Remedies after AutoCAD gets locked due to batch printing

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This post was last edited by nxpsir on 2009-12-31 at 20:58. Over the past two days, I used the batch print command in AutoCAD 2010 to print several layouts; for some reason, CAD got locked and remained stuck on the layout where the batch print command was selected. The command line displayed the batch print command: _publish. There is no response when typing on the keyboard; clicking the mouse anywhere produces only a brief \"ding\" sound, and CAD shows no reaction at all. In Task Manager, it can be seen that acad.exe is “Running” rather than “Unresponsive”. This situation has occurred several times, and it could only be resolved by ending it through the Task Manager. It’s fine if the file was saved before running the batch print command. But sometimes, the batch print command is sent without saving first, and the program is terminated, resulting in at least half an hour’s worth of work going to waste. This situation seems to be related to switching to another program while waiting for the batch print command to be executed. The first two times, since the losses were minor, I didn’t pay much attention to it; I reminded myself to remember to save the files before batch printing. But in my haste today, I forgot to save the file before issuing the batch print command, which caused the system to lock up again; previously, it had taken two full hours of hard work to resolve such issues. I was reluctant to do so; I tried using F1 to access the help, and I searched the Internet to see if there was any information on this topic, but all my efforts were in vain. Out of a trial-and-error approach, I searched through various folders related to AutoCAD settings and finally found a solution to address this issue. I’m posting this here to share it with those who encounter similar problems: although I couldn’t find a direct way to resolve the locking problem, I did manage to find a workaround. After a thorough search, several folders starting with “Acpublish_” were found in the temporary folder. Upon opening them, they indeed contained the files with the same names that had been automatically saved before publishing. It seems that AutoDesk was aware of the bug where publishing (batch printing) could cause a lock-up, and thus took preventive measures by first creating a separate backup of the files to be published. However, no instructions on this matter are provided in the help files; it seems that AutoDesk is a bit shy about it as well. Hehe.