Troubleshooting

Task-oriented — symptom → cause → fix for the problems users hit most often.

When something does not look right, start here. Each entry names the symptom you see, the usual cause, and how to resolve it.

Account, licensing & tokens

“Panel license required. Open cv-web → Pricing to add tokens, or contact your org admin.” Your organization’s token balance is empty, so a new drawing license could not be claimed. Buy a token pack at simplestruct.com (or ask your org admin to), then retry. Drawings that already hold their license are unaffected. See Membership & Tokens.

“License server unreachable. Check your internet connection and try again.” The seat could not reach the license service to claim a new license. Check the machine’s internet connection and retry. Already-licensed drawings keep printing and exporting fully offline.

“Your device was deauthorized. Sign in again at simplestruct.com/cv-cad-login to continue.” The machine’s link was revoked, or it idle-expired after 90 days without use. Just sign in again from CV → Sign In (Link Workstation) and finish in the browser — see Membership & Tokens → Signing in your CAD seat.

AI features are locked in cv-web. Panel auto-layout and pick simulation require an active membership (or trial). If your membership lapsed, reactivate it from the customer portal at simplestruct.com. Your tokens and licensed drawings are not affected by a lapse.

Installation & startup (first run)

After installing, there is no ConstructiVision menu or toolbar in AutoCAD. ConstructiVision installs as an Autodesk App Store plug-in bundle that AutoCAD loads automatically at startup. Work through these in order:

1. Confirm the plug-in loaded. Type CSV at the command line and press Enter. If a ConstructiVision dialog opens, the application is loaded and only the menu/toolbar needs restoring (step 3). If you get “Unknown command”, continue to step 2.

2. Look for a load error on the command line. If you see [CSV-ERROR] CSV.VLX was found but failed to load, the program file is present but could not load — usually a partial download or an AutoCAD version mismatch. Reinstall the bundle from the Autodesk App Store and confirm you are on AutoCAD 2025 or newer (the release ConstructiVision targets). Then restart AutoCAD.

3. Restore the menu and toolbar. If CSV works but the pull-down menu or toolbar is missing, the menu customization did not load. Restart AutoCAD once (the plug-in re-loads it per drawing); if it is still missing, run CUILOAD, browse to the installed csv.cuix, and load it.

4. If nothing ConstructiVision-related appears at all, the bundle is not installed where AutoCAD looks for plug-ins. Reinstall from the Autodesk App Store and restart AutoCAD — the installer places the bundle in AutoCAD’s ApplicationPlugins folder automatically.

5. Check the diagnostic log. ConstructiVision writes a plain-text startup log to %LOCALAPPDATA%\SimpleStruct\ConstructiVision\cv-diag.log (open it in Notepad). Each start records the chain — whether the program file loaded ([CV-START] CSV.VLX load OK) and whether the menu installed ([CV-MENU] ... INSTALLED). If a line shows a failure, it tells you — and support — the exact step to fix. Attach this file if you contact support.

A security / trusted-location prompt appears when ConstructiVision loads. Newer AutoCAD releases warn before running code from an untrusted folder. Allow the ConstructiVision bundle to load (or add its ApplicationPlugins folder to Options → Files → Trusted Locations). The App Store installer registers the bundle for you; this prompt is most common after a manual copy.

Project setup

I typed the project name in Project Details but had to type it again in the next dialog. Fixed in the July 2026 update — the project name you enter in Project Details now carries into the next dialog automatically. On older builds simply retype it there; no data is lost, and the name you entered first is still saved with the project.

cv-web (simplestruct.com)

I can’t sign in, or the sign-in window closes without signing me in. Signing in hands you to your provider (Google, LinkedIn, or Autodesk — or email and password) and then returns you to a brief “Signing you in…” page that finishes the sign-in. That return step must complete in the same browser where you started: if you began in a private/incognito window, or a sign-in link opened in a different browser than the one you used, the handshake cannot finish and you land back signed out. Retry in one normal (non-private) browser window from start to finish. If the provider button fails outright, use Email me a sign-in link instead — the link goes to your email and works even if you never set a password; open it in the same browser you requested it from. Creating an account requires a company email address: sign-ups from public email providers (gmail.com, outlook.com, yahoo.com, and the like) are refused with “please sign up with a company email”, because your ConstructiVision organization — the team that shares tokens and drawing licenses — is keyed to your company’s email domain. Sign up with your work address and teammates at the same domain join your organization automatically. See Membership & Tokens.

