Troubleshooting the Desktop App

Skip to known issues

We do our best to test as many system configurations as possible before releasing our software to ensure flawless performance. Unfortunately, due to the immense variation in available computers and networks, some users may have trouble using the Workbench App from time to time.

If you are having trouble with anything at all, please let our support team know right away by choosing "Contact Support" from the main menu of the app, where you can also send your log files to us. This article will detail some of the things we tell users to try when we are trying to gauge the severity of the problem.

Use the web interface

The easiest workaround for Desktop App connection problems is to use the web interface. You can upload, download, move, delete, and rename files. Select the project from your account page, then once you click the Files tab, you can drop your files right into the folder where they belong, or download any files or folders by right-clicking. If you aren't sure which files you need to download, you can download the whole project as a .ZIP by clicking "Download project" in the upper left corner.

If you don't see the expected list of projects

If you have access to multiple accounts, it's possible that you did not select the desired account to be the "Default Account" during setup. Head to the settings menu and click "Change default folder and account" and make sure you've selected the desired default account. Once you click "Finish Setup" the project list will refresh, showing any disconnected projects in the chosen default account.

If your project seems out of sync...

First, try logging out and logging back in to reset all project connections. "Log out" is available from the main menu of the app.

To reset specific projects, you can break the connection and let GrabCAD rebuild it for you. This is accomplished by deleting the hidden folder inside the local folder called ".grabcad".

Warning: if you have pending changes, they may appear differently after this process. For instance, if you have pending deletes to upload, they will appear as new files to download.

Enable viewing of hidden file and folders in Windows. This is a setting in Windows Explorer and getting to it depends on your version of Windows, but it is usually under View or Folder Options.
Navigate to the local folder of the project.
In this folder you will find a folder called ".grabcad". Delete this folder.
This folder will immediately get recreated

If your projects are taking up too much space

Workbench keeps a cache of files in the .grabcad folder to speed up downloading and uploading. If this gets to be an inconvenient size, you can delete the .grabcad folder using the procedure above.

If you are having login problems or overall app issues...

One thing you can do is clear the app's record of your profile. This is done by deleting your local app data.

Warning: This will clear the app's log files as well, making it harder for us to investigate your issue. Choose "Send logs to support" from the main menu, then wait for this to finish before attempting this procedure.

Close the Desktop App by selecting Exit in the main menu.
In a Windows file explorer type "%localappdata%\grabcad" into the address bar.
In this folder delete all the subfolders then open up the Desktop App.
You will be asked to log in again, and your connections should be all reset.

Note: If you cannot log in, you can still send us your log files via the gear menu in the upper right corner of the login screen.

Known Issues

If folders seem to fail to sync

The Workbench Desktop App can only manage changes to files, not folders themselves. Because of this limitation, empty folders do not get synchronized between your machine, the project online, and your teammates' computers. Specifically, this means...

If you move a folder locally and sync, the project online and on your teammates' computers will have the folder in both the new and old locations, only it will be empty in the old location.
If you rename a folder locally and sync, the project online and on your teammates' computers will have both the new and old folder. The files will be in the new-name folder, and the old-name folder will be empty.
If you delete a folder locally and sync, the project online and on your teammates' computers will still have the folder, only it will be empty.
If you create a template of empty folders locally and sync, the project online and on your teammates' computers will not show these folders. To remedy this, simply put a file in each folder as a placeholder. You can right-click in the folder in Windows explorer and select "New" > "New text document" to quickly create a placeholder file.

Note that all of the above limitations also apply to operations performed in the web interface of the project and synced down to the team's computers.

If the app fails to launch, but is running as a process in the task manager

There is an issue that is currently under investigation which affects a handful of Windows 7 and 8 users where Workbench fails to launch but the task manager shows the process is still running. In this case there may be an issue with the Desktop App's interaction with the .NET framework, specifically version 4.5.2.

The solution for this is to install the newest version of .NET, version 4.6, which can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48130 ( .NET 4.6) This version is packaged with Windows 10, however Windows 7 and 8 users do not receive this update automatically. After installing .NET 4.6, Windows will instruct you to restart your computer. After this completes, uninstall and reinstall Workbench.

Since this issue is still under investigation, please help us by letting us know when you are having this issue, and whether or not the procedure above resolved it for you. You can hit "Contact support" in the main menu of the app, or email support@grabcad.com.

If all of the connections are showing an error at once

There is a known issue where McAfee "Real-Time Scanning" prevents the Desktop App from connecting to GrabCAD's server. This results an an error showing for each one of your project connections.

To resolve this issue:

Go into the McAfee software and turn off real-time scanning. (McAfee's steps for this can be found here)
Exit the Desktop app by clicking "Exit" in the gear menu.
In Windows file explorer type "%localappdata%\grabcad" and delete all the subfolders (data, installs, logs, s) in this folder.
Open the Desktop App. After you log in, your projects will re-initialize and the connection should be successful.

Additionally, some users have had success with adding Workbench to the list of excepted programs. The file you would need to add is located at %localappdata%\Programs\GrabCAD\GrabCADDesktopClient\GrabCADDesktopClient.exe

Note: this issue may not be limited to McAfee. If you are using any anti-virus or firewall software, please try to add exceptions for our .exe file and also any url with "grabcad.com" in the domain.

If your upload gets to 100% and then fails

There is a known issue where if a file in the upload batch has a path that is too long, the upload will fail without providing a useful message. To remedy this, try and locate files with exceptionally long names, or that are deep within several subfolders, and deselect them from the upload batch. The exact limit on path length depends on where your GrabCAD folder is located on your system. If you need help finding the file, you can hit "Contact support" in the main menu of the app, or email support@grabcad.com and we'll be happy to look at your log files.

If the SolidWorks add-in fails to load and you have Box Sync 4 installed

We haven't been able to figure out what's going on behind the scenes with this issue, but a handful of users have noticed that the Workbench add-in for SolidWorks will not load while Box is installed.