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Parallels-Revit-Mac-Windows 7

11 REPLIES 11
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Message 1 of 12
vysu
6352 Views, 11 Replies

Parallels-Revit-Mac-Windows 7

Seems that some people here have been using Revit through Parallels on Mac machines.  In my tiny office, we are trying to use worksharing on a file and we are not getting anywhere.  Revit 2011, Windows 7, Parallels 6, and very fast IMacs machines.

 

We have tried:

1 - setting permissions on the files to be the most accessible possible.

2 - mapping drives

3 - setting static IP address.

 

The last item is well beyond my skillset, but I tried to set static IPs for my two Virtual Machines, and did not get good results.  The workshared central file will allow a local copy to be made, but the anyone who is not the original creator of the file cannot change it or save it.  At wits' end trying things.  I'm not even entirely sure who/what kind of tech person to call to fix the situation.  (Anyone in Connecticut??)

 

Autodesk Revit support and Parallels support so far have not been able to help. This thread seemed promising, but I'm wondering if it's the only solution. http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=110413

 

Anyone have an answer that doesn't involve buying a PC server to hold the central file?  (We could do that, but hope not to have to.)  Thank you...

11 REPLIES 11
Message 2 of 12
GPR_MN
in reply to: vysu

Welcome to the wits end club.  I cannot get Revit to save .rvt files to any external Mac device. We have a mac mini running lion as a file server where our iMacs running Parralels/Windows XP using Revit can, within Revit; export images, print pdf's and export .dwg files to, but cannot save .rvt files.

It acts like a permission error and the journal entry for the event has an access errors locking up the program and no drive mapping/IP addressing/workgroup modifications have been able to resolve the issue.

 

The workaround has been to dust off an old pc and join that to the network solely for LMTools and Central File hosting.

If thats not an optioin and you happen to have a old hard drive, format it as FAT32 and then make that a sharepoint, thats the next workaround Im trying based on advice.

 

Dont expect any help from Autodesk on this forum as it is an unsupported environment.  Think LMTools now has the ability to work on a Mac, but saving .rvt files on a mac? Good luck!

Message 3 of 12
vysu
in reply to: vysu

Thanks for the reply.  I saw a similar answer on the Parallels forum posting - that office also went to a PC server integrated into the Mac network.  If anyone has another answer to this or has come to the same conclusion, please chime in.  Many fruitless hours get wasted on trying to solve this issue, and it does not seem like either Autodesk nor Parallels is taking any responsibility.

Message 4 of 12
dbarrywilliams
in reply to: vysu

going through the same issues. Were running revit 2013 on imacs with windows 7 installed and can't get the file sharing to work with the central file stored on our mac mini server running osx server 10.8.

The central file can be created on the server  and the user who created it can save to central, however no other users are able to sae to central, when they try Revi just hangs. It is possible to read the file and any changes done by the creator of the central file appear but it is just not possible to write to it.

 

As a test we tried setting up a computer running osx 10.6 and it all worked fine. Apparently when apple released 10.7 they re wrote the code for smb sharing (something to do with licencing) and it is this new code that is unable to cope with the way revit works. Our IT consultant is looking into this for us, will post any updates when we get a robust solution. (I suspect it will involve getting a PC file server for revit files)

Message 5 of 12
kentw
in reply to: dbarrywilliams

I'm not a MAC user, however if it is something to do with SMB, I think Windows 7 uses SMB2.0, so maybe disabling SMB2.0 from the Windows 7 side of things may help??  Just a thought. 

_________________________________________________________________

KarelCAD Application Support Specialist
Message 6 of 12
blakemiddleton
in reply to: GPR_MN

Did adding a FAT32 drive to the server work?  It's driving me crazy that we can't save directly to our Mac Mini server.

Message 7 of 12
GPR_MN
in reply to: blakemiddleton

Have not tried the FAT32 drive.  Have settled with only hosting Central files on the server.  Did have a follow up with an Autodesk person after his response to a crash report. 

