Anyone else having issues with SketchUp’s location tool? I’ve been on and off with support for this for months, with no fixes and no updates on a timeline for a resolution/patch. It was confirmed there was a bug in the tool itself.
Basically, it either won’t pull the site into the model and will crash, or will take your address and place the pin somewhere in the Atlantic ocean without the ability to move the map around after with any tools other than zoom.
SketchUp version is 24.0.594 - running in admin or non-admin will not improve the bug. I’ve also uninstalled and reinstalled in previous attempts to fix and that’s not improved it. I’m on a managed PC and they will not grant me full admin access. I am allowed to run as admin with my own credentials though, even if I have to put it in each time I load the software.
I can load SketchUp on my personal laptop - my own personal license - on version 24.0.553 with no issue. Same OS version, but with full admin privileges at least. My current workflow is migrating between these versions to get something onto my work PC.
@travis.taylor Do you have the latest version of the add location extension installed on the managed PC? You can check in extension manager. Currently 1.7.3 is the latest version so please make sure you are on that.
@daniel_pidcock I just checked and yes, the version installed according to the extension manager is 1.7.3
I uninstalled the plugin on both the normal icon I click, and the instance when I manually run as administrator and both are still exhibiting the same issue.
Was SketchUp installed correctly?
On windows this means being logged in to your normal user account and select “run as administrator” after right click on the installer.
If not done this way, SketchUp doesn’t get all the necessary permissions in Windows…
As far as I can tell, it was installed correctly. I had to have IT run everything as admin and install things, but since I don’t have full admin access I’m not sure if something with my user account bugged it. I’ve never had issues with SketchUp until joining this new company and their managed policies. I do have my own admin privileges now, so I could try uninstalling and reinstalling the full thing again on my own, but without full admin access I will probably still have issues with running it unless I manually run as admin when I use it.
Even more frustrating is that SketchUp is the only software having issues like this. No other 3D software on this PC - rendering or modeling - is having functionality issues like this.
Ok so… before I type out a long list of possible causes. Did they change the tool function to only work when the file has geometry in it?
Because, I’ve spent the last few minutes testing various methods to create the error and it’s pointing down to just… the file is empty… I’ve tried opening from icons, pinned files in the taskbar icon, new files from the start window, manual admin vs just clicking icon as usual, etc.
Screen1: Starting window (blank file)
Screen2: immediately after typing address and hitting enter
Screen3: location once zoomed back out
Screen4: normal operation in file downloaded from warehouse
There was an issue a few months back where you had to have geometry in the model before the Add Location feature worked but that was solved. I just tested it in a brand new file and got this.
The correct installation process would be to be signed in to Windows under your user ID, right click on the downloaded installer, and choose Run as administrator. It may be that IT needs to grant your user ID with admin privileges in order for SketchUp to be installed correctly. Even with that you must right click on the installer and choose Run as administrator. Simply double-clicking on the installer won’t cut it even if your user is an administrator.
I’ll uninstall and reinstall then - pretty sure IT and myself have both done that multiple times now. Because it now looks like that’s what’s causing the issue - and even though the plugin is updated fully the software still isn’t working right.
I just tested. Add Location 1.7.3. Site is in Finland. Model is not empty. The numbers in the location are right, but Boulder is wrong. No 3D terrain for my asea.
It looks to me like you have some geolocation information from an older version of SketchUp @travis.taylor and @Anssi as those versions defaulted to “Boulder (CO)”, also that’s the manual location default. New versions default to where they think you are located (although maybe fall back to Boulder if cannot figure out where you are - I’d need to check the code to be sure).
This may be from the template model, you could try using one of the default templates to see if it works. If that’s the issue then you can send us your template and we’ll look into what’s going wrong.
I can’t reproduce what you are seeing whatever I do with templates and sketchup models geolocated in 2023 though so there may be something more going on here.
@travis.taylor I have reproduced something similar to what I see in your screenshots:
Open Add Location
Type in location and select it (e.g. “8900 westphalia”)
Drag the map pin a distance away (e.g. to bermuda)
Type in the same location and select it (e.g. “8900 westphalia”)
The display moves to show a location roughly half-way between where you located the map pin and the address you searched for, and the map pin is not shown (loos like your screenshot part 2)
I’ll raise an issue with the team to fix this.
Note that as long as you do NOT click on “Move location pin to this area” in step 5, your file should be correctly geolocated and you can continue to import context for the location that you typed in.
I too have had crashes, often (50/50) if I try to add more than three areas.
Equally the only way to get 3 areas is you have to make sure the original area selected is in a position where you can drag the next box to click it to the first.
As you cant zoom out after the first is created (200m altitude is the max it seems), I can only manage to create generally 4-6 areas at most. Export them and try to create others nearby (guessing positions), then try and join them all manually in another modelling tool.
As it creates a mass of random shaped materials/textures, these are no use to me as I need powers of 2 for textures, I then have to get aerial photography another way and fit it. I gather there is meant to be a way of merging materials but cannot find it anywhere. Either way, this still wouldn’t solve the limited area creation.
Its all a bit of a mess to be honest.
I am trying to capture an area 25km x 40km, and would ideally, just find the whole area in google earth etc, define an exact square (1km x 1km perhaps), that would equally create a powers of two texture within it (4096 x 4096 etc), create (import site context), then drag that box and click to the edge (import more), again and again until my whole area was done. Simple. If only.
@Martin_S Site context has been focussed on first, rather than large area imports. If you want better support for that the best way is to provide feedback in the in-app surveys as the product management team check those.
Under the help icon in bottom right of the window, if you don’t see any pop up.
FYI you can import fairly regular areas of site context by dragging one end of the import rectangle to the opposite side, import context, and repeating. The other sides stay snapped to the first rectangle. Each rectangle is about 3.5x3.5km, so you can get a fairly large area with 9 squares. Although I agree, it does take more time than a dedicated tool would.
I tried importing 4 of these areas (3D only, low res, low mesh density) and don’t see any crashes. Face count is 380,000, SketchUp RAM usage goes up to 7GB (my system has 24GB) and CPU around 10-15%. What operations are you seeing the crash on? May be one of your installed extensions?
Thanks Dan
I have no choice at this time due to time constraints but to use this so will see how I get on.
As each area isn’t exactly square and does create a wide mix of texture shapes, it would help if I ca n
merge them. I believe there is an option for that, but where is it?
I appreciate you help.