Reporting a Problem

When something goes wrong in ParametrIQ CAD (it closes, shows an error, or a drawing, calculation or export comes out wrong), Help › Report a Problem… sends us a report, so we can find the problem and fix it. Nothing is sent until you click Send, and you can see exactly what will be sent first.

Writing the report

Choosing Report a Problem… first takes pictures of the program (see Screenshots), then opens the dialog:

• Summary: the problem in a line. This is the only thing you must fill in.
• Category: a crash or error message; a wrong result; windows, menus and panels; opening, importing or exporting files; the licence and activation; or something else.
• How bad is it?: from a minor annoyance to lost work or a program that can't be used.
• What happened, What you expected and Steps to make it happen: the more we know, the quicker we can find it. Steps that make the problem happen again from the start are the most useful of all.
• Email for a reply: your licence's address is filled in. We use it only to reply about this report; change it, or clear it if you don't want a reply.

Screenshots

The pictures are taken before the dialog opens, so they show the program as it was when you chose the command:

• ParametrIQ CAD's window, with its panels and menus;
• each 3D view that is showing, taken separately (the 3D view draws straight to the screen, so it isn't in the picture of the window);
• The whole screen the window is on. This one is offered but not sent unless you tick its Include.

Untick Include under a picture to leave it out. Black Out… opens the picture large: drag over anything you don't want us to see (a customer's name, say) to cover it with a black box; Undo takes the last box away and Clear all of them; Apply keeps them. The boxes are painted onto the picture on your computer before it is sent, so what is under them never leaves it.

On Linux, pictures of the 3D view and the screen need grim (Wayland) or ImageMagick's import (X11) to be installed; without them, only the window's picture is taken.

What else is sent

Under Also send:

• The drawing, as it is now (changes not yet saved included). This is off unless you tick it: the whole drawing is sent, with everything in it, so include it only if you are happy for us to see it. It often helps us find the problem much more quickly.
• Recent messages: the last 200 messages in the Interactive window and the end of the program's crash log.
• System information: the program's version, the operating system and .NET, how the 3D view draws and the graphics card, your language settings, the screens and memory, and your licence's plan and status on this computer.

Your licence key, your activation, passwords and the computer's name are never sent: they are taken out of every part of the report (the texts, the drawing and the messages included) before it is built.

Preview: exactly what is sent

Preview What Is Sent… shows the report exactly as it will be sent: the report itself (as the text the server receives) and each file with it, the screenshots with their black boxes, the drawing and messages as text. What you see there is what Send sends.

Sending

Send sends the report over a secure (HTTPS) connection to ParametrIQ's licence server, in the background: a small window shows how far it has got, and you can carry on working (closing that window doesn't stop it). When the report has arrived, the window shows its reference, such as PQ-7K3M-Q9XD: quote it if you write to us about the problem. The Interactive window shows the reference too.

The report goes with this computer's activation, which tells us which licence and computer it came from, so a report can only be sent from a copy of ParametrIQ CAD that is activated (or was, recently).

Save to File… writes the report instead as a ZIP file (the report and each file with it, exactly as they would be sent), for you to email to support or send another way.

When it can't be sent now

Each report is kept on your computer until the server has received it. If it can't be sent (you're offline, say, or the server is busy), it is kept and the window says so. The next time ParametrIQ CAD starts, it lists the reports waiting and asks whether to send them now; nothing is sent without your say. Each one is tried again a few times, waiting longer each time; a report that still hasn't been sent after a month is removed, with a word in the Interactive window. Sending a report again never makes a second copy of it.

A report the server refuses (too big, say) isn't kept: you're told why and offered to save it to a file instead.

After a crash

If ParametrIQ CAD closes unexpectedly, the next time it starts it asks whether you'd like to report the problem. The dialog opens with the category, the summary and the error's details (shown under Error details, and sent with the report) filled in: add what you were doing, and send it as usual.

Privacy

Reports are kept in ParametrIQ's licence database and read only by the people who deal with them. We use them only to find and fix problems and to reply to you about them. See our privacy policy for how long they are kept, and how to ask us to delete one.