ArchiCAD is designed to automatically save project data periodically. In the event of an AC or system crash, project data can usually be recovered. AutoSave is described on page 150 of the AC9 Reference Guide.
Suddenly, Richard's AC could not open a file on the network, and would hang (rainbow ball of death) when attempting to browse a network resource, such as the Hotel. We noticed it when attempting to open another project in Attribute Manager; since the previous state of that Open dialog was viewing the Onion, hang.
All conventional treatments exhausted, I had to call tech support. They directed me to this knowledge base article, which has to with switching off a cross-platform browsing preference that we don't need anyway.
If you ever see this behavior in AC, here's the fix.
Make sure AC is not running. Open Terminal (Applications : Utilities : Terminal). Paste this text into the window, replace the [square brackets] with angle brackets* (Shift+, and Shift+. respectively) and strike enter:
defaults write com.graphisoft.AC\ 9.0.0\ USA\ v1 InputOutput -dict "DisableCrossPlatformMountingFeatures" "[true/]"
That's it. Quit Terminal and relaunch AC.
* There must be a way to escape the angle brackets in here but I don't know it.
One day, I lost the ability to move door tags by their editing hotspot. Once I went to WE and switched "Pet palette movement" to "Jump to preferred position" under User Preference schemes -> Dialog boxes and palettes, the tags worked again.
This is the same setting that caused Kay's roof handle problem. It's interesting that they're both "moving a related thingy" problems.
This is recommended for lots of issues, and it's at least partially voodoo. But it worked for me.
This is one of the stock OS X troubleshooting tips. It does actually solve some problems, and it doesn't do any harm.
Open the Disk Utility application in Applications : Utilities.
Select your hard disk name in the left panel. Select the First Aid tab in the right panel. Click the Repair Permissions button at the bottom.
It will take about 5 minutes, depending on the size of the disk. When the repair finishes, quit Disk Utility and restart the machine.
"Some elements were deleted because of bad parameters (n)" Where n is a number. The number is usually 1, and is never very big. I saw a 7 once. The conventional wisdom is that the elements in question aren't actually project elements, but are corrupted temporary entities of some sort. Bottom line: Don't Worry.
"This project is in use by [Somebody]" Buttons: Open with exclusive access, Open as read-only, Don't Open. It's possible that someone else has it open. Make sure they don't. Usually, the somebody is you, and this warning is the result of a crash occurring before the first auto-save. If this is the case, "Open with exclusive access".
"Unable to read temporary section file [ID]" This sometimes occurs when a ArchiCAD crashes with a section open. It represents a complete non-issue. The section itself is fine, it's the temp file for the section that has the problem. When you rebuild the section, the temp file gets fixed. Do a find & select for the section by its ID and rebuild it. You will get the warning every time you save until you rebuild the section in question. You will also see a dialog warning you about saving the file with the unreadable data. For this dialog, you should always "Save Anyway". This should remind you to find the section and rebuild it.
"Cannot find some Library Parts or Macros." While saving an archive. The proper response is "Save Anyway". Then you'll get a report window saying what's missing. Currently there's a problem with some library part that wants a macro named "Arial". Yes, that's a font. I know. If this the only thing missing, don't worry about it. If there are others, try to find them on the Carrot, load them, and then re-save the archive.
Problem: When dragging roof handles, they would sometimes end up at an arbitrary point, rather than where they were dragged.
Other problem, which only emerged after reinstalling AC: Attempting to pan with the scroll wheel would zoom instead.
We tried everything*, including wiping the disk. The fresh system fixed the panning problem. We were bringing in the work environment when we discovered that the trouble was caused by the User Preference Schemes segment of the RND Profile. We re-exported the scheme to the Onion.
Fortunately, that scheme is easily rebuilt. If the shortcuts or the Info Box had been the problem, I would have been very sad.
Moral: If you see weird behavior in ArchiCAD, try switching to a standard Work Environment profile. If that fixes it, recreate the needed profile and trash the old one, and don't reinstall your system!
* Unrotating the grid. Looking for pattern related to shift constraining. Trying different files, and new roofs. Trying to reproduce the problem on another machine. Checking permissions. Saving locally. Saving and reopening an archive. Trashing the prefs. Trashing the caches. Creating a new user and seeing if "he" has the problem. Reinstalling ArchiCAD.
It's odd that neither trashing the prefs or creating a new user solved the issue, since the Work Environment is in the prefs. But we tested the cause carefully as we brought the WE back, and it's definitely the culprit, probably in combination with an underlying system problem.
UPDATE: The precise setting that caused the problem is the "Pet palette movement" under User Preference schemes -> Dialog boxes and palettes. "Follow Cursor" was the culprit. Switching to "Jump to preferred position" fixed it.