Any updates to XREF cause door and window tags to disappear

[sheaford]

Hello,

I had a look through the previous posts but couldn't find a solution to this particular problem.

In my office we use XREFs as the base for all our working drawings and whenever the XREF is updated the tags from the door and window schedule disappear and have to be manually added again (even when windows/doors are not altered). The door & window tags are in a separate drawing with the XREF inserted not bound.

Does anyone know what causes this/how it can be solved?

Thanks,

Sophie

[David_W_Koch]

How are you updating the externally referenced file?  If you are just saving over the old file, and then reloading it into the host file (the one with the tags), I would hope that would not break the association between tag and host.  If the external reference is being detached, and then reattached, that will break the association.  Tags applied to objects in an externally referenced file can also get deleted or disassociated during an edit if the tagged object is deleted and replaced, rather than just edited, but you said in your case the tagged objects were not changed.

That said, I have run into situations where, so far as I know, all was done correctly, and the tags did not disappear, but they did get disconnected.  We generally keep Space and Door tags in the same file as the tagged item, to avoid these issues.  Wall tags (which, in our case, reference style-based properties), seem to fare better.

[sheaford]

Thanks for such a fast, helpful response.

Yes, we have just been saving the externally referenced file and reloading it in the drawing. However, although the door and window elements themselves have not changed the drawing in the file was originally a block, which was exploded when edited. Do you think that this could have caused the deletion of door and window tags?

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

If the Doors and Windows were part of a block reference inside the file that was then externally referenced into the host file and then tagged in the host file, exploding the block in the externally referenced file to edit the objects will assign all new Handles (object ID numbers AutoCAD uses to identify individual elements in a file) to the exploded items from what they would have had when tagged, which will break the tag anchor.  Breaking a tag's anchor often results in the tag being deleted, so that may be your cause.