AutoDesk 2022 - a new low

[gerardsweeney]

Just when my opinion of AutoDesk couldn't get any worse, they somehow manage it.

 

I download AutoCAD/Inventor/Revit/3DS Max 2022 - same as usual.

 

Except I then find that in order to create a network deployment of 2022, you have to do it from the Web GUI on manage.autodesk.com under "Custom Install".

 

Go in there - no products listed.

 

That was nearly a fortnight ago.

I'm still waiting to get my account fixed.

The Education Customer Manager person isn't answering emails or phone calls.

My support requests have sat with "Internal team" for over a week.

 

Try on the Community forum, explaining my hassles.. I get directed to a link with Contact us.

Where I have 2 options - use Ava (done that) or go on the community forums (ummm...).

I found a similar thread on their forum where someone else was having the same issues.

They had an old account from before the current 3rd party handling this Education program registration.

They needed to get their account updated to reflect that they're the contract manager.

 

With that buzz phrase in my head, I raised another call today using their "request a call back".

That call was closed, saying it's a duplicate.

My original call was updated today with a "we have fixed your issue - log out, and back in".

Go on - have a guess if my issue was fixed.

 

Does anyone have a phone number or email address where I can contact someone who might actually be able to help me?

 

AutoDreck, more like. I loathe, and despise everything to do with them.

[hyb80]

Any luck with this? I have just discovered that they have retired maintenance plans but cannot register for a new one.

 

Are you having to create accounts for all users to sign in? Amazing lack of clear concise instructions on this issue that must affect loads.

[gerardsweeney]

I had to re-register myself. I was sent a link initially, but I'm at home just now.

I think it was here:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/customer-service/account-management/autodesk-for-education/educational-institutions

 

I had to register, and provide a scan of my staff ID badge along with a letter written (honest, Guv!) by the Head Teacher on headed paper.

 

Once you've done that - assuming they don't make the same utter hash of merging my old account with the new one, you can download various AutoCAD products.

The installs I was interested in was where the client PCs talk to a local (within the WAN, anyway) server to get a licence to run the product.

That licence is then freed up when they exit the program.

There's no need for each user to sign in.. that's only if they want to download/install the products on their home PCs - nothing to do with us Technician people.

 

And that's as far as it got, really.

By the time they sorted out the user details, I was then unable to create admin installs of 2022 - you need to do that on the WWW page. That bit was broken.

That turned into another fortnight of emails and support calls providing screenshots of a distinct lack of packages listed under the "Create admin install".

 

By the time THAT was sorted, I'd easily burned through about 6 weeks.

The project to upgrade was then aborted, as I'd moved onto some shiny new headache at work.

So maybe next term!

[kidpressingbuttons]

Had exactly the same issue with 2021. Ended up just sticking with 2020 in the end as I had wasted far too much time trying to get any sense out of them!

[snowaholicride]

I made an account to be able to reply to this. Autodesk since they tried to move to verifications through sheerid a few years ago has be absolutely terrible. I ran into almost the exact same problem as OP. It took almost two months to get resolved.

 

I signed up for the new version of Autocad 2022 to get it added to our education license pool. Awesome great it worked and got the info emailed to me. Then I noticed previous years were missing from products and services. Made a work order to get this resolved and they were able to add the previous years to them. Awesome, then 2022 was missing. Make another work order to get this resolved, they were able to add 2022 back with all my previous years we still use. Amazing! Then comes the information about how the new deployments work. Missing the products in the custom installs. Make another work order to fix that. They get that fixed and products showing up in custom installs for deployments only to find out that Autocad 2022 is now missing again from custom installs and form products and services page even though I see it on my home page under recent purchases.

 

I made a new work order for this, this time i dont hear from them for 3 weeks after asking for updates, emailing, live chatting (which they said they would update my work order but never did). Finally I had to cancel that work order cause nothing came from it and remake the work order and same thing happened again, another 3 weeks no response when the issue was still not resolved after they said it was. I finally made another work order referencing the previous second work order that was still active asking about an update for that work order. To have to create a work order to ask for an update to another work order is absolutely asinine. I finally got them to resolve the issue after 2 months.

 

And now when testing my deployments I am getting Unhandled exceptions pertaining to acmgd.dll ARX Command. I have decided Im not going to even pursue this further and just go back to 2021 deployment as I know its working properly on my end and hope maybe next year people will get the kinks worked out. I absolutely despise Autodesks education support. I wish you guys the best of luck getting this resolved.

[slugshead]

I've been trying to get us verified since last summer! Rebuilt our DT computers a few weeks back and I don't want to put 2018 back on them...

