Cura's main Drawback

[dubbeltrubbel 5]

I'm a heavy user of Cura and has been for many years.

The one thing that has ALWAYS been an issue for me ( and I know others ) is the failing in transferring profiles between versions.

I just installed 4.11 and only got some of my profiles added automatically. Spent the entire morning trying all kinds of stuff but had to settle on export/importing everything manually.

I've got a bunch of folders left from earlier versions of cura that I have no idea if any of them contain some important profile or not? Can I delete them or not, who knows.

 

It would be so easy if custom profiles were synced automatically. 

The whole manage profile function inside cura is outdated as well and would really benefit from getting a remake. Would love to get some more control of the profile handling. Export/import multiple at once f.e.

When doing this by manually transferring files, it's easy to get all kinds of errors.

 

Please Ultimaker, why are we stuck with this poor profile management in an otherwise awesome slicer.

 

This is by far #1 on the Wishlist

I hope you guys will read this feedback and make use of it.

Thanks for an otherwise great slicer

 

[shereckp 0]

The thing with my configuration error is that it seems to be intermittent . Sometimes I will open the later versions of  Cura ( 4.8,4.10, and now 4.11and the configuration error will not appear. I never and still do not get this error when I open version 4.7. And I do not think that  this is related to profile management.

 

[nallath 1,124]

On 9/11/2021 at 11:33 AM, dubbeltrubbel said:

The one thing that has ALWAYS been an issue for me ( and I know others ) is the failing in transferring profiles between versions.

I just installed 4.11 and only got some of my profiles added automatically. Spent the entire morning trying all kinds of stuff but had to settle on export/importing everything manually.

I've personally not had this issue. All profiles should be converted automatically. If this doesn't happen, that's a bug and it's best reported on github (https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues). Make sure to also include your configuration folder and log files.
 

On 9/11/2021 at 11:33 AM, dubbeltrubbel said:

It would be so easy if custom profiles were synced automatically.

That should be the case.
 

On 9/11/2021 at 11:33 AM, dubbeltrubbel said:

The whole manage profile function inside cura is outdated as well and would really benefit from getting a remake. Would love to get some more control of the profile handling. Export/import multiple at once f.e.

When doing this by manually transferring files, it's easy to get all kinds of errors.

You shouldn't even have to do this. The exporting is really intended to share a single file with someone, not to make entire backups. We have a build in backup plugin to do that.

 

On 9/11/2021 at 11:33 AM, dubbeltrubbel said:

Please Ultimaker, why are we stuck with this poor profile management in an otherwise awesome slicer.

Because it's a bug that we didn't know about 😉

[mkaj2019 41]

On 9/11/2021 at 11:33 AM, dubbeltrubbel said:

I'm a heavy user of Cura and has been for many years.

The one thing that has ALWAYS been an issue for me ( and I know others ) is the failing in transferring profiles between versions.

I just installed 4.11 and only got some of my profiles added automatically. Spent the entire morning trying all kinds of stuff but had to settle on export/importing everything manually.

I've got a bunch of folders left from earlier versions of cura that I have no idea if any of them contain some important profile or not? Can I delete them or not, who knows.

 

It would be so easy if custom profiles were synced automatically. 

The whole manage profile function inside cura is outdated as well and would really benefit from getting a remake. Would love to get some more control of the profile handling. Export/import multiple at once f.e.

When doing this by manually transferring files, it's easy to get all kinds of errors.

 

Please Ultimaker, why are we stuck with this poor profile management in an otherwise awesome slicer.

 

This is by far #1 on the Wishlist

I hope you guys will read this feedback and make use of it.

Thanks for an otherwise great slicer

 

 

I completely feal you. Working with the filament profiles is so damn annoying and difficult compared to e.g. Prusaslicer. I also still cannot understand why there is only one filament profile for a dual extruder. And why I cannot select my filament profile for each printcore instead. E.g. I have different profiles for BASF Pro 1 PLA, depending if the second extruder is using Breakaway or a different colored PLA. Why??? It's so unpractical and confusing!

