Schematic Port label insanity

[vincei]

Hi, For some reason when I try to place a port the port's width once it appears on the screen is the full width of my sheet and shows as 32000mils once I get the properties page to show the width, height of the ports. This started about and hour ago and no amount of shutting Altium down and/or restarting my PC corrects this problem. This is driving me absolutely nuts 

I tried Tools->Preferences->Set To Default (lower right hand corner) but that makes no difference. The first time I tried this I got some error about an object being used after it was deleted and nothing seemed to happen.

This is 19.1.8 and figured that maybe this stupid problem is addressed in V20 so I go to the update pane and it tells me to click update but the update button is grey out. why? I am logged in to Altium so that's not the problem.

Currently when I select exit(alt-F4) from the menu nothing happens and I have to kill Altium from the task manager.

Is there a way out? Do I have to uninstall and reinstall? Is there something else I can try?

Trust me, it is a monumental effort not to swear here.

Thanks,
Vince

[Psi]

Does it to the same thing in a new project?

Are you using a normal/realistic grid setting?

[T3sl4co1l]

No idea what's happened but it may well be some settings are corrupted somehow.  Try loading your preference file (you have your preferences saved, right?..), or "unplug it and plug it back in" (go to Programs and Settings, Uninstall Altium dialog, select clear cache and settings / return to fresh install state).

Tim

[vincei]

Hi Tim,

 My grid is 100mil. No, I didn't realise  that saving my preferences was a thing. I'm new in town so haven't really done much other than setting a 100 mil grid so that there are no surprises while connecting up components. I will try what you've suggested and see whether it resolves the issue. I will attach a screen grab of what the port looks like from last night before I gave up in frustration.

At some point the day before I copy pasted a PCB footprint from a  DigiKey part into my schematic library and  few seconds later I experienced my first Altium crash. I've had it crash about 6 times in random place since then and I'm now starting to know wonder whether that has trashed the application state.

Thanks for the response, will let you know.

-Vince

[vincei]

Hi Psi,

100 mil Grid.

 I have not tried loading a new project or one of the demo projects. By the point I posted last night I was tired and frustrated and had severe tunnel vision. That's a great suggestion and will give it a try.

Cheers,
Vince

[vincei]

Screen grab of Altium after trying to place another port last night. The other 2 below, with the same name, and to the left were resized after a lot of screwing around.

Thanks for your suggestions hopefully after executing them I'll regain control of the environment. I also fired off an email to Altium last night.

Cheers,
Vince

[Psi]

At some point the day before I copy pasted a PCB footprint from a  DigiKey part into my schematic library and  few seconds later I experienced my first Altium crash.

How did you get this digikey part footprint to copy paste into altium?
Are you using one of those 3rd party footprint services like  snapEDA / SamacSys ?

[vincei]

Hi Psi,

 No, I'd just watched innumerable videos on YouTube on how to import parts from the manufacturer search feature. When you find a part with footprints where is a Download button that allows you to download the files into Altium. I had a SCH & PCB library created by Altium for one of these parts. I opened the PCB library, selected the footprint, copied it and pasted it into my project PCB library - A few seconds later Altium crashed. I don't have any plugins installed that I know of.

-Vince

[vincei]

Just a quick followup. I used the XBOX game recorder feature of Windows 10 (Win+G) to record this funkiness with the port labels for Altium Support. I was able to capture a video of this happening but wouldn't you know it the moment I finished recording and saved the video the port labeling feature started working properly again 

I'm gonna go do something mindless like putting up a snow fence 

-Vince

[T3sl4co1l]

You threatened it.  Observer effect.  Bug never happens when someone's watching.

Tim

[ajawamnet]

take a look at this preference - see attached...

This is Tools > Preferences > Schematic >

I believe that if your Advsch.dft file gets hosed in the users/ [user]/appdata/Roaming/Altium/Altium{some longass number} directory it'll do squirrely stuff  like this..

As to upgrades and once you're logged in, depending on your current support you should be able to download either the stub installer or the full, offline  installer here:
https://www.altium.com/products/downloads

If you're not logged in it'll just allow you to download the stub installer. I always get the offline installer and use standalone licensing.

[vincei]

Hi Ajawamnet,

 Thanks for that. I am totally overwhelmed by how many configuration options Altium has. I'll be sure to check that option of this happens again.

Cheers,
Vince