I keep getting the death screen "Preparing Your Design" and it won't continue

Today, for the past few hours, I have been trying to laser cut some unsupported material (Davey Board). I manually entered my settings (180/60), had to re-adjust my “Trace” image as it is nowhere near the original Trace for artwork placement, and now I am stuck…

I am desperately waiting for the glowing button to come on and allow me to cut the board. I have cancelled and re-started this design several times. I also tried patiently waiting for 20-30 minutes to go beyond this screen.

Please help. I have too many boards to cut them all by hand.

If you notice on your picture that it says Unknown for the material. That must be filled in orat least a thickness. That might help. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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I"m having the same issue as well. I’m trying to cut paper and i’ve set the material’s thickness as well. I tried restarting it and it’s still doing that :frowning: Would love to know what’s wrong :sob:

I set the thickness. The material is not proofgrade.

As per your suggestion, i shot a video of that area of the screen.

And just to humor myself while the video above uploaded, I set the material to “Medium Draftboard” and it is still stuck at “Preparing Your Design”, but then went on to Print with the non-proofgrade material warning screen (never seen that before)

I am using Chrome for all of the above.

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A guy (@jonnyvermont) yesterday had this same problem. He also posted in Support. He showed a video with a Minion around his Glow Button. There was no answer of comment on him resolving the issue either.

@haley discovered that a design might be too complex… Since mine is a trace, that could be the problem… Guess I will have to cut these by hand…

@sosososo107 is your paper design really detailed?

Not at all. The weird thing is that I’ve printed 4-5 copies of the same design already and then it stopped working. The first time it did this, I shifted the design around and it “fixed” it. After that, as if the GF knew it was tricked, it wouldn’t print again. LOL

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Interesting! To avoid wasting precious Davey board, I am going to abort using my Glowforge for my project as opposed to trying to shift the design and see if it will work. I was going to experiment with the pass-through slot on my Pro today. I will just go back to using a blade and multiple scores to cut my Davey board.

@jaz I saw your response to @jonnyvermont’s post. I guess using the pass-through slot on the Pro is not an option for my project or any other Trace functions…

Thanks for letting us know about this, @cillico - I’m sorry you ran into trouble. We’re looking into it now. I’ll update this thread when I have more information.

@cillico, I’m so sorry it’s taken so long for us to get back to you. Thanks for your patience.

After extracting the data for your prints, I see that the prints I found are actually set to be engraved, not to be cut.

When you created your Trace, did you click to select the area you wanted to cut away? The app should have drawn a pink outline around your drawing. Then, when you enter your settings, it should say “Manual cut” when you click on the step.

If you’d already done all of this the first time, I do have another suggestion. After you select your artwork to be traced, you can use these keyboard shortcuts to refine your design:

  • To pick up light markings, use Control-Up Arrow (Windows) or Command-Up Arrow (Mac). To ignore light markings, use Control-Down Arrow (Windows) or Command-Down Arrow (Mac).
  • If there are too many stray marks, Control-Shift-Up Arrow (Windows) or Command-Shift-Up Arrow (Mac) to remove them. If small details aren’t showing up, use Control-Shift-Down Arrow (Windows) or Command-Shift-Down Arrow (Mac) to reveal them.

You can find more tips as well as step by step instructions on how to trace your artwork here: https://glowforge.com/support/topic/first-three-prints/2nd-print-trace

Let me know how it goes!

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It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.