[pete]

I simply wrote a letter on headed paper (pete provides IT services for $school, which is a trading name of $MAT), asked the appropriate headteacher to sign it and uploaded as a scanned PDF. I was approved within the hour.

 

Caveats: We were already on the scheme previously (before letter/ID was required) so re-authentication was probably a checkbox exercise for Autodesk.

 

It did take ~48hrs and a ticket for the custom deployment option to turn up for Inventor 2022 (which creates double-extension filenames and causes ransomware rules to trigger).

[gerardsweeney]

Getting registered (the part Pete described) was the least painful part of the whole debacle.

We're running on 2018 for another year because of how absolutely inept and thoroughly p***-poor the whole setup has been.

I received notification I had to re-register. I simply re-sent the same Word file I originally sent to register initially (only with dates changed).

So I now have another year of Autodesk.. Maybe I'll get 2022 working before the sun burns out

[eddyc]

Has anyone had any joy getting Autodesk Inventor 2022 to install out of interest?

 

We run the (web based) deploy tool and it downloads an EXE which then populates our share with files and creates a batch file called "Install Autodesk 2022"

 

We uncomment the batch file as per:

 

========== Install the deployment silently ==========
"\\domain\software\Autodesk_Inventor\Autodesk_Inventor_2022\image\Installer.exe" -i deploy --offline_mode -q -o "\\domain\software\Autodesk_Inventor\Autodesk_Inventor_2022\image\Collection.xml" --installer_version ""

 

But the install always bombs out partway through during an MDT task sequence. If the batch file is ran interactively, the installation completes without an issue. It is all very strange.

 

The log says:

2021-07-26T17:50:14.922 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Deployment started...
2021-07-26T17:50:33.633 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Deployment started...
2021-07-26T17:50:44.888 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk® Desktop Connect Service
2021-07-26T17:50:44.890 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable (x86) Update 4
2021-07-26T17:50:44.893 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x86)
2021-07-26T17:50:44.895 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable (x64) Update 4
2021-07-26T17:50:44.898 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk Single Sign On Component
2021-07-26T17:50:44.900 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x86)
2021-07-26T17:50:44.902 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (x64)
2021-07-26T17:50:44.903 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk RSA Engine
2021-07-26T17:50:44.905 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk Material Library 2022
2021-07-26T17:50:45.026 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x64)
2021-07-26T17:50:45.150 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable (x86)
2021-07-26T17:50:45.158 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk REX Framework
2021-07-26T17:50:45.277 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk REX Inventor
2021-07-26T17:50:45.402 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk Licensing Installer 1.0
2021-07-26T17:50:45.528 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: ODIS Installer
2021-07-26T17:50:57.788 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk® Guided Tutorial Plugin
2021-07-26T17:51:18.202 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Unit Schemas for Revit 2022
2021-07-26T17:51:19.582 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Express LocalDB
2021-07-26T17:51:24.117 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Autodesk Inventor Electrical Catalog Browser 2022
2021-07-26T17:51:28.567 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Microsoft DirectX for Windows
2021-07-26T17:51:32.737 [Deployment: 4744, single] [iNFO] Installing: Inventor Content Libraries
2021-07-26T17:51:37.181 [Deployment: 4744, single] [ERROR] {C50E864B-957B-34FA-BA7F-63D67D9692C0} : 17
2021-07-26T17:51:37.563 [Deployment: 4744, single] [ERROR] Deployment failed!

 

It is driving us mad - Any pointers from anyone who has this working would be very much appreciated!

 

Thanks

[Rizzo]

Sorry a bit of a pointless post because it won't help you. Just want to share my pain as well. I had the same issue, all installed fine manually but through SCCM it wasn't having it.

 

Spent most of last week on this (3ds max, AutoCAD, Maya and Mudbox 2022). I couldn't get them to work with SCCM OSD. The installers kept on crashing/hanging and the logs were useless. I didn't bother going through support because it's shocking! (Had the same problem with products not showing in the portal last year and the reg once website had constant issues. 3-4 weeks to solve it).

 

It sounds like it's a know issue and Autodesk is being a bit slow to fix it. It seems a common problem on Autodesk's forums.

 

Here are a couple of links I found. Might help you.

 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/installation-licensing/autodesk-2022-products-not-installing-with-sccm-osd/td-p/10298214

https://www.reddit.com/r/SCCM/comments/npo24s/autocad_mechanical_2022_sccm_deployment/

 

In the end I took it out of SCCM and they get installed by a c# program I did for other well written installers which fail in SCCM. The program auto logs in and starts at the end of the task sequence. A 100% botch I know but installs every time. Life is too short to go through Autodesk support. I'll have another go at it in October.

