We are about to upgrade from SolidWorks PDM Workgroup 2010 SP5 to SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2010.

The new Enterprise PDM environment is as good as finished, we just need to test a few more things and we are ready to start the migration.

As a last test, we wanted to re-test our export-import plan (from Workgroup to Enterprise), but we are no longer able to create a successful export file from our Workgroup environment.

When I run the pdmwexport tool, the PDM Wokgroup service crashes when the export is nearly finished.

12/08/2011 19:00:39 Server is running.

12/08/2011 19:00:39 Request Port listening for connections on PORT: 40000. WORKER THREADS: 10

12/09/2011 14:57:22 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 14:57:41 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 14:58:22 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 14:58:34 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 14:58:37 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 14:59:23 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 15:00:31 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 15:00:42 pdmwRequestHandler::ProcessRequest (CMemoryException) Error: Out of memory., Request: 60

12/09/2011 15:00:59 PDM/Works Crash Log. Generated: 12/09/11 15:00:59

12/09/2011 15:00:59 Optional Header Info: pdmwRequestPortWorker(): REQ: 60  PROJECT:   User: admin

12/09/2011 15:00:59 Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION

12/09/2011 15:00:59 Crash Address: 781472d7

12/09/2011 15:01:00 Not enough storage is available to process this command.

12/09/2011 15:01:00 The handle is invalid.

Last month, everything still worked as expected.

When I monitor the memory usage of the pdmwservice.exe process, it rises till it reaches nearly 2GB (VM size) and then the process just disappears and the Vault is dead. The export tool gives up shortly afterwards.

Since the pdmwservice.exe process is a 32-bit process, I assume it reaches its maximum memory size.

It is certainly not a physical memory problem, the server has 8GB of RAM, of which hardly 3GB gets used....

A few things I tried - without success:

* reboot the server

* revalidate the entire vault

* copy entire vault to other server, and try there

Is there any way to limit the VM size usage, so we can get the PDM export to complete succesfully?

Alternatively, would it be possible to export-import the vault in 2 steps instead of all at one?

Like: export library components (WG) -> import library components (SEPDM) -> export projects (WG) -> import projects (SEPDM)

Would this break the references between the first part of the export and the 2nd one, or will the 2nd export/import recreate all the reference links?