Annotative blocks become corrupt—anonymous *U names

[troma]

I am having an identical issue as this thread: Annotative blocks become corrupt.  That poster was in AutoCad 2012.  I'm using Civil 3D 2013, SP2, 32 bit.

This is the first time to use annotative blocks in our office, and I'm ending up feeling embarrassed for suggesting it.  The drawing is being worked on by three of us.  While my coworker had it open this morning, at some point (QSAVE or REGENALL, or something like that he said) the blocks started displaying all scales, instead of just the current scale.  And all of them have been changed to anonymous blocks with the *U prefix (e.g. *U768, *U497 etc.).  Multiple instances of the same original block now have different names and their insertion point is 0,0,0 (although the block itself is in the same location as it was).

We restored the drawing to yesterday's version, but while another coworker was working on it, the corruption happened again.

Any other information you think will help diagnose, please ask.

Thanks for any help.

[troma]

If I explode the *U block, I get three blocks (one for each annotative scale that was added to the original block).
Each of the three is annotative, with only one scale each. So basically instead of one block with three scales, I have three blocks with one scale each.

[troma]

So far, I can't get it to happen while I'm in the drawing. I have SP2 installed; one of my coworkers is on SP1 and the other had HF3, could this be a factor?

[dgorsman]

There is a setting for saving drawings, "Maintain visual fidelity for annotative objects", intended primarily to support non-annotative versions of AutoCAD by creating multiple copies of objects, layers, etc.  Perhaps this is turned on?

[troma]

This is turned on, but we are in 2013 and saving to 2013. So it shouldn't affect it, should it? (I guess it could be affecting it, but it shouldn't, right?) It's not working as stated anyway, because it is creating these weird blocks, not creating new layers.
Anyway, I got it switched on my machine and I'll talk to the others when they get back. Anything's worth a try.

[Charles_Shade]

The *Uxxx is nothing more than a placeholder in CAD so that the program knows this Block has been changed by X from the original and this one X+1 from the original. In other words something has been manipulated in the Block.

I have had happen and I have read where others have had happen a Block to Copy itself several times and wonder if SAVEFIDELITY may be the culprit.

If you go to the original Block definition does it show these "extra" entities? Is it Annotative?

If you pick one entity and delete it is there another underneath?

[troma]

If you go to the original Block definition does it show these "extra" entities?

Not totally sure what you mean.  What '"extra" entities'?

Is it Annotative?

Yes.  The blocks were not annotative when inserted, but i did this to make them so.

If you pick one entity and delete it is there another underneath?

No, not exactly.  But when I explode the *U block, I find it is composed of three of the original block (one for each scale).

[Charles_Shade]

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@troma wrote:

If you go to the original Block definition does it show these "extra" entities?

Not totally sure what you mean.  What '"extra" entities'? I

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I had a Block recently that basically was copied over itself 3 times. The original entities that were being acted upon by Dynamic Actions behaved as they should but the duplicate entities were just there. I do not know how they became and this has happened to a number of users over the years. There hase been no definitive idea as to why.

I was wondering if there was something like that going on with the original definition.

Any crashes recently where the Block was open during the crash?

[troma]

No crashes.

[troma]

See also: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Civil-3D-General/annotative-blocks/m-p/4641287