SOLIDWORKS errors
These are document problems, not CADABRA problems. Debug Mode is built for them: it rebuilds, reads the diagnostics, and reports the root cause without touching the model.
Start in Debug Mode
Pick Debug from the mode pill in the composer with the failing document open, and describe the symptom. Before it answers anything, Debug always runs four calls, in this order.
get_doc_meta, for the document type, units, title and active configuration, so the report is anchored to the file in front of you.list_features, walking the whole FeatureManager design tree rather than sampling it.rebuild_and_collect_diagnostics, a forced rebuild that reads the feature warnings, and the component warnings as well on an assembly. This is the one thing a read-only mode does that you will see happen in the SOLIDWORKS window.check_external_refs, reporting broken and missing external references by name.
It is the only read-only mode that forces a rebuild, which is why it beats asking. A stale error list describes the document as it was before your last change; Debug describes it as it is now.
Where the diagnostics or the tree show a problem it opens the affected feature and quotes the specific code or message rather than paraphrasing it. On a sketch or profile fault it reads the parent sketch. On an assembly it validates the mates, finds the mates on any component carrying a warning, and runs an interference or distance check when clearance is the suspected cause.
Every Debug reply comes back under five fixed headings: Document, Feature health, External references, Root cause, Recommended next steps. Confirmed facts are separated from hypotheses. Full behavior is in Debug Mode.
Worked examples
Send these in Debug Mode with the failing document open. Selecting the feature first is not required, naming it is enough.
- Cut-Extrude3 failed to rebuild. What happened?
- Rebuilds, quotes the diagnostic on Cut-Extrude3, then opens the feature and its parents to name what it lost. The report separates the error your last change caused from errors already in the file, and the blast radius lists the downstream features that depend on it.
- Why are there dangling relations in Sketch7?
- Reads the parent sketch and lists the broken and dangling relations, each row naming the entities it binds. The cause is a relation pointing at an edge or face that a parent feature no longer produces, so the fix is upstream of the sketch, not in it.
- This part has a broken external reference. Which one, and what consumes it?
- Runs the external reference check on its own and returns each row with the owning feature, the referenced entity, the owning component and the status. A missing file and an unresolved in-context reference report differently, so you know whether to repair a path or repair the geometry.
- Sketch2 is over-defined. Which constraints conflict?
- Reports the sketch constraint status, which is one of
UnderConstrained,FullyConstrained,OverConstrained,NoSolutionorInvalidSolution, and lists the relations with the indices that identify them, so you can delete the specific one rather than hunting. - The bracket will not mate correctly in this assembly. What is wrong?
- Validates every mate, including sub-assembly mates, and sorts them into healthy, suppressed, over-defined and error. It then finds the mates on the component you named, and checks interference or distance when clearance is the suspect.
Ask Mode, the read-only fallback
Ask Mode is on every plan including Free, and it reads the same document: the feature tree, the current selection, the assembly summary, and up to 12 features already in error or warning.
What it does not do is rebuild. It reports the errors SOLIDWORKS recorded at the last rebuild, so on a document you have edited since, the list can be stale. It also does not run the mate validation, the sketch introspection or the external reference check as a required step, though it can call them when the question points at them.
It changes nothing, which makes it safe on a released or checked-out file. When the answer implies a change it offers a Run in Agent handoff rather than making one. See Ask Mode.
Errors that appear after a CADABRA edit
The cause is the same as any other downstream failure: a feature depended on something the edit changed. What is different is the recovery.
CADABRA compares the rebuild errors before and after each operation, so an error it caused is reported differently from one that was already in the file. If a single operation fails after changing a value, the captured value is restored and re-read to confirm the restore, and if that restore fails the message names what could not be put back.
Revert is a feature-tree diff, not a SOLIDWORKS undo record. It deletes the features the run added and names them, names any it could not delete, and reports an in-place change that added no feature as not undone. Read what revert really does first, then decide between reverting and repairing.
Run Debug on the document afterwards. It will tell you whether the tree is clean, which is the one thing the run itself cannot promise you.
Getting it fixed
Debug never edits, and never receives a mutating tool or the VBA tool. Take the root cause it gives you to one of these.
- Fix it now: Agent Mode, which performs the repair as native feature operations.
- Write the repair down and approve it first: Plan Mode, 4 to 10 steps, no edits.
- The document is a drawing rather than a part or assembly: every prompt on an active drawing routes through Drawings Mode regardless of the mode on the pill, and needs Drawings access.
Nothing verifies that the repaired geometry is the geometry you wanted. CADABRA can tell you the rebuild is clean; it cannot tell you the result is right. Review it.