Performance issues due to Annotation Scales

This one is the one that could easily be in the category of “back by popular demand”. Recently I had number of new reports of performance issues with Civil 3D drawings. They go as far as user not being able to copy simple polyline to not being able to add new objects such as feature lines or issues that cause software to not respond quickly. The issue is often caused by the “annotation scales,” a list of predefined scales). This list can also be seen if you type AECDWGSETUP in command line and check Scale tab. In many cases these annotation scales are coming from XREFs and they multiply inside of your drawing causing it to behave as described before.

So as a good practice for any drawing suspicions to me I check for presence of extensive annotation scales. Often I am surprised to see them and often they are the cause of the issues. So to resolve this all we need to do is to type SCALELISTEDIT or –SCALELISTEDIT and choose Reset option and save the drawing. Try these any time you notice slow responses from commands, disappearing objects or slow opening or saving of the drawing and see if resetting annotation scales helps.