[eddyc]

Sorry a bit of a pointless post because it won't help you. Just want to share my pain as well. I had the same issue, all installed fine manually but through SCCM it wasn't having it.

 

Spent most of last week on this (3ds max, AutoCAD, Maya and Mudbox 2022). I couldn't get them to work with SCCM OSD. The installers kept on crashing/hanging and the logs were useless. I didn't bother going through support because it's shocking! (Had the same problem with products not showing in the portal last year and the reg once website had constant issues. 3-4 weeks to solve it).

 

It sounds like it's a know issue and Autodesk is being a bit slow to fix it. It seems a common problem on Autodesk's forums.

 

Here are a couple of links I found. Might help you.

 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/installation-licensing/autodesk-2022-products-not-installing-with-sccm-osd/td-p/10298214

https://www.reddit.com/r/SCCM/comments/npo24s/autocad_mechanical_2022_sccm_deployment/

 

In the end I took it out of SCCM and they get installed by a c# program I did for other well written installers which fail in SCCM. The program auto logs in and starts at the end of the task sequence. A 100% botch I know but installs every time. Life is too short to go through Autodesk support. I'll have another go at it in October.

 

Thanks for the reply and those links. I've tried the suggestions with no joy saddly!

 

How does your C# program work out of interest? Would you be happy to share it?

[Rizzo]

Hi Eddyc,

 

Unfortunately I can't share it. It's a custom program which will only work with the college system.

 

Basically the core of the program, get an install list from the the web server (example L:\SoftwareA\install.cmd, L:\SoftwareB\install.cmd). Then the program just works through the list. At the end, deletes itself and restarts the computer.

 

If I get Autodesk 2022 working in the future with SCCM I'll share it.

[eddyc]

Hi Eddyc,

 

Unfortunately I can't share it. It's a custom program which will only work with the college system.

 

Basically the core of the program, get an install list from the the web server (example L:\SoftwareA\install.cmd, L:\SoftwareB\install.cmd). Then the program just works through the list. At the end, deletes itself and restarts the computer.

 

If I get Autodesk 2022 working in the future with SCCM I'll share it.

 

No worries at all. We were running 2019 and have now gone to 2021 as that seems to use the old deployment method which worked first time! Must infuriating on Autodesk's part but at least we can get the PCs updated now.

 

Thanks

[eddyc]

No worries at all. We were running 2019 and have now gone to 2021 as that seems to use the old deployment method which worked first time! Must infuriating on Autodesk's part but at least we can get the PCs updated now.

 

Thanks

 

I spoke far too soon. After my team imaged one whole building we have found that Autodesk Inventor 2021 seems to massively corrupt Microsoft Office 2019. As soon as Inventor 2021 is pulled off of the deployment the issue goes away.

 

We have also found that if you install Inventor 2021 manually, that also corrupts Microsoft Office 2019.

 

Back to the drawing board!

[skipthompson81]

Creating a deployment for Autodesk 2022 products (imaginit.com)

no endorsement, just fyi.

[mikes]

We were licensed to use Autodesk Professional 2023 until Oct 2023, but I got an e-mail the other week saying our license was due to expire at the end of the month (May? I got the e-mail on the 26th) and I needed to renew. I've renewed the license which is until Oct 2024, but haven't imported it yet as the software still seems to work and I don't want to mess with it yet. When our Professional 2022 license expired I could not get a new one for the life of me, it would only let me generate one for Pro 2023 - so I had to waste days manually installing it on 70+ computers as the deployment wouldn't work via SCCM or other methods I tried. A real pain but at least I have a license until late 2024 now.

[gerardsweeney]

Creating a deployment for Autodesk 2022 products (imaginit.com)

no endorsement, just fyi.

 

Thanks... I got 2023 deploying with fewer tears and snotters than 2022

[mitchell1981]

Can anyone confirm to me, as an Educational customer, I should be able to use the 'Custom Install' option?

 

If I use this link: https://www.autodesk.com/education/edu-software/ then I see all my available software.

 

If I go to the 'All Products and Services page I get: No products available. Either you haven’t purchased any products or your organization hasn’t assigned you product access.

 

If I go to Custom Install I get: Create Package button > Loop back to blank 'All Products and Services' page

 

 

As far as I understand, the 'Custom Install' page is essential to make a silent install package, but it doesn't seem to work for educational users, or is it just my account that is broken?

 

Thank you.

[old_n07]

The custom install creation is working for me in Chrome, I've had issues on other parts of their site where I've had to use Firefox to get menus to display but not the package creation

 

You need to drop down to Network license for the products to be displayed

 

[mitchell1981]

Think I'm just being impatient. I spoke to support and they said these things can take up to 72 hours to appear in the right places.