 

I have updated my Cura last week at work for a long time (could not afford any downtime, the s5 is printing every workday without a break), now half of my profiles are gone and for the rest of the profiles I have to always confirm on my S5 display to ignore the issue of old profiles before the print even starts. That's really annoying, because I do not have the printer in the same room. I always have to jump to the printer and hit 'ignore' on the display. How do I get rid of this, do you guys have an idea?

Edited October 25, 2021 by mkaj2019

[Gero 54]

I also can vote for maybe some sort of re-work of the profile handling. For me, one of the main issues is that I can't transfer my settings from an S5 to an S3 or the other way around.

 

But the idea to have print profiles per printcore also sounds better and more intuitive.

 

My current workaround is to have cura projects with the defined materials and print profiles adjusted to my different printers. A bit time consuming to create them, but when finished, I can simply open the "template-project" and have my settings for both printcores and materials ready to go.

This also works with new cura versions since the whole project includes all settings (although a quick check for a new cure version to make sure nothing important changed is always better).

 

Also important: never deinstall the old cura version when asked while installing a new version! I always keep the 3 last versions installed in case something happens during installing/new bugs/etc.. (Like with v4.8 and a broken prime procedure).

This is something that can happen to all software updates so for anything work related its best to keep some old versions at hand.

[nallath 1,124]

3 hours ago, mkaj2019 said:

 

I also still cannot understand why there is only one filament profile for a dual extruder.

This is not the case. So i can also not understand that 😉

 

3 hours ago, mkaj2019 said:

And why I cannot select my filament profile for each printcore instead.

You can.
 

[mkaj2019 41]

1 hour ago, nallath said:

This is not the case. So i can also not understand that 😉

 

You can.
 

 

Where should this be possible? It does not work in the print settings. See my video: 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4at0eyrnc4c71tq/video.mp4?dl=0

 

The custom profiles are always for two extruders. It is not possible to have seperate custom profiles for 1st and 2nd extruder.

Edited October 25, 2021 by mkaj2019

[Smithy 1,146]

I think you talk about two different things, nallath and me too, thought you are talking about the material profiles, but you actually mean the print profile. A material profile is independent from the extruder, you can assign it to extruder 1 or 2.

 

A print profile covers the settings for the job. You can have one print profile and use it with different material profiles.

 

But if you want to set for example the combing mode automatically to off, when you select a PETG material profile, that is not covered currently. Not sure if this case would work with the material settings plugin, but check it.

[neute 16]

Hi all,

 

since this topic is one that also gives me a lot of pain, I thought I'd share my thoughts.

Like @mkaj2019 I feel that I have to maintain a print profile for every arrangement of filaments, this gets a lot worse when I'm using my Toolchanger with 4 printheads instead of one of the Ultimakers with "only" 2. This seems to be the case because, as @Smithy mentions, the material profile really does not cover much, only temperatures and retraction settings. Want to use a certain PLA as support for PETG? Have to create (and maintain! since the profiles do not inherit, e.g. stay connected to the base profile) a new print profile for this combination.

A much better solution IMO is how it is handled in Prusaslicer/Superslicer/´(Slic3r). There is a clear separation between print settings, printer settings and filament settings, and they don't interfere with each other, which means that there are basically 3 types of profiles (but they are a lot easier to separate and don't always need to be changed all the time). Want to do a dual color print with both extruders? Choose a filament for each extruder, possibly the same print profile for both, don't touch the printer settings, boom - up and running in 5 minutes.

Same for Cura? Select the filaments for each extruder, it will tell you "Not supported" and you have to go through the whole profile and change all the little settings that you've already changed a hundred times for each profile before (happens to me at least once a week).

