ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Accepted Solutions
Hi Ganesh...
I can help you with this... but you'll likely end up having to recreate your work. Back in the ancient days of Pro/E (1990's), these files could be used to recreate HOURS worth of work. When Pro/E 2001 came along, the files were more useful than ever. As soon as we moved to Wildfire, they became virtually worthless. As we've moved from Wildfire 2, 3, 4, and now 5 and beyond, the files are almost pointless.
At one time they were readable and understandable. Therefore, you could troubleshoot them. Over time though, they've gotten so convoluted and ugly that they routinely fail. When you try to debug them, you just end up wasting your time. The entire endeavor is frustrating. I'll give you my best informaiton... but I warn you the results will likely disappoint you.
First... you must RENAME your trail file from "trail.txt.#" (where "#" is an integer between 1 and 999). Rename it to something like "my_trail_file.txt". Place this file somewhere you can easily access it... like your Documents (or My Documents) directory.
Second... go into your Microsoft Windows Control Panel. Depending upon the version of Windows you're running there are several different ways to get there. Get to the System Properties tool and go to the Advanced tab. Select Environment Variables and add the following new environment variable:
Variable Name: continue_from_oos
Variable Value: 1
You can then exit the System Properties tool.
Restart Pro/E with this new setting in place.
From the top level Pro/E menu, select Tools>Play Trail/Training File. Select the renamed trail file using the browser tool (open whatever filename you used).
The screen will blink and begin trying to replay every action, mouse click, and screen pick you performed in the saved trail file. If you're supremely lucky, you'll get some work back. If there's a problem within the file, the script will STOP playing. This is the purpose of the "continue_from_oos" variable. If that variable isn't set and the trail file crashes, Pro/E will close. That variable is supposed to stop that from happening.
There's a config.pro file setting you can use to step through your trail file one line at a time. This option is:set_trail_single_step If you set that option to "yes" in your config.pro file, you can play through the trail file script ONE line at a time by hitting the <Enter> key on your keyboard. Warning, though... sometimes your trail file can be thousands of lines and you could be there a very long time hitting the <Enter> key.
Problems:
Here's all the ways this process can fail:
(1) If you've SAVED at any time during your trail file, this will be a problem. Imagine you started the day and created a file called "cube.prt". You worked on it for an hour and then saved it. You continued working for an additional 7 hours and Pro/E crashed. You lost 7 hours of work and want to re-create it from the trail file. When you go to re-run the file from the start, the first thing it does it try to create "cube.prt" which was already saved (and therefore already exists). Your trail file will crash because it cannot create "cube.prt".
To resolve this issue, you have to edit the my_trail_file.txt by hand with a text editor and remove everything up to the first "save" you performed.
(2) If you're hand editing your trail file, potential problems multiply. Let's say you had 3 windows open when you performed the save command on the "cube.prt" file. You re-edit the your my_trail_file.txt file to remove everything up to the first save. For the file to run properly, you have to have all of the same windows open as you did when the file was first created. You may not recall everything you had open ... but this will cause the file to crash.
(3) Settings like environment settings, datums, layers, and other such items can cause crashes, too. Let's say you had all datum points turned ON when you first saved. A few clicks later, you chose a datum point as a reference for some other feature. Later, you hand-edit the trail file to remove all commands up to that save. You attempt to re-run the file. A few lines into the script, the selection of the datum point fails because your datum points were not turned ON (as they were in the original model).
(4) PLACEMENT of windows must be exactly the same. If you maximized, minimizred, or MOVED one of your Pro/E windows, this can also crash the file.
Your best bet to gain any benefit from a trail file is if you never saved at any time before your session crashed. If you've saved at all, you're likely going to have a tough time recreating the exact conditions under which the original trail file was created. Unless you have all files, switch settings, and windows EXACTLY the same as they were, your file will fail.
In 95% of the cases, youv'e saved a few times before Pro/E crashes. This leads you to hand edit the trail file to remove those saves. Your chances of getting the file to work properly is very minimal due to all the other pieces which have to be EXACTLY the same.
I know this isn't very helpful... and it's disappointing to learn that the trail file is relatively useless. If you'd JUST started Pro/E and had only been working for 30 minutes or so, it will likely work. Usually though, crashes happen after you've been working for a long while. It's in precisely these situations that you need to recover your work the most... yet its precisely in these situations when the trail file is least likely to help you.
Good luck!!!
