troubleshooting

SketchUp Stops

Whenever Sketchup quits unexpectedly more than once, see if its behavior improves by removing preferences.

Note:

When removing your .plist file, it's worthwhile to safe on your desktop, for review once the problem is solved. That way you can restore your custom settings.

Graphical Artifacts

When you suspect a graphics card issue, typically look for the following types of behaviour:

  • scrambled images as illustrated in this link: Graphics Card Issues

  • mouse pointer trails

  • endpoints of outlines showing up as large point

  • to be continued...

Remedies:

  • Disable fast feedback in the SketchUp Preferences window: Google ordit crash in Leopard

  • Disable hardware acceleration

  • There is a patch for old Apples on Intel Graphic cards that keep having problems with Mac OS 10.5. (The old card hardware only supports OpenGL 1.2)

When working on a modern configuration, resolving problems by any of those measures indicates a faulty graphics card driver. This should really be reported (see below, under System Freezes).

When things don't work the way they should also see whether you've got the latest system update installed, whichever release of Mac OS X you are using. Check Software Update in the Apple Menu.

System Freezes

  • reboot

  • consider whether other applications might be involved

  • when in a network disconnect and see if the problem persists

  • Isolating issues in Mac OS X

After repetive freezes consult Mac support pages in the first place. Disk utility might help, but BEWARE. Don't start up in single-user mode, unless you're comfortable with UNIX:

What if your hard disk clogs up, and your computer ends up idling?

When you think it might be related to SketchUp consider trying in Safe mode to see if you can isolate a bug. There is a thorough discription on this page how to report one.

Other System Issues

Issues concerning internet connection range from slowness in SketchUp to failing to get Mac to sleep. Workarounds might be:

Materials made unique cause Sketchup to Freeze when exported:

PDF and EPS don't export to scale. For details see this rather lengthy thread:

A number of new minor problems in Skechup 7.1:

And one in Layout 2.1:

In case you've missed, here is a list of known Issues: Google SketchUp Error Messages and Known Issues

Printing

A number of problems, which had to do with misunderstanding the SketchUp to Mac print and export options, were mentioned in the Groups. More info is welcome.

Under the File menu:

  • select Document Setup for scale and page size

In the Print window:

  • select SketchUp to determine the output resolution and some other settings to the printer driver

  • select Printer Features to set the output quality to the printer

In Preferences:

  • Safe current window size

It has been suggested to sample down monochrome images to a range of 200 to 1200dpi, and colors to 200dpi. High resolution export to different graphic formats is supported by SketchUp Pro only. Apple creates 150dpi pdf's by default, which do fine in many cases.

Outliner

The Outliner tool can work a little funky as described here: BUG - Major Outliner Problems (Mac SU 6 & 7). This bug has been fixed, hopefully, in SketchUp 8.

Materials

  • Adding to Mac Materials Library from Existing Model

  • Materials collections seem to be missing: according to the Sketchup 6 manuals "SketchUp contains four color pickers, used to select materials that do not have texture (just color), and a materials picker (containing color/texture combinations that mimic real-world construction materials)", the button in the top-right corner hides or shows this toolbar

SketchUp and DWG Issues

For those who work on Mac in a SketchUp to Acad workflow, and vice versa.

The best tip, when supplying your model or drawing to someone else, or saving it for future reference, would probably be to export your file twice, both as dwg and dxf. Third party software dwg support probably won't be as good as dxf support. Experiment with the options you have, untill you find a satisfactory solution.

  • try importing dwg, with some applications this works best for Mac when the dwg came from 3rd party CAD

  • try exporting "AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format)", as it is called in Wikipedia

  • try importing DXF

Always double check what you export before you provide it to your client, preferably in the target application.

Note:

  • Acad solids can be converted into faces (this demands some testing); it is a way to bring 2D faces into SketchUp as default material, provided your application supports exporting those to .dwg or .dxf

  • there might be a lot of work involved in preparing a Cad file for SketchUp import

Mac and PC File Exchange

  • make sure the .skp extention is added; on Mac the file extention might be hidden

  • make sure the file is of the same or an older version of SketchUp

  • open with a right-click > open with...