SQLDUMPER.EXE window opening and closing when launching or working in Revit or Advance Steel

Autodesk Support

Feb 3, 2025


Products and versions covered


Issue:

Users reported that when launching or working in Revit or Advance Steel in Windows 11, a Command prompt window referencing SQLDUMPER.EXE appears and disappears every 1 or 2 seconds. 

Alternatively, Advance Steel window might show the spinning wheel looping, while the Command prompt window might appear and disappear too quickly to see its name.

 

Screen of SQLDUMPER.EXE Command Prompt-style window with no content, only title


When opening Advance Steel white screen popped up.

Command prompt window referencing SQLDUMPER.EXE appears



 
 

Environment:

  • Windows 11 Operating System.

  • SSD/NVMe Drives that have a sector size bigger than 4KB.

Causes:

  • SQL Server is unable to start due to the unsupported file system. SQL Server currently supports sector storage sizes of 512 bytes and 4 KB.

Note: An update to Windows 11 might trigger this issue for SSD/NVMe drive systems with sector sizes bigger than 4KB. The issue was not present on previous versions of Windows, as the built-in drivers capped the sector size value.

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2014 LocalDB (2019 for versions 2024 and newer) is not correctly installed.

  • A more recent version than Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is installed.

  • Restricted permissions of Advance Steel or RVT folder in ProgramData\Autodesk.

Solution:

Update Software

See the following support page for information on how to Update your software.

Investigate storage disk sector size greater than 4 KB:

To check if the sector size is greater than 4 KB, go through the following steps:

  1. Start the Command prompt as Administrator and run the following command:

fsutil fsinfo sectorinfo C:
  1. Look for the values of PhysicalBytesPerSectorForAtomicity and PhysicalBytesPerSectorForPerformance (shown in bytes). If any of these values are bigger than 4096 (like in the attached picture), proceed with the next step

Screen of Windows Command prompt with sector size check result
 
  1. Follow the steps from the Microsoft Article describing errors related to system disk sector size - Troubleshoot errors related to system disk sector size greater than 4 KB

Alternatively, 

Add a registry key that will force the sector size to be emulated as 4 KB (similar to Windows 10):

  • To do so, download and run SetSectorSize.reg (attached in this article). This will automatically add the value * 4095 to the registry.

Note: Reboot the system after changing the Windows registry to see SectorSize modifications.

Check permissions for the users and administrators to the program folder

  1. Find Advance Steel #### or RVT #### folder in C:\ProgramData\Autodesk

    1. If the ProgramData folder is not found, see the following article for information on How to turn on hidden files and folders on Windows.

  2. Right-click the folder, choose Properties, and choose the Security tab

  3. Check if the permissions for users and administrators are set for Full control to Allow

    1. Click Edit to change permissions.

    2. Submit the changes through the Apply button.

Investigate SQL Corruptions

Check SQL using the following steps: Investigating SQL Server LocalDB installation when working with Advance Steel / Revit.  

Windows User Profile

If the previous steps didn't clear the behavior, try logging into a different Windows User and see if the same behavior occurs. If it does not:

Revert OS to a previous version

If the issue was introduced when upgrading Windows, roll back to Windows 10 whenever possible. See Recovery options in Windows.

     

    Attachments:

    SetSectorSize.reg;

    Products:

    Advance Steel; Revit Product Family;


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