-Brian
Hi Ganesh...
I can help you with this... but you'll likely end up having to recreate your work. Back in the ancient days of Pro/E (1990's), these files could be used to recreate HOURS worth of work. When Pro/E 2001 came along, the files were more useful than ever. As soon as we moved to Wildfire, they became virtually worthless. As we've moved from Wildfire 2, 3, 4, and now 5 and beyond, the files are almost pointless.
At one time they were readable and understandable. Therefore, you could troubleshoot them. Over time though, they've gotten so convoluted and ugly that they routinely fail. When you try to debug them, you just end up wasting your time. The entire endeavor is frustrating. I'll give you my best informaiton... but I warn you the results will likely disappoint you.
First... you must RENAME your trail file from "trail.txt.#" (where "#" is an integer between 1 and 999). Rename it to something like "my_trail_file.txt". Place this file somewhere you can easily access it... like your Documents (or My Documents) directory.
Second... go into your Microsoft Windows Control Panel. Depending upon the version of Windows you're running there are several different ways to get there. Get to the System Properties tool and go to the Advanced tab. Select Environment Variables and add the following new environment variable:
Variable Name: continue_from_oos
Variable Value: 1
You can then exit the System Properties tool.
Restart Pro/E with this new setting in place.
From the top level Pro/E menu, select Tools>Play Trail/Training File. Select the renamed trail file using the browser tool (open whatever filename you used).
The screen will blink and begin trying to replay every action, mouse click, and screen pick you performed in the saved trail file. If you're supremely lucky, you'll get some work back. If there's a problem within the file, the script will STOP playing. This is the purpose of the "continue_from_oos" variable. If that variable isn't set and the trail file crashes, Pro/E will close. That variable is supposed to stop that from happening.
There's a config.pro file setting you can use to step through your trail file one line at a time. This option is:set_trail_single_step If you set that option to "yes" in your config.pro file, you can play through the trail file script ONE line at a time by hitting the <Enter> key on your keyboard. Warning, though... sometimes your trail file can be thousands of lines and you could be there a very long time hitting the <Enter> key.
Problems:
Here's all the ways this process can fail:
(1) If you've SAVED at any time during your trail file, this will be a problem. Imagine you started the day and created a file called "cube.prt". You worked on it for an hour and then saved it. You continued working for an additional 7 hours and Pro/E crashed. You lost 7 hours of work and want to re-create it from the trail file. When you go to re-run the file from the start, the first thing it does it try to create "cube.prt" which was already saved (and therefore already exists). Your trail file will crash because it cannot create "cube.prt".
To resolve this issue, you have to edit the my_trail_file.txt by hand with a text editor and remove everything up to the first "save" you performed.
(2) If you're hand editing your trail file, potential problems multiply. Let's say you had 3 windows open when you performed the save command on the "cube.prt" file. You re-edit the your my_trail_file.txt file to remove everything up to the first save. For the file to run properly, you have to have all of the same windows open as you did when the file was first created. You may not recall everything you had open ... but this will cause the file to crash.
(3) Settings like environment settings, datums, layers, and other such items can cause crashes, too. Let's say you had all datum points turned ON when you first saved. A few clicks later, you chose a datum point as a reference for some other feature. Later, you hand-edit the trail file to remove all commands up to that save. You attempt to re-run the file. A few lines into the script, the selection of the datum point fails because your datum points were not turned ON (as they were in the original model).
(4) PLACEMENT of windows must be exactly the same. If you maximized, minimizred, or MOVED one of your Pro/E windows, this can also crash the file.
Your best bet to gain any benefit from a trail file is if you never saved at any time before your session crashed. If you've saved at all, you're likely going to have a tough time recreating the exact conditions under which the original trail file was created. Unless you have all files, switch settings, and windows EXACTLY the same as they were, your file will fail.
In 95% of the cases, youv'e saved a few times before Pro/E crashes. This leads you to hand edit the trail file to remove those saves. Your chances of getting the file to work properly is very minimal due to all the other pieces which have to be EXACTLY the same.
I know this isn't very helpful... and it's disappointing to learn that the trail file is relatively useless. If you'd JUST started Pro/E and had only been working for 30 minutes or so, it will likely work. Usually though, crashes happen after you've been working for a long while. It's in precisely these situations that you need to recover your work the most... yet its precisely in these situations when the trail file is least likely to help you.
Good luck!!!
-Brian
