ACE Technical Troubleshooting & Support Best Practices 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A user receives a 'Cannot find proxy server' error when trying to activate Autodesk software. What is the recommended corrective action?
- Disable Windows Firewall permanently
- Configure proxy settings in the Autodesk licensing tool or system Internet Options (Correct answer)
- Uninstall and reinstall the product using offline installer
- Contact the ISP to reset the connection
Correct answer: Configure proxy settings in the Autodesk licensing tool or system Internet Options
Autodesk activation communicates through the system proxy; configuring the correct proxy address in Internet Options or the licensing utility resolves this error.
Question 2: Which approach best documents a recurring intermittent crash for escalation to Autodesk Engineering?
- Email a description when it next occurs
- Capture a Windows memory dump (minidump) at the time of the crash and attach it to the support case (Correct answer)
- Record approximate crash dates in a spreadsheet
- Reinstall the product after each crash
Correct answer: Capture a Windows memory dump (minidump) at the time of the crash and attach it to the support case
Memory dump files capture the exact program state at crash time, giving engineers the data needed to identify root causes of intermittent issues.
Question 3: When a user reports that the Autodesk Desktop App fails to update products, which service should the technician verify is running?
- Windows Update service
- Autodesk Desktop App Service (AdAppMgrSvc) (Correct answer)
- Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)
- Autodesk Genuine Service
Correct answer: Autodesk Desktop App Service (AdAppMgrSvc)
The Autodesk Desktop App Service (AdAppMgrSvc) is responsible for managing and applying product updates; if stopped, updates will fail silently.
Question 4: A support case involves Inventor crashing only on assemblies with more than 500 components. What type of issue does this pattern indicate?
- A corrupt Windows user profile
- A memory or resource-limit issue that surfaces under high-complexity load (Correct answer)
- A licensing expiration problem
- A graphics driver conflict with shaders
Correct answer: A memory or resource-limit issue that surfaces under high-complexity load
Crashes that are reproducible only above a threshold of complexity typically indicate memory pressure, paging, or resource exhaustion rather than a simple configuration error.
Question 5: A technician uses the RECOVER command in AutoCAD on a corrupted DWG but it still fails to open. What is the next recommended step?
- Delete the file and ask for a backup
- Run the RECOVERALL command to process xrefs, then attempt to AUDIT the result (Correct answer)
- Use Windows file recovery software
- Convert the file to DXF using a hex editor
Correct answer: Run the RECOVERALL command to process xrefs, then attempt to AUDIT the result
RECOVERALL extends recovery to externally referenced files, and AUDIT checks and repairs internal database integrity issues that RECOVER alone may not address.
Question 6: An organization's BIM 360 / ACC sync fails for multiple users simultaneously after no software changes. What is the most logical first diagnostic step?
- Reinstall the Autodesk Desktop Connector on all machines
- Check Autodesk's status page at health.autodesk.com for cloud service incidents (Correct answer)
- Reboot all users' computers
- Re-invite all users to the project hub
Correct answer: Check Autodesk's status page at health.autodesk.com for cloud service incidents
Simultaneous failures across multiple users with no local changes almost always indicate a cloud service outage, best confirmed via Autodesk's public status page.
Question 7: A technician needs to reset AutoCAD to factory defaults without uninstalling. Which method achieves this most efficiently?
- Delete the AutoCAD executable and reinstall only the core files
- Use the 'Reset Settings to Default' option in the AutoCAD reset utility (acadresetmain.exe) (Correct answer)
- Edit the registry manually to remove all AutoCAD keys
- Copy another user's profile folder over the affected user's folder
Correct answer: Use the 'Reset Settings to Default' option in the AutoCAD reset utility (acadresetmain.exe)
acadresetmain.exe (the AutoCAD Reset Settings utility) resets profiles, registry entries, and support file paths to defaults without requiring a full reinstall.
ACE Technical Troubleshooting & Support Best Practices 3
A user receives a 'Cannot find proxy server' error when trying to activate Autodesk software.
What is the recommended corrective action?