JLCPCB gerber viewer broken?

[zapta]

I don't see anything in the JLCPCB gerber viewer. The orders go through successfully but I don't see any board outline or layers in the gerber viewer, on Chrome Mac and Windows. This used to work for me in the past.

Is it just me? Any suggestions?

To reproduce, upload a gerber.zip and click on the gerber viewer link.

[JohanH]

I tried and there are some issues, indeed.

It looks fine in the preview, but when clicking on "Gerber Viewer" and it opens in a new tab, the browser becomes really slow and I just caught a glimpse of the PCB bolting away, towards the bottom right corner of the screen and disappearing. After that it was a blank view and controls responded slowly. I couldn't see the PCB again. If you click again on Gerber Viewer, the same happens again.

Can't remember when I checked the Gerber Viewer last time, I think it had some issues once in the past, too.

Anyway, you can view Gerbers also with Kicad, for instance.

[zapta]

Thanks Johan. This is very useful.

[SiliconWizard]

I've also found JLCPCB Gerber viewer to be flaky. OTOH, PCBWay's one works plenty fine - you can use it to preview your PCBs, the viewer is completely free and you don't need to order anything to use it.

[retiredfeline]

PCBWAY's gerber viewer is based on the open source https://tracespace.io/view/ which is also available to use by all. PCBWAY once made some changes in their copy and didn't keep up to date with the original and some quirks showed up. I told them to get synced and the problem went away.

[JLCPCB Official]

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by the recent issues with our Gerber viewer.

Please note that the Gerber viewer is intended for reference purposes and is not a production file. For each order, our engineers will re-check the files while preparing the production data for your PCB manufacturing. Our support team will promptly notify you if any issues arise.

To enhance the customer experience, our IT team will soon launch a new version of the Gerber viewer, in which several features will be optimized. Stay tuned for updates~ 
If you have any advice or feedback regarding the Gerber viewer or any orders , please feel free to contact support@jlcpcb.com.

[Infraviolet]

I had this too someweeks back, any attempt to click the initial PCB image and go to the gerber viewer webpages gave a connection error (not a 404, but one of the similar ones, can't remember which) where the gerber viewing page should have been. But the last time I placed a JLC order (last few days) the gerber viewer was working again.

JLC's gerber viewing page has always been slow to load, and laggy when trying to zoom in and pan across board surfaces (even in the 2d modes, let alone the 3d one). Still useful to double check that JLC has loaded the gerbers correctly though and verify before approving the files for production.

[SiliconWizard]

PCBWAY's gerber viewer is based on the open source https://tracespace.io/view/ which is also available to use by all. PCBWAY once made some changes in their copy and didn't keep up to date with the original and some quirks showed up. I told them to get synced and the problem went away.

Thanks - I switched to it. PCBWay's viewer was sure ringing a bell, but I didn't quite know what the deal was. As I remember, the tracespace online viewer disappeared for a while (did they maybe just change their address? I'm not quite sure what happened) and it's now back. If anyone knows what happened, I'd be curious. Maybe it's nothing and just a change of URL (that I didn't really care to track at the time), or maybe there was some legal stuff happening?

[Emissionlabs]

I have problems with the JLCPCB gerber viewer since several weeks.   When I upload a zip file,  the drill file is in there for sure.   Then,  the gerber viewer shows the PCB without drill holes,  and when checking the layers, the drill file is gone.  The chat support keeps on telling me,  they ask the engineers,  and production will fix  the error. Besides they say, the drill file IS here.  THEY can see it.  So it's no problem they say. Just order and it will be fine.   But I had that before, and the result was an error in the PCB.  So I am not going to order again that way.  Despite the promises,  nobody contacts me what is going to happem.   I am SURE it is a problem with their Gerber viewer,   because PCBs which I ordered before, and were GOOD,  now appear faulty when I upload them.  JLCPCB don't say what they will do, and when.  So all I can do, is wait for "something" to happens at "some time".  This is really a pity.

[zapta]

Yes, ordering on JLCPCB is sometimes frustrating. As a workaround you can try include the SMD assembly option, without actually ordering it. It will take you through a 3D view of the board which will give you additional insight on how JLCPCB interpreted your files.

[Emissionlabs]

@ zapta:   How do I  use the SMD assembly option?  Is that the orange slide?   If I do so, the PCB stays 2 dimensional.   I have no components added to the PCB,  I  don't know  if it still should work like that?  I use Sprintlayout Version6.  JLCPCB say it's fully compatible.

I had smaller problems with their Gerber viewer before, quite a while ago.  They just wrote me the online viewer is no good, and I should try an external one.  When chatting with the support engineers,  they are using another viewer which is good, and the one on the website they don't have access to.  So they don't understand the problem. I supplied screen shots of everything,  and all they did,  is pass it on to someone else, who did  not respond.  At that time,  using the 3D viewer solved it for me.  It was just the 2D viewer not working at all.  You see, such a simple advice,  the support did not give.

But this time it's a it rejects the drill file.  I also had that problems before with silk screens not shown correct in their viewer,  and I received bad PCBs.   So I don't take the rsik, with a missing drill file.   I have my orders on hold,  and response of JLCPCB is  awaiting,  and the process is just stuck here now. 

[zapta]

You start the SMD journey by clicking on the SMD service switch (image below) and you end up in a 3D view of the board (image below). If you are using Kicad, I highly recommend the standard Fabrication Toolkit plugin, which generates gerbers, and other PCB production files with a single click.