Troubleshooting Corrupt Multisheet Drawings

When a file is corrupted, SolidWorks will usually give an error message "SolidWorks encountered an error opening the document".  If this is happening in a multi-sheet drawing, the source of the corruption can be the drawing itself or one of the sheets within the drawing.

The option to load all drawing sheets in Quick View has been removed as of SOLIDWORKS 2022. There are two different processes for troubleshooting corrupt drawings because of this. Please refer to each section corresponding to your version year.

Identifying Corrupted Sheets (Later than SOLIDWORKS 2021)

1. Go to File > Open and select the drawing but do not open the file yet.
2. Use the "Mode" slider to select "Resolved".
3. Press "Select Sheets..." and select the "None option. All of the sheets listed below should say "Quick View". Open the drawing.
   
4. If the drawing loads without an error, close the drawing (File > Close), and repeat step 3. This time, select only one specific sheet to load.
   
5. If you can successfully load this sheet (no error messages and all data onscreen appears as expected), complete step 4 again for the second sheet. Repeat this until you have checked all sheets. This will help indicate which sheets are corrupted.
6. Once the healthy sheets have been located, please go to the "Fixing The Drawing File" section.

Identifying Corrupted Sheets (Earlier than SOLIDWORKS 2021)

1. Go to File->Open and select the drawing but do not open the file yet.

2. Under the Mode dropdown, select "Quick View" and click Open.

3. Right-click on one of the sheets and select "Load Sheet".  If the error appears when loading this sheet, then this is likely one of the sheets that is causing the issue. 

4. Repeat the previous steps, skipping any sheets that caused the issue after loading the sheet.

Fixing The Drawing File

Once the problematic sheets have been found, the file can be fixed by removing any corrupted sheets.

1. Use the Quick View mode to load a working sheet by clicking on the "Select sheets to open..." (or "Select Sheets") button.  Then pick the "Selected" radio button and highlight a working sheet.

2. Left-click on any corrupted sheets in the FeatureManager to select it and press the "Delete" key on the keyboard.

3. Recreate the corrupted sheets.

If the corrupt error message is still appearing after removing the problematic sheets or there doesn't seem to be a particular sheet that is causing this, it is possible that the drawing file itself is corrupted and not just the sheets.  In this case:

1. Copy the working sheets to a new drawing file by following the "For Drawings" section in the article below:

https://support.hawkridgesys.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000478132-Unable-To-Save-File

2. Recreate the corrupted sheets in the new drawing.

For further technical support, please contact Hawk Ridge Systems at 877.266.4469 for the U.S. or 866.587.6803 for Canada and support@hawkridgesys.com.