Revit CAD Problem in VM Fusion Running Windows 10 on MacBook

[JamesP824]

Hi,

I have a weird problem and don’t know what to do.  And it has me at a dead stop in my business, so I need to find a solution ASAP.  Thanks in advance for any help.

I’m using Autodesk Revit Architectural CAD software, running in Windows 10 in VM Fusion on my MacBook Pro, all of which are up to date.

The problem started in my CAD software, trying to place a text note.  Typically, when I place a note, I click in the view window, a text box appears, with a flashing cursor, I type the note, which is visible, as are the surrounding drawing elements, and when I’m done, I click elsewhere in the window, and I’m on to the the next command. 

But suddenly, with no apparent reason (meaning I had made no changes to ANYTHING), when I went to place a note, I clicked in the window, but then the view window goes blank - no text box, no cursor, no surrounding context.  When I type, I see nothing.  When I clicked in the window, I still see nothing.  But if I click on “Zoom All”, the drawing shows up, and there is the text note I added.  But this is not a workable way forward.  I need to fix this.  

I contacted Autodesk, and they were very helpful, with a live person, on zoom with screen shares, etc.  After sharing a file and project journal, they could not find a problem with Revit.  So they suggested looking into VM Fusion.  

So I had a couple of chats online yesterday about it with VM techs, but they were little help.  Turns out that even though I am a customer, with an active license, I don’t have an “entitlement” to any real help.  One issue that came up is that it appeared that I didn’t have VM Tools installed, and when I tried to do that, it didn’t seem to work.

So, I decided to just uninstall VM Fusion, and reinstall it, and Windows and Revit.  But when I deleted VM Fusion from my Mac, and tried to reinstall it, it already has Windows and Revit installed, and the same problem persists.  So, how do I really uninstall and reinstall VMWare Fusion, and be sure that Tools gets installed as well?  

I’m assuming that I’m going to need to pay for an “incident support”, but thought I’d try here first.

Thanks,

James 

[ColoradoMarmot]

Try toggling the '3d acceleration' option for the VM - that may solve the problem.

Uninstalling the VM doesn't delete the virtual machine bundle - that's a separate file.  You can have multiple virtual machines, so you can keep the old one and build a new one side by side.

[JamesP824]

Thanks for your reply.  

I don’t know where the toggle for 3D Acceleration is.  I don’t know the nuances, or much at all, really, about Fusion, because it’s always run so seamlessly.  I’ve only had a few tech support issues.

And I don’t want to keep a non-functional virtual machine on my drive.  There must be some way to uninstall and reinstall...?

Looks like I should probably pay for a tech support incident....

[bluefirestorm]

Turning off 3D acceleration for a VM running AutoCAD software is probably not a good idea. It may make some issues go away but you will probably be unhappy how slow AutoCAD software becomes.

It would help to know what your Mac hardware is. For example, MacBook Pro that has both Intel and AMD graphics can switch between the two depending on batter/power and can cause problems with VMs running with 3D acceleration.

[scott28tt]

Would all your Word document files disappear if you removed the app from your system? No.

Your VM files are the same with regard to you removing Fusion.

It would be up to you to delete and recreate your VM if that was necessary, that is an option but better to try and resolve the issue without resorting to that.