Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

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MGO
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Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by MGO »

Hi all,

sorry for hijacking this thread but I have the same issue with Altium Designer 18 as also now with version 17 (installed it yesterday morning and made a Win10 update in the afternoon). See the timeline:

1) Before installing AD18 in the morning I also have an AD17 installed and using it almost daily for the past year+ and my SpaceNavigator worked as I had it configured (speed, reverse polarities, macros etc.). Same goes also for former releases.
2) Installed AD18 and I could not set the speeds/reverse settings -> no change whatever I set. AD17 was still OK at this point. I think I used 3DxWare version 10.5.3 or even older at that point.
3) Next thing what I did at this point I have updated the 3DxWare driver to 10.5.6 and during prompted reboot, unfortunately, Win10 also loaded the new updates.
4) Now, after Win10 update AD17 also cannot set speeds/reverse settings.
5) Tried removing existing settings as was pointed out in this thread -> no change, except that I got a weird "CLSID unhandled exception" and had to run the "3dxrepair.exe" to fix it.

Please advise.
jwick
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by jwick »

Hello MGO,

I believe Altium changed the name of the executable from DXP.exe to X2.exe between 17 and 18. That required a change to our cfg file that identifies it. This was done in 10.5.6. So it should work.

It is possible that an old user cfg file may cause problems. Go to %appdata%/3Dconnexion/3DxWare/Cfg and delete any AltiumDesigner.xml files you might find there. You are going to lose your saved settings. Make a copy of it in a completely different location (like the Desktop) if you want to save them. I'll help you merge them later.

Stop the 3DxService.exe driver before doing that. Restart it after deleting the file.

Let me know if you can now run AD 17 and 18 and save changes for both.
You should also be able to change settings for other programs, such as our demos. If that doesn't work, it is a different problem.
MGO
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by MGO »

Hello jwick,

thank you for replying but I've already done that under step 5).

Checked now also with demos, I cannot change the settings (Reverse and Speed) but I can change under "Navigation" and "Zoom Direction" and/or make them "Active".
jwick
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by jwick »

PM sent
mhoopes
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by mhoopes »

To be more specific, when profile inheritance was broken for Altium Designer with AD 18 for 3DxWare 10.5.3, and later with all AD versions in 3DxWare 10.5.5, local profiles in %appdata%/3Dconnexion/3DxWare/Cfg may have been created, as jwick said, that do not inherit settings from the core AltiumDesigner.xml, and ignore previous user customizations.

The "created" profiles in %appda% would have the names "X2.exe.xml" (which 3DxWare 10.5.3 and older would create, since it was unaware of the new executable) or "Altium Designer.xml" (10.5.5, and note the space in the filename). 10.5.6 is free of those issues, provided that those two files aren't present.
Michael Hoopes
MGO
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by MGO »

To sum things up, this issue was resolved with manual driver uninstall and after PC reboot reinstall of the USB driver for SpaceNavigator.

Things got messed up somehow with the latest Win10 update, because the driver was listed as "USB Input Device" and not "3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator" under "Device Manager" as it should be. Manual driver update was unsuccessful (with "C:\Program Files\3Dconnexion\3DxWare\3DxWinCore64\Drivers\3DxHID\Win64\3DxHID.inf") because Win said that “The best driver for your device are already installed” as “USB Input Device”. Manual driver uninstall sorted this after win reboot; the 3Dconnexxion driver was loaded automatically.

Again, thank you jwick for helping out through PMs.
balint2.feher
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by balint2.feher »

jwick wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 2:35 am Hello MGO,

I believe Altium changed the name of the executable from DXP.exe to X2.exe between 17 and 18. That required a change to our cfg file that identifies it. This was done in 10.5.6. So it should work.

It is possible that an old user cfg file may cause problems. Go to %appdata%/3Dconnexion/3DxWare/Cfg and delete any AltiumDesigner.xml files you might find there. You are going to lose your saved settings. Make a copy of it in a completely different location (like the Desktop) if you want to save them. I'll help you merge them later.

Stop the 3DxService.exe driver before doing that. Restart it after deleting the file.

Let me know if you can now run AD 17 and 18 and save changes for both.
You should also be able to change settings for other programs, such as our demos. If that doesn't work, it is a different problem.

Hello jwick,

I have a similar issue with Altium Designer. 3dx ware recognise Altium Designer 17 (DXP.exe), but I does not recognise Altium Designer 19 (X2.exe). If I make a config file for AD17, I will have an "AltiumDesigner.xml" file in AppData\Roaming\3Dconnexion\3DxWare\Cfg. If I make a config for AD19, there will be an "X2.xml" file. With AD17, I can see application specific commands in the dropdown menu when I config the mouse's buttons, but I cant see them when I would config the buttons for AD19. It seems like an unsupported app.
There is an AltiumDesigner.xml in 3DxWare folder (3Dconnexion\3DxWare\3DxWinCore64\Cfg), there are two executables in that file by default (DXP.exe, X2.exe)
I deleted all config files from appdata, but it did not solve the issue.
3DxWare: 10.6.0
3DxWinCore: 17.6.0.16266
jwick
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by jwick »

Interesting. That should have worked. We tested this with Altium when they were in beta. Possibly something changed for release.
Deleting the %AppData%\3Dconnexion\3DxWare\Cfg\Altium* files should have cleared any possible cases of not using the correct file.

Can you run our Diagnostics program (3Dx systray icon (right click)->Run Diagnostics?
It will produce a large zip file. Can you PM that file to me? You may not be able to PM the file -- put it on a dropbox or some such place and PM the address to me.

Thanks.
balint2.feher
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by balint2.feher »

I completely uninstalled, and reinstalled the 3DxWare, and the problem is gone. Now, Altium 19 is recognised by 3DxWare.
First time, I installed an older version, after that I installed a new one without uninstalling the older version. Maybe this caused the problem. Now everything works well! Thank you for your help!
jwick
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Re: Altium Designer: SpaceNavigator settings not working with any app

Post by jwick »

Good to read it straightened itself out.

We did test it this morning and could not find a problem. I'm not sure if we tested the overinstallation you did.

Thanks for contacting us.
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