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Mastercam 2018 taking forever to startup???

Finegrain

Diamond
Joined
Sep 6, 2007
Location
Seattle, Washington
Hi guys,

I am (lately?) seeing it take a really long time for Mastercam to start up.

Dell Precision Tower 3620
Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz
16 GB RAM
Windows 10 64-bit
320 GB SSD hard drive

It takes ~60 seconds for the app to get to a usable state with a project loaded. Resource Monitor shows one of my cores spiked at 100% during this time. I don't recall it being this bad in the past.

Anybody else seeing anything like this with Mastercam?

I have all the usual other apps on this workstation and none of them are perceptibly slower, just Mastercam.

Thanks, and regards.

Mike
 
update windows. there was an issue with Mastercam with a recent windows update but there has since been a patch for windows released. updating should solve the problem
 
update windows. there was an issue with Mastercam with a recent windows update but there has since been a patch for windows released. updating should solve the problem

Dang, you're right, thanks!! I ended up having to uninstall the two December updates that got installed, but MCAM loads much faster now.

I'll have to see about the patch you mentioned, since Windows Update will presumably come along and just reinstall the updates I just uninstalled, but at least for now things are usable again.

Regards.

Mike
 
Follow-up ...

Turns out there is more to it than just the last couple minor Windows Updates. While Mastercam did speed up after rolling back a couple updates, it soon got dog-slow again.

I talked to Cimtech and they are aware of the problem, but no fix available :-(:

Windows Update Issue.jpg

(Probably can't read the text ...)

The culprit is "Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, version 1709". Since you only have 10 days after update installation to roll back, you probably cannot roll this back. I got it on 12/9, so I am stuck until Windows and/or Mastercam release a patch.

Regards.

Mike
 
I'm no IT guru, or even a W10 user, so take this for what it's worth: You might be able to do a System Restore to a time prior to the update, and return the OS to previous state. Don't know if that actually works on W10 (if it's still even something you CAN do), but I've had good result when I needed to revert to a previous setup in W7.
 
From my understanding the build that causes the issue is 16299.64 (of version 1709). Click the start button and then type 'winver' to check your build. Build 16299.98 should fix the issue. If your computer will not automatically update to that build, you can force the issue by downloading from the Windows Update Catalog.
If your reseller (Cimtech) is telling you to hold tight then they may not help with issues resulting from forcing a windows update so proceed at your own risk.
 
Follow-up ...

I am still seeing this problem. Here are the manifestations:

1. Isn't noticeable right after a computer restart, but gets progressively worse after the workstation has been running a day or two
2. Mastercam takes minutes (like, literally, 5 minutes :eek:) to start up
3. Some property dialogs, especially Lead in / Lead out, have significant pauses, 10-20 seconds, after starting to display but before user input is recognized

My reseller, Cimtech, has no answers except to revert my OS to before Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, version 1709, and then hack the Windows Update mechanism to not function. IMO, that is not a viable solution.

My current strategy is to restart my workstation every couple days. I get that a lot of folks probably shut down their workstation every evening after the workday, but I leave mine on pretty much all the time because, well, I'm working pretty much all the time :Yawn: :nutter:.

Anyway, that's what I know.

Regards.

Mike
 
Could it be due to the system modifications due to the Spectre and Meltdown issues? As I understand it, the 'fixes' for one/both of these issues is like cutting off your foot to cure an infection: it's going to affect your computer hardware permanently, in a bad way, and is going to cause much higher CPU cycles, depending on the software you are trying to run, and how many predictive branches it was used to invoking.

Check grc.com for a utility to check the state of your system for these patches, under Freeware/security. An additional feature of Gibson's Spectre utility is that it has buttons to toggle those patch effects on/off. So then you can check how your system performs either way.
 
Are you active on the Mastercam Customer Forum? In case you aren't there's a thread stuck at the top of the forum pertaining to your issue. Doesn't look like Mastercam has come up with a final solution yet, but maybe there's some info in there that might be of interest to you.
 
have you tried deleting your mcamx.config,or even CONFIG folder in the "my mcam20xx" folder? On startup it will re-create the setup files. You can just rename it back if it didn't do anything.
 
For those that do not have a dedicated graphics card on their laptops, go to start menu or windows icon in the bottom left of screen and click on icon. Go to Mastercam folder, click on arrow or sub-menu folder and go to advance configuration, then click on graphics, then click on DISABLE HARDWARE ACCELERATION. This should help load Mastercam faster.

I own a Dell 5570 Laptop:
Core i7 processor
12gb of ddr4 memory
500gb ssd drive
Intel 620 integrated graphics card
 








 
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