Dealing with Multiple Instances/Sessions of Inventor

[jdkriek]

I wrote this solution last year sometime for my company, but have had several requests to share it so I am. 😉

The correct workflow is to open directly from Inventor, but users still accidently open from Vault or from Explorer often causing another instance of Inventor. In our experience this is often a "ghost session" (not a visible tab) which can allow users to lose thier work.

This VBA macro is trigger by an iLogic rule set to on document save and open. It will detect the multiple instances and then alert the user. It will then attempt to close the new session automaticly.

Note: I have removed some features that were specific to our requirements such as:

- Automaticly saving results to a log file on the network

- Automaticly emailing reports of session errors to myself when users experience them

Tested with Inventor 2011-2013

Private objWMIService As Object
Private objProcess As Object
Private colProcesses As Object
Private Const cWINMGMTS As String = "winmgmts:\\" & "." & "\root\cimv2"
Public Sub SessionCheck()
'JDK 2012
'detect multiple instances
'resolve sessions
Dim Alert As Boolean
If Alert = False Then
    If isSessionErr("Inventor.exe") = True Then
        'Alert user
        MsgBox ("Session Error Detected! Attempting Auto-Fix" _
        & vbNewLine & vbNewLine & "If the problem persists please contact the Admin, Ext #XXX" _
        & vbNewLine & vbNewLine & "An email will be sent on your behalf")
        Alert = True
        'Kill new instance
        Debug.Print "Ret="; KillProcess("Inventor.exe")
        MsgBox ("Session Resolved")
        Exit Sub
    End If
End If
End Sub
Public Function KillProcess(ByVal kProcessName As String) As Boolean
Dim i As Long
i = 0
Set objWMIService = GetObject(cWINMGMTS)
Set colProcesses = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = '" & kProcessName & "'")
If colProcesses.count > 1 Then
    For Each objProcess In colProcesses
        i = i + 1
      If i = 2 Then
        Call objProcess.Terminate
      End If
    Next
  End If
End Function
Public Function isSessionErr(ByVal dProcessName As String) As Boolean
Set objWMIService = GetObject(cWINMGMTS)
Set colProcesses = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name ='" & dProcessName & "'")
If colProcesses.count > 1 Then
    isSessionErr = True
Else
    isSessionErr = False
End If
End Function

[BLHDrafting]

Jonathon, this comment needs clarification "open directly from Inventor". Do you mean to open files from local workspace, or from 'Open From Vault' tool in Inventor?

[jdkriek]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Jonathon, this comment needs clarification "open directly from Inventor". Do you mean to open files from local workspace, or from 'Open From Vault' tool in Inventor?

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Either method is fine as Inventor is seeing the file in the current session.