 

And I hear you say, it won't work for the Ultimaker, since the profiles are very fine tuned and a lot of settings have to be changed for each filament aside from temperature and retraction settings. True, but Prusaslicer/Superslicer has override mechanisms, e.g. you can set up a print profile that works best for you (preferred layer height, infill, patterns, speeds etc.) and can still enter overrides for each filament, e.g. maximum speed and/or volumetric extrusion rate. The only thing that's missing IMO is the option to create profiles that inherit and stay connected, so that changes in the base profile get carried over to all dependent profiles.

 

I'd appreciate if the Cura developers would take the time to consider this proposition and gave some feedback.

(If  I know why a certain solution is not possible or hard to implement, it's easier for me to live with it....)

 

Thank you!

Best, Niklas

[mkaj2019 41]

30 minutes ago, neute said:

Hi all,

 

since this topic is one that also gives me a lot of pain, I thought I'd share my thoughts.

Like @mkaj2019 I feel that I have to maintain a print profile for every arrangement of filaments, this gets a lot worse when I'm using my Toolchanger with 4 printheads instead of one of the Ultimakers with "only" 2. This seems to be the case because, as @Smithy mentions, the material profile really does not cover much, only temperatures and retraction settings. Want to use a certain PLA as support for PETG? Have to create (and maintain! since the profiles do not inherit, e.g. stay connected to the base profile) a new print profile for this combination.

A much better solution IMO is how it is handled in Prusaslicer/Superslicer/´(Slic3r). There is a clear separation between print settings, printer settings and filament settings, and they don't interfere with each other, which means that there are basically 3 types of profiles (but they are a lot easier to separate and don't always need to be changed all the time). Want to do a dual color print with both extruders? Choose a filament for each extruder, possibly the same print profile for both, don't touch the printer settings, boom - up and running in 5 minutes.

Same for Cura? Select the filaments for each extruder, it will tell you "Not supported" and you have to go through the whole profile and change all the little settings that you've already changed a hundred times for each profile before (happens to me at least once a week).

 

And I hear you say, it won't work for the Ultimaker, since the profiles are very fine tuned and a lot of settings have to be changed for each filament aside from temperature and retraction settings. True, but Prusaslicer/Superslicer has override mechanisms, e.g. you can set up a print profile that works best for you (preferred layer height, infill, patterns, speeds etc.) and can still enter overrides for each filament, e.g. maximum speed and/or volumetric extrusion rate. The only thing that's missing IMO is the option to create profiles that inherit and stay connected, so that changes in the base profile get carried over to all dependent profiles.

 

I'd appreciate if the Cura developers would take the time to consider this proposition and gave some feedback.

(If  I know why a certain solution is not possible or hard to implement, it's easier for me to live with it....)

 

Thank you!

Best, Niklas

 

Very good summary, nothing to add here from my side. 

 

@Smithy

 

Yes, I did not mean the material profiles. I do not like them and I do not use them. They are in my oppinion completely useless, because way to many necessary settings are missing (like e.g. Flow rates, Expansion settings, material specific support settings... ) and the print profiles on the other hand have everything included.

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by mkaj2019

[Smithy 1,146]

@mkaj2019 Have you checked the material settings plugin from the marketplace? I think that this could help in your situation, but haven't tried it yet myself. But I am sure @ahoeben can tell us more 🙂 

[ahoeben 2,012]

The current version of the Material Settings plugin will let you specify which settings you want to be able to change per material. Once the plugin is installed see Extensions -> Material Settings -> Configure Material Settings to select the settings you want to change per material, and then check the Print Settings tab in the Material preferences for the material of your choosing.

[Smithy 1,146]

Thanks, but that should solve your profiles problem @mkaj2019 when you are able to "add" additional settings to a material profile.

[nallath 1,124]

2 hours ago, neute said:

Select the filaments for each extruder, it will tell you "Not supported" and you have to go through the whole profile and change all the little settings that you've already changed a hundred times for each profile before (happens to me at least once a week).

The not supported warning is basicly Cura telling you that it doesn't have any pre-defined quality profiles for that material. It's often caused by people changing the material type or using an incorrect one. If you set the material type to be "PLA+" instead of "PLA", it will try to find quality profiles for "PLA+", which it might not have. So basicly the material type is used to define what set of quality profiles it should use.

