Drawings appear empty when opened in AutoCAD Products

Autodesk Support

Feb 24, 2025

Products and versions covered

When opening a drawing file in AutoCAD products, it appears to be blank or empty in model or paper space, or both. Other symptoms can be:

Moving the cursor in the drawing area will sometimes highlight and briefly display the expected content, or corresponding tool tips.
Using QSELECT showing an object selection in the Properties window.
Using QSELECT returns an alert that there are no objects although PRUGE, and file size would indicate otherwise.
Using the SELECT command with 'ALL' highlights all objects in model space.
Hovering over model or layout tabs will display a populated thumbnail with the expected drawing file content.

Data corruption in the drawing.
Unrecognized objects.
Graphics card (GPU) either not meeting system requirements or outdated, damaged driver.
Expected file didn't open and the file with no content is an empty "Drawing 1".

Try one of the following solutions:

When objects are selectable but don't display, try to:

Try to repair the affected drawing files or recover a previous version from a backup or autosave file:

AutoCAD Products; AutoCAD LT for Mac; AutoCAD for Mac;

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