A share link someone sent me shows an error instead of a panel book. A share link carries the entire panel book inside the link itself — everything after the # is the book — so a link that arrives incomplete has lost the data with it. “This share link is missing its panel book data” means everything after # was dropped; “Share link is corrupt or incomplete” means the tail was cut off. Chat and email apps sometimes truncate or split very long links: ask the sender to copy the link again with the Copy Share Link button (not by selecting it from the address bar) and to send it as a single unbroken line, or to export the book as a .cvp file and send that instead. If the error says “Upgrade cv-web to open it”, the book was made by a newer cv-web than your browser has cached — reload the page (Ctrl+F5) and open the link again. See Share a panel book by link.

A workstation shows Expired or Expired (idle) on the Billing page. Workstation authorizations age out on their own: 90 days after the machine was authorized, or after 30 days without a print or export from it — whichever comes first. An expired row is normal housekeeping, not a fault. To bring the machine back, sign in again from ConstructiVision on that workstation (CV → Sign In (Link Workstation)) and it reappears as Active. Revoked is different — someone clicked Revoke on the Billing page; the fix is the same fresh sign-in. See Manage your billing → Authorized workstations and Membership & Tokens.

cv-web says read-only — a banner across the top says my membership expired. The editor unlocks only while you are signed in with a membership that is active or in trial; when a membership is canceled, past due, or expired, cv-web opens your projects read-only and the banner names the reason. Nothing is lost: your projects, your organization’s token balance, and every already-licensed drawing are untouched by a lapse, and remaining tokens can still be spent on print and export. To edit again, click Reactivate on the banner (or open Billing and use the customer portal) — or simply sign in, if the banner says Read-only mode. Sign in to edit. See Membership & Tokens and Manage your billing.

Drawing & display

The CV menu or toolbar is missing while you are working. The program is loaded; its menu or toolbar is just not on screen. Confirm ConstructiVision is loaded by typing CSV and pressing Enter — if a dialog opens, only the menu or toolbar needs restoring; if you get “Unknown command,” the plug-in did not load, so work through Installation & startup above. If the toolbar is gone but the CV menu is still there, it was most likely closed or cleared by a reload — choose CV → Show CV Toolbar to rebuild it (safe to run any time the toolbar disappears). If the whole CV menu is gone too, restart AutoCAD once; ConstructiVision re-installs its menu each time you open a drawing, so a fresh start normally brings both back. See Command & Toolbar Reference for the full list of buttons and menu items.

The Model tab is empty, but the panel shows on a layout tab — and re-drawing from Model doubles everything up. The panel was drawn into the layout (paper space) rather than into model space, so model space really is empty and the layout is holding the only copy. Panels normally live in model space and are shown on a layout through a viewport, and ConstructiVision’s re-draw clears and rebuilds whichever space you are standing in — so re-drawing from the Model tab rebuilds the panel in model space while the layout’s own copy stays exactly where it is, and the sheet ends up showing both at once. Re-drawing from the layout tab appears to work, because there the layout is the space being rebuilt.

Move the panel back into model space once, and it behaves normally from then on:

1. Type CV-SPACE-CENSUS and press Enter. It prints how many objects are in model space and in each layout. If a layout’s count is far higher than model space’s, this is your problem.

2. Type CV-SPACE-RECOVER. It copies the panel from the layout into model space — an exact copy, at the same size and position — then switches you to the Model tab and zooms to it.

3. Look at the Model tab and confirm the panel is there and correct. Nothing has been removed yet, so if anything is wrong, UNDO puts the drawing back as it was.

4. When the Model tab looks right, type CV-SPACE-FINISH. This removes the layout’s leftover copy — keeping the viewports — so the sheet renders model space like every other panel. Save the drawing.

Run the two commands in that order: CV-SPACE-FINISH refuses to run if the copy has not landed, so it cannot delete the only copy of your panel.

I enabled a feature (weld connection, opening, recess…) but it did not appear on the panel. The panel is drawn from the data saved on it, so a feature appears only once it is switched on and has real values to draw. The most common cause is a row that is present but not enabled — the feature checkbox on Main Panel Details is on, but the individual row inside the feature’s dialog is left un-checked, or its size/position fields are blank, zero, or outside the panel; a feature toggled on with empty or out-of-range values draws nothing, silently. The other common cause is that the panel has not been re-drawn since the change. Re-open the feature — its toolbar button (for example Standard Opening, Weld Connections, or Ledger / Top Plate) or Edit Main Panel → the feature checklist — confirm the feature is checked and each row you want is Enabled with a non-zero width and height and a position inside the panel outline, then click OK to redraw. See Add weld connections (or the how-to for your feature).

