Floating 'Family Dialog'

[IMCornish]

I wonder if the sudden appearance of an independant floating 'Family' dialog box is related to my having upgraded the operating system to Windows 8?  I have never seen this before and wonder why it needs to be present and how to get rid of it? All it does is repeat the heading of the 'Properties' panel. Also it has no controls but a close button and a right click menu of 'Move' and 'Hide' but using the close or hide options only removes it from the screen temporarily.

See image below:

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure it is a Windows 8 problem, as I HAVE seen this same thing on a Win7 64 Pro OS.

In that case, it was a graphics card/driver issue--cold reboot, turned off hardware accell., updated driver, etc.

and it went away.

[alan.quinn]

See this for Windows 8 information: http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/11/windows-8-and-revit.html

Did your check your graphics drives and turn off hardware acceleration? 

Thanks for posting.

[IMCornish]

Have turned Hardware Acceleration off but it is still appearing? Thanks for suggestion but it hasn't worked.

[alan.quinn]

Can you create a video (jing is free) and send me the corresponding journal file?

Do the following:

1. Close and re-open Revit (this will give me a clean journal)

2. Open Revit and open the file in question (or any if you can re-create the issue in any)

3. Start recording the video and make sure you capture your entire screen and move your mouse slowly.

3. Re-create the issue (make the floating dialog float)

4. Go here C:\Users\UESR NAME HERE\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit 2013\Journals while Revit is still running and cut and paste out your latest journal.

5. Put the video and journal on a Dropbox or other file sharing site and send me the link.

Thanks,

[IMCornish]

Alan, have does as you have said and sent a link via a private email message to you.  Thanks for your help with this.  You should know that in the recorded instance the 'floating dialog' remained small but usually it is larger giving the name of the family that is currently selected.

[alan.quinn · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the video and journal. I clearly see the floating dialog in your video but noting in the journal that indicates what's causing the issue. I did notice your graphics drives are more recent (at least for windows 7) than our certified ones, but I'm not certain if this is helping or hurting the situation.

See this link: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert/card?siteID=123112&catID=18254205&id=18844534&product=5...

Unfortunately the bottom line on this one is Revit 2013 is not supported on Windows 8 and as such I'm not sure I can offer more at this time. 

Thanks again,

[IMCornish]

Alan

Thanks for your help and observations. I understand your comment regarding Windows 8 and hope that support will follow soon. The graphics drivers are Windows 8 versions for my card so this maybe the issue. Iwill have a look at the link you have provided but expect that none of the Nvidia Windows 7 drivers will work with W8, in the meantime I will accept my floating dialog as a fact of life.

Thanks again. 

[Anonymous]

Well, I get the same floater with Windows 7 and not just for families but also for views. I just close them out. Annoying but no big problem.

[GraemePadgham5812]

Hi,

We have the same on multiple machines.

All running Win 7 64bit.

appears with different graphics cards, different driver versions.

hardware accelartion on or off.

some dual screen some not.

was fine for a year on 2012, then started appearing, then appeared when 2013 installed.

so now does it on 2012, 2013, and is a pain in the..

if you close it, it just keeps reappearing.

surely autodesk must be able to reproduce this? there must be something calling this dialog box up? and if so surely it can be told not to do so!!.

[jpitcher8428]

I have the same issue on my pc.  Nobody in my office has ever seen it before, nor knows what it is or where it comes from.  

I just started using Revit around the beginning of this year and it was absolutely horrible.  Anytime I would Pan, Move, Zoom, Open a view, etc. it would take anywhere from 5-9 minutes for each operation.  Finally one day I had our IT consultants look at my pc.  He rolled back my video driver, ran several diagnostics (2 of them failed twice each and he had to hard-boot my pc), then finally had scandisk run overnight.  The next morning, the scandisk had completed and rebooted the pc.  I logged in and the first thing that popped up was a message titled "Graphics" that read "No AMD graphics driver is installed, or the AMD driver is not functioning properly.  Please install the AMD driver appropriate for your AMD hardware."  I clicked the OK button and checked to see if the AMD "Catalyst Pro Control Center" was there, which it was and it opened.  However, the day before I had a bunch of settings categories along the left side (maybe 10?) and now I only have one.  So obviously something was wrong with my driver.  Just for the heck of it, I opened up Revit and it was responding normally, only 1-2 seconds for Pan, Move, Zoom, Open a View, etc. 

I don't know what is up with my driver, but I don't care because Revit is running great.  I got more done in the next 1.5 days than I had in the previous 1.5 weeks.  And as for that Families dialog box, no idea, nor do I care. 

Jake Pitcher

[Joe.Charpentier · Accepted solution]

Anybody seeing this issue-

Are you running any window managers, such as nView (nVidia) or Hydravision (ATI)?

To turn off nView (at least on my Windows 7 machine) I do the following:

Right-click on the desktop>nView Properties

In the resulting Dialog, go to the "Desktop Management" tab.

Under "nView Desktop Manger", click the "Disable" button(if it says Disable, otherwise you are not using nView.)

Let us know if this helps.

Joe

[jpitcher8428]

I went into my Catalyst Pro Control Center and the only thing that was turned on was "Enable Desktop Manager", "Allow spanning across displays", and "Enable Dialog Repositioning", so I turned off "Enable Desktop Manager" (which grayed out the other options) and applied it.  I only used Revit for about an hour today, but the Families dialog never popped up.  Usually it pops up before I even browse to open a file.  I will be use it most of tomorrow, so we'll see if it pops up then.  I will keep you posted.

Jake Pitcher

[IMCornish]

Have disabled my nView Properties, Desktop Manager and yes, the dialog has not appeared however in doing this a number very useful video driver features have to be foregone.  Currently I think I will live with the floating dialog but presumably this behavior, now having an apparent reason, can be addressed from within Revit?  Thanks for your help.

[jpitcher8428]

Well, I used Revit pretty much all day today and the Families Dialog never popped up.  Seeing as how I only really had one thing to disable in my graphics center, it's not a big deal.

Jake Pitcher

[Coastie79]

I'm having the same issue. This rogue menu keeps popping up. Very annoying!

Using Windows 7 64-bit, Revit Arch 2013 R2, ATI FirePro M6000 with current drivers.

[Coastie79]

OH, and also can't have my Project Browser floating next to the application or on my second screen, as it jumps back to the middle of my primary screen every time I alternate between files.

HydraVision, desktop management and 3D acceleration are all disabled.

[Coastie79]

One more issue. If have the project browser docked to the side of Revit and below the Properties box, swtiching between drawings causes them to shrink and grow, so I have to line it back up every time.

[bcampbell11]

we are getting this pop up CONSTANTLY! Windows 7 64 bit.  graphics card:   AMD FirePro W5000.

PLEASE HELP!

Thanks

[jpitcher8428]

I have had the floating family dialog box for quite a while now.  

However, recently we got the 2014 suite, which I installed.  After installing it, Revit 2013 would consistently crash everytime I tried to open a model.

I uninstalled the 2014 suite, but revit 2013 was still crashing. I uninstalled Revit 2013 and then reinstalled it.  At this point it would run normally, no crashing! 🙂  Though the floating family dialog was still there!!  

A week ago I read that you needed to have your autocad and revit loaded with the latest updates before installing the 2014 suite.  Revit was up to date with the latest update (though did not have a hotfix), however autocad was behind an update, so I installed the autocad update and the revit hotfix, then installed the 2014 suite.  Revit 2013 is working just fine  with no crashes AND with no floating family dialog box either!  Not sure if it was the revit hotfix or what, but it is gone.

Jake Pitcher