Dynamo FAQ
Q: The background 3D preview is not available.
A: Since Dynamo 0.8.2, Dynamo uses DirectX for hardware accelerated graphics. If the background preview is missing, your machine might have switchable graphics. Many laptops have two GPUs, a dedicated GPU (NVidia, AMD, etc.) and an "integrated" GPU (Intel HD Graphics). Graphics card manufacturers have each developed their own protocols for switching between your integrated chip and your "high performance" chip to conserve battery life. In most cases these manufacturers provide a control panel where you can specify what applications should use the dedicated GPU. Autodesk has published a number of pages for different applications on dealing with these issues. We recommend you try some of the solutions listed here or here.
If you face issues seeing the background preview on Windows 10 machines, make sure you have the necessary end-user DirectX runtimes installed, which can be found here. If all of the above suggestions fail with an AMD card then you may wish to try this from BreannaD:
"After several months of fighting with this on a Dell Precision 3510 with Switchable Graphics (Intel integrated and AMD GPU), I finally narrowed down our issue. The solution, for us, was actually the OPPOSITE to what a lot of people are suggesting.... We had to point Dynamo to use the Integrated Intel card, because it was the AMD card that was not displaying correctly! So, in short, many people are suggesting to assign your Dynamo to "High Performance/Maximize Performance" in your GPU settings, but actually what we needed to do was select "Power Save/Low Performance", which then points the program to the integrated card instead. If anyone else has tried to point Dynamo to their nVidia/AMD card without avail, try doing the opposite. Worked for me."
Q: Can I use Dynamo with Parallels or Fusion on my Mac?
A: Yes! In order to use Dynamo with Parallels or Fusion on a Mac, you will need to enable Hardware Acceleration. To learn more, see this article in the Parallels knowledge base. As of this writing, Parallels only supports DirectX 10, so any future Dynamo features based on a higher version of DirectX may not be available. Fusion Version 8 supports DirectX 10, previous versions do not.
Q: Can I use Dynamo on a virtual machine like those provided by Amazon EC2?
A: Yes. The best way is to use a G2 (GPU) instance. You can see more about instance types here. Dynamo also supports WARP, so it may also be possible to use a non-GPU instance type which has been configured to support WARP, but this has not been tested at the time of this writing.
Q: I'm a BIM manager, can I turn off update notifications in Dynamo?
A: Yes. If you can create an xml file named UpdateManagerConfig.xml with following content, in your Dynamo installation directory, then update manager is disabled. Once this file is deleted, update manager is available again.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<UpdateManagerConfiguration xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<InstallerNameBase>DONOTINSTALL</InstallerNameBase>
</UpdateManagerConfiguration>Q: How to change the backup frequency?
A: By default, Dynamo files will be automatically backed up every one minute. The frequency can be changed through the file: "%AppData%/Dynamo/<version number>/DynamoSettings.xml". The <version number> need to be updated to a proper one. For example, if you are using Dynamo 0.8.2, it is 0.8 and the file is "%AppData%/Dynamo/0.8/DynamoSettings.xml". After you find this file, you can find a place like this in the file:
<BackupInterval>60000</BackupInterval>60000 above means 60000ms. You can change the backup frequency by modifying this number.
Q: I'm working in Dynamo, but nothing is happening in Revit, and I don't seem to have any nodes which work on Revit.
A: To use Dynamo on Revit, you'll need to use Dynamo for Revit. As of Revit 2016, Dynamo is now shipped with Revit, and is available in the Addins tab (2016) or the Manage tab (2017). You must open Dynamo from one of these locations in Revit. Although workspaces created in Dynamo Studio are compatible with Dynamo for Revit, you will not be able to communicate with Dynamo for Revit directly from the Dynamo Studio application.
Q: How do I get Dynamo's Python functionality to work again, and use other applications which rely on IronPython?
A:
Dynamo installs IronPython 2.7.3 into the GAC or (Global Assembly Cache). Other applications which rely on IronPython,like Rhino6 may use a different version of ironPython, but instead they find the version Dynamo installed, and this causes problems.
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To fix this problem you'll want to remove IronPython 2.7.3 from the GAC. Depending on your Dynamo version the fix is slightly different.
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An alternative solution that is reported to work via the forums, but is not tested is to install ironPython 2.7.4. or ironPython 2.7.5 (with GAC install enabled) - This is reported to work with Dynamo 1.x and Rhino 6. You will likely need to uninstall ironPython 2.7.3 first.
Navigate to ControlPanel -> Programs and Features
Find IronPython 2.7.3 Right Click on it and Select Change Click the Change button and disable the GAC Assemblies feature.
This will remove ironPython 2.7.3 from the GAC. Dynamo and Rhino will now use their local versions instead.
Copy the Files:
IronPython.Modules.dll
IronPython.dll
Microsoft.Scripting.dll
Microsoft.Scripting.MetaData.dll
Microsoft.Dynamic.dll
from C:\Program Files (x86)\IronPython 2.7 to your Dynamo install root directory so they sit alongside the other DynamoCore .dlls. This is usually: C:\Program Files\Dynamo\Dynamo Core\1.x
Q: How do I transfer ownership of or delete a package from the Package Manager?
A: Currently, transfer of package ownership is not permitted. You have the option of deploying a new package under a new account.
However, you can deprecate or request deletion of the original package. To deprecate a package, the author of the package can use the Package Manager UI.
If you wish to submit a deletion request, please send an email to dynamoteam@dynamobim.org with the subject line ‘Package Deletion Request’ and make sure to provide the package name. Upon receiving the request a confirmation email will be sent to the package author’s email associated with the package. Once the author has approved the request deletion will occur within 30 days. If the author does not respond within 30 days a new deletion request is required.
Please note that deleting a package does not free up the package name for reuse by new packages.