Custom scales cause performance issues with Open, Xref, Copy/Paste, and Insert functions

Autodesk Support

Oct 8, 2023


Products and versions covered


Issue:

You noticed significant performance issues when you performed the following actions in AutoCAD®:

  • Opening drawings that contain Xrefs
  • Inserting Xref drawings
  • Copying/Pasting from one drawing into another
  • Inserting blocks from external files

Solution:

This behavior occurs if your drawings contain multiple custom annotation scales. To correct this issue, the scale list needs to be reset using the Scale List Cleanup utility. This utility allows you to specify a scale list template containing a user-defined scale list. When you run the utility, unused scales are deleted from files and the scale list from the selected template is applied.  This utility can be downloaded from the following locations:

Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD 2008/2009
Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD 2010 (works with 2010-2012)
Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD 2013/2014
Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD 2015

Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD® 2017
Scale List Cleanup Utility for AutoCAD® 2018

For individual drawings, the scale list can be manually reset. Follow these steps:

  1. On the command line, enter -SCALELISTEDIT.
  2. Enter option Reset.
  3. When the "Reset scale list to defaults?" prompt is displayed, enter Yes.
  4. Enter Exit or press ESC.

Resetting the scale list manually will cause all of your custom annotation scales to be lost and the list will be reset to the default list.

Note: Nested external references (xrefs) may produce excess scales. To correct this issue, install AutoCAD 2008 Service Pack 1 or corresponding service packs for AutoCAD-based products. The Scale List Cleanup Utility repairs files affected before the necessary service pack was installed.

Products:

AutoCAD; AutoCAD Architecture; Civil 3D; AutoCAD Electrical; AutoCAD LT; AutoCAD Map 3D; AutoCAD Mechanical; AutoCAD MEP; AutoCAD P&ID; AutoCAD Raster Design; AutoCAD Land Desktop; DWG TrueView;

Versions:

2017; 2008; 2009; 2010; 2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2015; 2016; 2018;


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