Help needed with LPub3D BOM [Resolved]

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

I need some urgent help on this one. I typically use LPub4 for instructions (faster on my PC Win10 64-bit ASUS laptop) and then switch to LPub3D just for the BOM. This has always been fine in the past, but today I went to make a BOM for a new model and got a bunch of error messages instead. I thought I might be able to fix this by updating from LPub3D ver.2.0.20 to ver.2.3.6, and while this did me the favor of deleting my entire original LDraw parts library along with MLCad and LDView, I eventually got all of these reinstalled only to find that I was getting the exact same error message as with the previous version. The model is quite large at over 3,000 pieces, so I don't know if that is an issue, but this is what I get after clicking on Add Bill of Materials...

ERROR: LDView (SingleCall) PLI render failed with code PLI 0

Click OK... Render failed for Pli images

Click OK... Failed to create PLI part images using LDView Single Call

Click OK... and LPub3D then crashes or freezes.

Any ideas?

Edited January 5, 2019 by BrickMonkeyMOCs

[1963maniac]

I used to have this problem before my current PC. I found a way to get my BOM, which may not have been the way others would do it. Here's what I did. First create another file of your MOC, by renaming it. Second remove all LPUB formatting and save it. Third, open the new file in LPUB and create a BOM, This will take a while with 3,000 parts. Fourth, export that page/pages as a "PNG". Now you can add the BOM as a picture into your original LPUB formatted file. These png pictures you created may need to be cropped a bit to properly fit on an LPUB page.

Edited January 2, 2019 by 1963maniac

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

17 hours ago, 1963maniac said:

I used to have this problem before my current PC. I found a way to get my BOM, which may not have been the way others would do it. Here's what I did. First create another file of your MOC, by renaming it. Second remove all LPUB formatting and save it. Third, open the new file in LPUB and create a BOM, This will take a while with 3,000 parts. Fourth, export that page/pages as a "PNG". Now you can add the BOM as a picture into your original LPUB formatted file. These png pictures you created may need to be cropped a bit to properly fit on an LPUB page.

Thanks for the suggestion. I had kept a version of the file without any LPub formatting so it was worth a shot. But unfortunately I still get an LDView SingleCall CSI render failure message. Not having seen this before, I don't really know what it means or how to fix it.

Incidentally, while LPub3D 2.3.6 is working for me with other models, it wasn't rendering all parts correctly. I know LPub3D uses it's own separate library archives, but adding the parts manually to those (which has worked before with v.2.0.20) wasn't having any effect for me. However, the parts rendered correctly once I went into preferences and changed the parts library path from LPub3D's archive zips to my regular original LDraw parts library.

But I still can't generate a BOM at all for my larger 3,000-piece model.

Edited January 3, 2019 by BrickMonkeyMOCs

[supertruper1988]

On 1/2/2019 at 5:49 PM, BrickMonkeyMOCs said:

Thanks for the suggestion. I had kept a version of the file without any LPub formatting so it was worth a shot. But unfortunately I still get an LDView SingleCall CSI render failure message. Not having seen this before, I don't really know what it means or how to fix it.

Incidentally, while LPub3D 2.3.6 is working for me with other models, it wasn't rendering all parts correctly. I know LPub3D uses it's own separate library archives, but adding the parts manually to those (which has worked before with v.2.0.20) wasn't having any effect for me. However, the parts rendered correctly once I went into preferences and changed the parts library path from LPub3D's archive zips to my regular original LDraw parts library.

But I still can't generate a BOM at all for my larger 3,000-piece model.

I have found that LDView can have issues. have you tried the LDGLite Render? It can be changed in the configuration section. 

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

17 hours ago, supertruper1988 said:

I have found that LDView can have issues. have you tried the LDGLite Render? It can be changed in the configuration section. 

Thank you. I tried LDGLite but found it was only rendering about half of the parts. However, when I switched it back to LDview suddenly I wasn't getting the original error messages anymore. A small number of parts still weren't rendering correctly, but that seems to have been the result of having to reinstall my LDraw parts library after LPub3D deleted it. But anyway, my problem is now solved and my model finally has a complete BOM.

Edited January 5, 2019 by BrickMonkeyMOCs

[Philo]

2 hours ago, BrickMonkeyMOCs said:

apparently the 'complete' file from LDraw.org is a long way from complete, and still requires many official parts and sub-parts to be manually added.

Definitely no, complete.zip does contain ALL LDraw official parts and subparts. As for unofficial parts, you can download them in one bunch from http://www.ldraw.org/library/tracker/

Edited January 5, 2019 by Philo

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

1 hour ago, Philo said:

Definitely no, complete.zip does contain ALL LDraw official parts and subparts. As for unofficial parts, you can download them in one bunch from http://www.ldraw.org/library/tracker/

My apologies, you're right. In that case I don't have the faintest idea what happened or how so many parts ended up missing from my parts library. I've just downloaded the Complete.zip file, which is what I thought I'd already used to re-install my deleted library, only to see that it does contain many of the files I've just been manually re-adding. At least now I can just copy all of the official files back from the zip to my library. Can't help but think that things would be much simpler if LPub3D didn't try to create it's own separate parts library.

[Philo]

1 hour ago, BrickMonkeyMOCs said:

Can't help but think that things would be much simpler if LPub3D didn't try to create it's own separate parts library.

Heartfully agree!

Edited January 5, 2019 by Philo