Altium Designer 18 with lot of BUGs

[udhay_cit]

Altium designer 18(Beta) released with new look and lot of bugs. AD18.0.7 is Ok, but the AD18.0.8 new release is loaded with bugs and unusable for me. Anyone using this version?

Udhay

 

[BigBoss]

It was predictable, no surprise..
Every new software will have plenty of bugs, no doubt.
BTW, I have never liked Altium and will never be..

 

[Edison517]

In the 3yrs I used Altium (v16, then v17), Altium would always have horrible bugs, and they never got fixed. They would introduce new features (yay!), but new bugs would get introduced, in addition to old bugs that never got fixed (boo!). Horrible bugs, like the whole application crashing if you clicked outside of a dialog box or something, or sub-dialog boxes being blacked out for no reason. I really like the interface, but Altium is almost bloat-ware in my opinion. They should really focus on fixing bugs rather than adding features.

If I were you, I wouldn't use their beta software at all...let other people be the guinea pigs and wait for official release...maybe even a 18.1 release so all THOSE bugs can get fixed (yeah right...)

 

[udhay_cit]

Altium also realized about the bugs and crashes of their software. They have taken a first step towards BUG free official release by introducing the Beta release for the first time. The x64 architecture is an excellent move and you can really see the different in 3D rendering speed.

Still the software crashes and they really minimized the BUG count. First I started to use AD18.0.7 and replaced with new release AD18.0.8. Suddenly all the primitives are disable to select or modify. After switching back to previous version, problem remains same. I just created new folder inside "Program Files" and installed the AD18.0.8, now its working fine without any problem.

In my opinion the latest version AD18.0.8 is BUG free compare to the AD17 version and ready for official release. They don't provide any Release Notes for the new version because its a Beta release, so we have no way to know the list of BUG corrections.

Finally AD18.0.8 new release is BUG free (As of now) and worth to try.

 

[BigBoss]

Altium did again !!! :clap: :clap: :clap:

It will be very funny to work with it.

 

[grunzasr]

I just filed a problem report with Altium support about the ability to select part properties in the schematic disappearing. It worked for a while and then stopped. Not sure why but I would not recommend using Designer 18 for any real work projects yet.

For what it's worth I'm using 18.0.9 to evaluate if we should switch to it or stay with 17.0.11

- - - Updated - - -

Altium support came back with a quick answer. Seems there is a problem with a recent Windows update. In case someone else has hit this issue here is the relevant portion of the support response:

"..this is caused due to a problem in Windows Update: Security and Quality Rollup for the .NET Framework 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, and 4.7.1 for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and .NET Framework 4.6 on Windows Server 2008 SP2 (KB 4055002).
To work around this problem for now, you can use one of the methods, described in
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4074906/typeinitializationexception-or-fileformatexception-error-in-wpf-apps-t"

 

[gaboneet20]

Altium Designer without bugs is not Altium maybe it's another program.I've tested la last version of Altium and a lot of things were changed from the shortcuts(you must to forgot a lot of shortcuts from the previous version).If you you Microsoft Acces 2007 for manage the library you got some problems with the new architecture on 64 bit.
A short video how looks the new interface:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOPhiY9s0CA

 

[grunzasr]

Oh don't worry. There are plenty of bugs...

I've got over 40 processes not responding. They are all error dialogs from Designer 18.0.9 and my attempt at using Designer 18. At this point I've got to pull the plug on evaluating Designer 18 for real use on the job. Designer 18 is not just not stable enough for my use at this point in time. In one hour I've had two complete crashes (had to kill from the Task Manager) and have lost layout work both times.

Your mileage may vary but I HIGHLY advise you to layout out a small board (schematic to Gerber) before you try using Designer 18 for a real job. It's really the only way to know if it will behave in your particular case.

 

[udhay_cit]

My AD18.0.9 is almost stable now without any noticeable problem. I'm not a heavy user but whatever I'm working with AD18 is just fine.

I had lot of problem when I first time switch between AD17 to AD18. Still now Altium doesn't have the clean uninstall option. If you switched from AD17 and the uninstalltion was not proper, AD18 will give you lot of problem.

I managed to solve the problem by clear all the altium related files (use "Everything" search software) and registry entries by manually. After that I changed the AD18 installation location from "C:\Program Files\Altium\AD18" to anywhere in "C:\Program Files", (create any folder) and now its working fine with out any problem.
This is working fine for my case.

Udhay

 

[grunzasr]

I have both 17 and 18 installed. 17 is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Altium\AD17 and 18 is in C:\Program Files\Altium\AD18. I'm not sure if that's causing problems or not but those are the locations the two installers chose.

 

[kneet]

I have been using Altium for a while and i must conclude that this is the most instable software i have seen sofar.
For the annual fees you have to pay it's a shame that this piece of software has become the mainstream standard.

Altium 18 is a laughter, i could not even start it without errors. Starting the Altium 18 software takes 4 tot 5 times as long as with altium 17. Got write and read errors within minutes...

Altium is not a serious piece of software. I even doubt if the development team is aware of all these crappy issues.

 

[ads-ee]

Altium is not a serious piece of software. I even doubt if the development team is aware of all these crappy issues.

More likely a very poor (probably incompetent) test team, that regularly "tests" on a clean install of the software on a pristine system. They probably don't even use a bug tracking system to let the developers know there are bugs. It's also likely the developers never try installing the software on a machine that has the older version previously installed. Hence other posters saying 18 appears stable for them after cleaning out their registry and removing anything to do with older versions of the software.

If I have to deal with such buggy software I usually run it in a VM that I create just for that one piece of garbage, and if it starts misbehaving I just blow away the VM and use a new copy of the archived VM.

 

[andre_luis]

Considering that Altium Designer was acquired by SolidWorks, which has their own tool (SolidWorksPCB) having the same DNA of Altium Designer, I do not discard the hypothesis of an intentional discontinuity in the bug fixes of the 18's revision in order to push customers toward their new tool, which when purchased as a complete toolbox (Mechanical + Electrical) the pricing is very attractive.

 

[udhay_cit]

Altium Circuit studio is even cheaper. Don't know the different between solidworks PCB and circuitstudio, but both are looks similar except the ECAD & MCAD integration.