bag to access the sandwich. Putting mustard on the ziploc bag isn’t the same.
Gotha thank you. So I have been doing that wrong as well.
By the way, after working in your fixed up file for a bit, it seems to be functioning similarly to my original file. I am working on cleaning up all the bits and pieces that are left untagged, and the file will move quickly at first, and I can save periodically without issue, but then the file seems to almost slow down the longer I have it open, and then I will continue to get this save error. So I’m not totally sure that the problem is resolved.
What browser are you using?
Chrome
Weird. I haven’t experienced this sort of slow down you describe in SketchUp Go with Chrome. I wonder if there’s something going on with a firewall of AV software.
Maybe @colin has some insight.