A change I made did not appear after I saved and re-opened the drawing. ConstructiVision stores every panel’s data inside the drawing file and rebuilds the geometry from it, so an ordinary AutoCAD save keeps your panel data with the drawing. When a change reaches the screen but not the next session, the cause is almost always one of three things that happen before the file is written. Confirm the dialog with OK — a feature dialog writes your change only when you click OK; Cancel, the window’s X, or Esc discards what you typed and the panel keeps its previous geometry. Then save the drawing with QSAVE (Ctrl+S); if you close AutoCAD and answer No to Save changes?, the confirmed edit is thrown away. Finally, reopen the same drawing — if you work from copies or shared folders, use Open Drawing to browse to the file you actually saved into, not an older copy. If the value is still present when you re-open the dialog, nothing was lost — click OK to redraw. This is the same open → set → OK → save loop from Getting Started.

My chamfer settings disappeared after saving and reopening the drawing. Fixed in the July 2026 update — chamfer settings now persist with the panel like every other feature, so they survive save and reopen. Earlier builds kept chamfer edits only for the working session: the panel drew correctly at the time, but the values were not stored with the drawing, so the next open lost them. If you are on an older build, re-enter the chamfer settings after reopening and click OK to redraw, or update to the current release from the Autodesk App Store — the same bundle described under Installation & startup above.

A door I marked as Future came back as a normal door after reopening the drawing. Fixed in the July 2026 update — the Future? flag is now read back with the rest of the door’s data, so a future opening stays a future opening across save and reopen. Earlier builds dropped the flag on the next open and drew the door with a swing again, as if it were installed today. If you are on an older build, open Man Door Details, re-check Future? on the affected row, and click OK to redraw — the rest of the door’s values are unaffected. See Add a man door and Tutorial 5: Door.

Rows I typed in Weld Connections vanished after using Edit Embeds. Fixed in the July 2026 update — rows you have typed now survive the round trip to the embeds editor. Earlier builds repainted the Weld Connections dialog from the last-saved state when you returned from Edit Embeds, so rows that had not been saved yet disappeared. If you are on an older build, open Edit Embeds first, add the embed types you need, then fill in your rows and click OK.

Top Peak Elevation stays greyed out after I enter a Top Peak Distance. Fixed in the July 2026 update — the Top Peak Elevation field in Main Panel Details now unlocks the moment you enter a non-zero Top Peak Distance. Earlier builds checked the lock only when the dialog opened, so on a fresh panel the elevation box stayed grey until you clicked OK and reopened the dialog. If you are on an older build, that is the workaround: enter the distance, click OK, then reopen Edit Main Panel and the elevation field is available. (A distance of zero still means no peak, so the field stays locked until a distance exists — see Tutorial 2: Panel Options for the peak fields.)

Dimensions overlap, or the panel runs off the sheet edge. Every panel is drawn to a fixed sheet, and the sheet border is the page edge — nothing is meant to sit outside it. When a panel is too wide for the sheet upright, ConstructiVision rotates it 90° so the long dimension runs across the sheet, and where dimensions would collide on a dense panel it nudges them apart and pulls the crowded ones out to leaders. The layout is sized to the Drawing Scale, so a set that fits at one scale can overflow at a larger one. First let the program re-fit: open Edit Main Panel, set Drawing Scale back to Auto Scale, and click OK to redraw. If dimensions still overlap in one spot, two features usually share a location — open those dialogs (for example Standard Opening, Weld Connections, or Recess / Blockout), confirm their positions, and OK to redraw. If the whole panel still runs off the border after Auto Scale, double-check the Width and Height in Main Panel Details in case a value was entered in the wrong units.

Site drawings

My site drawing shows two copies of every panel. Attach Panels always adds a fresh set of panel references — it does not remove the set already standing in the drawing — so running it a second time stacks a new copy on top of the first. Run Detach Panels, then Attach Panels once, and the drawing is back to a single set. Make detaching the habit: detach before every re-attach, including after a panel’s width changes or the wall lines are redrawn. See Tutorial 11: Attach Panels and Lay out the site for the detach → attach cycle.

Layout Panels tipped my panels flat but did not arrange them. That is the intended division of labor. The first Layout Panels run lays every attached panel down flat where it stands — the casting orientation — and records that layout with the drawing; placing the flat panels into their casting arrangement is your move, with ordinary AutoCAD MOVE (and ROTATE where a spot calls for it). When the arrangement is right, click Save Layout to record it — from then on Layout Panels brings back the recorded casting arrangement and Tilt-up Panels stands the set back up. See Tutorial 12: Construction Layout for the full flatten → arrange → save loop.

Tilt-up Panels says you must Attach Panels before Tilt-Up. Tilt-up Panels stands the set up from the record that Attach Panels writes at attach time. This message means the drawing has no such record — the panels were never attached here, or came into the drawing some other way (copied or inserted by hand rather than attached). Run Attach Panels once so the record exists, then run Tilt-up Panels again. See Tutorial 11: Attach Panels.