If you want more technical info how the profiles work, you can find them here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/wiki/Profiles-&-Settings

I do appreciate people sharing their feedback though! I don't think it's quite feasible to re-write the entire profile architecture, but I'm very open to having a look at how we can make things better.

[mkaj2019 41]

 

14 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

The current version of the Material Settings plugin will let you specify which settings you want to be able to change per material. Once the plugin is installed see Extensions -> Material Settings -> Configure Material Settings to select the settings you want to change per material, and then check the Print Settings tab in the Material preferences for the material of your choosing.

 

10 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Thanks, but that should solve your profiles problem @mkaj2019 when you are able to "add" additional settings to a material profile.

 

Thank you guys, I have installed it now and will try it out!

Edited October 26, 2021 by mkaj2019

[neute 16]

thank you all for your contributions.

 

1 hour ago, nallath said:

The not supported warning is basicly Cura telling you that it doesn't have any pre-defined quality profiles for that material. It's often caused by people changing the material type or using an incorrect one. If you set the material type to be "PLA+" instead of "PLA", it will try to find quality profiles for "PLA+", which it might not have. So basicly the material type is used to define what set of quality profiles it should use.

 

 

I do acknowledge that this one might be on me, since I work with 3rd party materials and/or specialist materials that don't fall into categories like the above. I'm aware that, at some point, I'm asking too much of Cura's automatisms. This might be one reason that in this regard, I feel more at home with the other slicer options that I mentioned because they aren't "too smart" in choosing the right settings for me. But that may be a whole different use case than what Cura is actually designed for.

 

1 hour ago, nallath said:

If you want more technical info how the profiles work, you can find them here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/wiki/Profiles-&-Settings

I do appreciate people sharing their feedback though! I don't think it's quite feasible to re-write the entire profile architecture, but I'm very open to having a look at how we can make things better.

 

 

thank you for this, I remember already taking a look at this once. The way I see it, Cura's architecture might not be too different to what I described after all - we have materials, qualities and definitions which could be vaguely compared to filament, print, and printer settings from slic3r/forks (please correct me if I'm wrong). However, and I'm glad that you're open to discuss possible improvements, to me it doesn't get clear which setting in Cura actually is part of which of the above (material/quality/definition), and the way I understand it changes are still stored in an overall profile, where all of the changes to each are stored, possibly because they interact and/or depend, and can't be changed individually without affecting the profile. And we've not even talked about intent at this point.

 

So my proposition would be to try and find a way to de-tangle this a little bit and give the option to change material, quality, and definition independently from each other and to actually show each in the UI. This could be what some users are actually asking for when they wish for "tabs" to structure the settings pane.

 

hope I make some sense 😄 

 

Best, Niklas

Edited October 26, 2021 by neute

[nallath 1,124]

2 hours ago, neute said:

However, and I'm glad that you're open to discuss possible improvements, to me it doesn't get clear which setting in Cura actually is part of which of the above (material/quality/definition)

A setting can be part of any profile (at least on a technical level). This initially confuses people as they think that there are settings that only belong in a certain level (eg; print temperature belongs in the material profile, infill belongs in quality profile, etc). But although that notion is often true, it's not entirely true. If you print faster (eg; a higher layer height) you often also want to increase the printing temperature. So this already shows that even something as seemingly simple as the temperature is not fully material dependent.

I've tried multiple times to come up with a simpler system that also encompasses all the things that we want / need to do with it, but i've simply been unable to come up with a better one. It could be that I'm so used to this system that it's hard to imagine something else, but others have tried and we got at 70% in certain cases, only to find a few important exceptions that would be impossible in those systems.

I do think that we need a few UI improvements to better show what settings are changed in a profile created by the user, as well as the ability to "swap" settings form one extruder to another. I think that those would already solve quite a few of the issues that people have with the system.