SolidWorks 2021 Stable?

[S.Casale]

It's great to see so many old SW User forum faces and users on here. First post on this forum for me. It'd been a while. SWIFT!

We're looking to upgrade to 2021 from 2018. Anyone notice any glaring gotchas to note?

Thanks in advance y'all!

[mike miller]

Only about half a dozen major bugs, plus a lot more "minor" ones in the attached list. I'm still on SP1 because the only way to install service packs is to do a complete uninstall and re-install for some stupid reason.

-Balloons and exploded views simply don't get along. Attaching to exploded components can be next to impossible sometimes.
-Stability is worse.
-Sketch Bend is incredibly finicky. It will error out if you comb your hair the wrong way and there is often no fixing.
-Mate solving seems to be broken. Errors show up constantly and Ctrl+Q pacifies it.


I'd stay with 2018 unless you have a compelling reason to "upgrade".

[jcapriotti]

Only about half a dozen major bugs, plus a lot more "minor" ones in the attached list. I'm still on SP1 because the only way to install service packs is to do a complete uninstall and re-install for some stupid reason.

Something corrupt for your installation? I installed sp0, then upgraded to sp1, sp2, then sp3. No issue.

[S.Casale]

Only about half a dozen major bugs, plus a lot more "minor" ones in the attached list. I'm still on SP1 because the only way to install service packs is to do a complete uninstall and re-install for some stupid reason.

-Balloons and exploded views simply don't get along. Attaching to exploded components can be next to impossible sometimes.
-Stability is worse.
-Sketch Bend is incredibly finicky. It will error out if you comb your hair the wrong way and there is often no fixing.
-Mate solving seems to be broken. Errors show up constantly and Ctrl+Q pacifies it.


I'd stay with 2018 unless you have a compelling reason to "upgrade".

Thanks for your feedback.

[Glenn Schroeder]

It's worked pretty well for me, though I did run into the issue with exploded views (it's not just balloons, see viewtopic.php?f=3&t=409&p=4696&hilit=exploded#p4696).

[bnemec]

I've been reading these, "is version 1234 stable?" topics for a couple of years. One thing I see is some say, "Yeah, all good, no problems." others say "nothing but problems, new bugs and the old fixes didn't apply to problems we were having." I think what we're missing is context.

One big divider I see is PDM. In general non-PDM users have fewer problems with SW. That's just because there's fewer things to go wrong, I've been trying to understand PDM for nearly 2 years and the only thing I'm certain of is it's every bit as complicated as Solidworks itself.

Then there's a lot of different uses. Example, we don't use weldments, external refs, or pretty much any form of top down; many others do. So how do we convey the context of our experiences be it success or failures?

[Frederick_Law]

No problem, no PDM.
All non-certified hardware and driver.
Both laptop and desktop.

[SPerman]

I'd stay with 2018 unless you have a compelling reason to "upgrade".

A big +1 from me. If I just had to upgrade, I would go to 2020. That's where I am now, and I wish I were still on 2018.

At some point between 2019 and 2020 they added a hidden "pause" feature. Solidworks will be "busy" for longish periods of time, but there is no activity on the PC.

[Frederick_Law]

At some point between 2019 and 2020 they added a hidden "pause" feature.

Like what Apple did to iPhone. Slow them down to save battery.
SW did that to prevent your computer from exploding.

[RichGergely]

I think I will wait till SP6 that version is guaranteed to be 100% bug free.

[S.Casale]

I've been reading these, "is version 1234 stable?" topics for a couple of years. One thing I see is some say, "Yeah, all good, no problems." others say "nothing but problems, new bugs and the old fixes didn't apply to problems we were having." I think what we're missing is context.

One big divider I see is PDM. In general non-PDM users have fewer problems with SW. That's just because there's fewer things to go wrong, I've been trying to understand PDM for nearly 2 years and the only thing I'm certain of is it's every bit as complicated as Solidworks itself.

Then there's a lot of different uses. Example, we don't use weldments, external refs, or pretty much any form of top down; many others do. So how do we convey the context of our experiences be it success or failures?

PDM is a huge help for controlling your information, especially when needed. It's great to protect from users who don't care or understand design intent, or users who don't care about anything but getting this one done and hoping to never look back. IF users have a good understanding of file control and how windows works, then perhaps PDM isn't necessary.

I much prefer a program that works similar to ENovia (PLM) but without the bugs ENovia has.

[S.Casale]

It's worked pretty well for me, though I did run into the issue with exploded views (it's not just balloons, see viewtopic.php?f=3&t=409&p=4696&hilit=exploded#p4696).

The balloon problem is 100% a show stopper for 2021 and where I drew the line and let our organization know that if we are to upgrade, we should go to 2020. Now let's see if our IT Network Admin ( makes all software decisions for the org ) goes with my SME recommendation.

[jcapriotti]

Fixed in 2021 sp4 which is currently in testing.

image.png (4.71 KiB) Viewed 2404 times

[SPerman]

Allegedly Fixed in 2021 sp4 which is currently in testing.

image.png

FIFY

[jcapriotti]

FIFY

ofc

[Lapuo]

SW 18 was crashing only when i was "forcing it"
It was fast and stable

SW21 has some new features which are very usable to me, but it is really slow (opening times especially) and a lot of crashes as well

integrated with pro.file here