Attach Panels says no wall lines were found. Attach Panels places panels along the site drawing’s wall lines, so it stops when the drawing has none and no stored wall-line data to rebuild them from — the walls were never defined in this drawing. Open the site drawing (Edit Existing Site Drawing), define the building grids and then the walls in the Wall Lines dialog — grids come first — and click OK to draw them. Then run Attach Panels again. Tutorial 10: Site Drawing walks the whole sequence.

Printing & output

The panel book printed wrong — missing panels, wrong scale, blank sheets, or the wrong printer. A panel book is only as right as the choices you make before it runs: which panels you pick in Batch Utilities, and which layers, device, and paper size you confirm — layers in Batch Utilities → Printing Options, device and paper in the plot dialog that opens as it runs. Missing panels mean they were not selected: re-open Batch Utilities from the CV menu, sort by Panel Number or Date Modified, multi-select every panel you want (or Select All), check the Print Panel Book operation, and run again; a panel that is not in the list at all is not in the current project folder, so open that project first. Wrong printer or scale come from the plot dialog during the run — each panel is zoomed and centered to fit first, then pick a real Plot Device (for a PDF, AutoCAD PDF (High Quality Print) or DWG To PDF.pc3) and a real Plot Style; while either shows None the OK button stays greyed out and the run cannot continue, which is the usual reason a batch will not proceed past this dialog. Set Paper Size to the sheet your title block targets. Nearly-empty sheets mean the layers were narrowed to one trade — back in Printing Options, turn on Print All Layers (or check every trade you need: Edge Form, Reveal, Ledger/Top Plate, Pick/Brace Points, Weld Connections, Custom) before you run the book.

The materials list shows “(not in catalog)” for every connection, even though the types exist. Fixed in the July 2026 update — connections on the materials list now resolve to their full names from the project’s component catalog, the same names the Weld Connections dialog shows, so (not in catalog) appears only when an embed’s type genuinely is missing from the project’s component list. Earlier builds could not match the placed embeds back to the catalog, so every connection row carried the flag even when the type was defined. The quantities were always correct — only the names were affected — so a list from an older build still totals properly once you match the rows to the catalog by hand. (If you run the compiled release build, this fix arrives with the next release build on the Autodesk App Store.) See Generate a materials list and Tutorial 13: Materials List & the Panel Book.

The materials list has no bolt rows for a panel with a steel top plate or ledger. Fixed in the July 2026 update — the anchor bolts a steel top plate or ledger casts into the panel are now counted, appearing as J Bolt rows under Fasteners, grouped by bolt size. Earlier builds left them out of the list entirely, even though the bolts were drawn on the panel. Note that a wood ledger or top-plate bar still shows no fastener row, and that is by design: a wood bar draws its bolt array as tick marks on the bar, with the bolt spec and spacing carried on the bar’s call-out, and those arrays are not yet totaled per piece — see the J-bolt note in Generate a materials list. (If you run the compiled release build, this fix arrives with the next release build on the Autodesk App Store.) See also Tutorial 13: Materials List & the Panel Book.

A pick point placed above the panel top is missing from the materials list. Fixed in the July 2026 update — a lifting insert placed above the panel top carries no insert size, and earlier builds dropped it from the count instead of tallying it. It now appears on its own TOP_PICK row under Pick Points, separate from the sized insert groups, so the pick count on the list matches the picks on the drawing. (If you run the compiled release build, this fix arrives with the next release build on the Autodesk App Store.) See Generate a materials list and Tutorial 13: Materials List & the Panel Book.

I ran an export but can’t find the output file. Exports (engineering data, project JSON) are written to your per-user folder: %LOCALAPPDATA%\SimpleStruct\ConstructiVision\exports\ — paste that into the File Explorer address bar to open it. If that location is unavailable the export falls back to the drawing’s own folder, then to your temp folder. Builds from before mid-2026 wrote to C:\CV-Validation\exports instead, which silently failed on accounts without administrator rights — if you are on an older build and see no output at all, update to the current release and re-run the export.

A batch operation stopped part way through. Batch Utilities opens, prints, and closes the panels one after another — let one batch finish before starting another. If it stalls on a panel, open that panel on its own to see the problem, then re-run the book on the remaining panels.

For the full walkthrough see Print a panel book; to print a single drawing with exact control over device, paper, and layers, use Plot and print drawings.

Getting more help

The ConstructiVision Web Page menu item opens an error page. Fixed in the July 2026 update — the menu item now opens simplestruct.com. Older builds pointed it at an address that no longer exists; until you update, browse to simplestruct.com directly.

• Search this site (top-left search box) for your term or error message.

• Use Edit this page (top-right) to report a documentation gap.