 

His reply 

 

"I do not have experience with Mac files servers.  I can tell you Revit is not supported in any way in a Mac environment beyond running Windows in bootcamp or parallels.  That is really about running Revit at the “local” level.  Revit files even in a Windows environment is really intended to to save to the local machine only.  File servers come into play once worksharing is enabled on a file.  Still then files are saved local and then the sync process is used to transmit changes back to the central file.  Because we don’t test in a Mac environment we can’t give any specific advice on getting Revit to save files over a Mac network.  I am sorry I can’t give you more direction but we simply do not test in a Mac environment."

 

I convinced the office to revise thier workflow rather than to keep looking for workarounds and trying to get Revit to submit to something it wasnt designed to do apparently. 

As to how Worksharing / Save to Central came to work in Parallels, not 100% which of the dozen or so things I tried was the fix.
Parallels setting.  configure- sharing - Map Mac volumes to Windows On.

Windows Settings - User accounts - user name and network path and password consistent with Mac Server settings.

within windows, the user belongs to a work group specific to windows users that exist in a user group of the same name on the Lion Server also.. not sure if any of that is effective.

 

 

 

Message 8 of 12
GPR_MN
in reply to: GPR_MN

one other key might be to ensure all users are mapping drives with common path names to the sharepoints.

generating a .bat file for each machine might help.

 

ie,.

 

net use P: \\10.0.110.2\Public
net use R: \\10.0.110.2\Projects
net use S: \\10.0.110.2\Archive

with 10.0.110.2 = your server IP

and   'Public' = your sharepoint on the server

 

rename a text .txt file with the above text revised for your sytem to a .bat file and place it the startup folder of each machine , maybe C:\\Documents and Settings\AllUsers\StartMenu\Program\Setup

Message 9 of 12
dbarrywilliams
in reply to: vysu

We have now got sync to central working with revit files stored on our Mac mini server running 10.8.
The process involved installing SMBup on the file server which as far as I understand replaces the mac smb with the open source Samba. Not sure of the intricacies of it as we had an external IT consultant sort it out.
We haven't yet put it through its paces on a full scale project but it all seems to work as it should.
Message 10 of 12
jorks
in reply to: dbarrywilliams

Hi dbarrywilliams,

 

Im an IT consultant in Melbourne AUS who has a client with a very similar setup to yourself:

 

New iMacs 10.7 with VMware & Revit.

Mac Mini with 10.8 Server.

 

Ever since upgrading the server to 10.8 Revit hangs / crashes whenever a file is modified and saved to the server.

 

How successful has the SMBup implementation been? Are you experiencing many issues? How large is your workgroup?

 

I was hoping to find a solution using the built-in SMBX server, however I have not found any success stories. It would be great to hear from someone using SMBup before I go to far down the rabbit hole 🙂

 

May i ask who your IT company is? Perhaps i can email them. Im always happy to help fellow consultants in the Apple channel, helps the eco system 🙂

 

Cheers,

 

James

 

Message 11 of 12
spletz
in reply to: vysu

I'm very interested int he solution to this as well.  I have used worksharing before in a number of PC environements, but my partenr and I just upgraded to 10.8 Server and are running revit on VMWare.  We're were about to invest in a mac mini file server, but luckily have been testing on my laptop and her iMac and have run into crazy permission issues.  

 

First we had to trick Revit into believing the files are stored in the same file path - a seriously strange requirement for a file sharing solution that may involve many various paths to the same data - i.e. if my drive is H: and her's is I: or we map to different folders, it wouldn't even think of working - i.e. the central file would need us to resave, but then when I was able (with either the substr command or by mapping the same folders into vmware) I started getting th read-only errors. I chnged the mac permissions and then started getting even strager errors.  I think the last one read "Square Feet into Meters: File not Saved." Or something like that.

 

SMBup sounds promising.  Do please post your results.  I will try and do the same, as I feel there must be hundreds of small business folks out there who can't afford a Revit Server and who have given up on worksharing, or worse on Revit altogether.

 

Thanks.

-eric

Message 12 of 12
vkmultra
in reply to: spletz

Has there been any resolve regarding the issue of saving Revit files to an OSX10.8 server? Is the SMBup effecitve? We are looking for advice before making a decision to go windows for our new stations and server.

Thanks,

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