Help me understand this icon, and its possible causes? (half white/half black)

[BSchubring]

The text on Autodesk's wiki reads:

This symbol is appearing next to some drawings for reasons I don't understand. We do not use the quick change function in our lifecycle. The effect it is having is that when somsone opens a drawing with xrefs that are marked with this symbol instead of the dual red arrows indicating the file has changed, they do not automatically download the latest version of the XREF.

The behavior seems to have occurred after upgrading server to 2013. We are using a custom lifecycle, so I'm open to the idea that there might have been a mistake I made that didn't transition well. I just need more information on how to get ot the source of this symbol's appearance!

Thanks!

[matt.smith]

Let's say your file is currently in Revision A.  And let's say that within Revision A you have 3 versions:

Version 1: Work in Progress

Version 2: Released

Version 3: Work in Progress

You will get that icon when you have version 2 on disk.  This is because version 2 is a version of the file which is in the latest Revision (revision A) and it is a released version (Version 2) *and* it is not the latest version (version 3 is the latest version).  It doesn't necessarily have to be due to a quick-change (quick-change is just a typical example of how things could get into a state where the latest version in a revision is not a released version).

If you do a "Get" on this file and get the latest, you will get Version 3.   However, if you do a get on a file referencing this file and turn on "release biased", it will get Version 2, since version 2 is released.

Does that help?

- Matt

[BSchubring]

It does, thanks for the reply.  At least, it's clarifying what I thought the icon meant. I think this stems from a piece of advice I was given awhile back to stop Vault from purging the original 'Received' state in our Lifecycle. I was advised to make this default Received state 'released' because Vault would not purge released drawing states. I have since unchecked this checkbox in the Lifecycle.

Here's what I think is happening based on what you said:

Drawing is put into Vault in the 'Received' State.  Vault thinks this is a released drawing.

User moves the drawing into WIP and makes multiple edits/check-ins.

Another user opens a drawing referencing this file as an XREF, and pulls the 'Received' version because it was marked as released, and he's using release bias.

My two main problems with this are:

1) I unchecked the Received state's 'released' status as soon as I realized it might be causing this issue. Does that status remain attached to files despite it being removed from the Lifecycle state? Is this Released status perhaps being remembered by the client or local machine's files?

2) I thought I looked closely at the user's check in and check out dialog boxes, and neither were set to release bias, both were set in a way that made me think they were going to get the latest version, not the latest released. Is there a default setting I might be missing somewhere in AutoCAD's Vault interface/options? (something that controls the frelease bias behavior of XREF download, not the file you're currently opening?)

[BSchubring]

Update- From AutoCAD. I picked 'Get Revision' from the Vault toolbar. It was set to Latest, and non-release bias, but in the XREF window I saw two icons indicating that they were using the latest released, not the latest. I hit OK, and it pulled the latest revision.

So, it seems my queston is becoming "Why does AutoCAD by default seem to be treating XREFs as if the user had chosen to use release bias?" (we are using ACA 2013 and ACA 2012, with the appropriate Vault client on each)

[matt.smith]

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@BSchubring wrote:

1) I unchecked the Received state's 'released' status as soon as I realized it might be causing this issue. Does that status remain attached to files despite it being removed from the Lifecycle state? Is this Released status perhaps being remembered by the client or local machine's files?

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Removing the "released" flag on a state does *not* go back and changed the released status of versions that had that state.  Those past versions are and forever will be released versions.  Your change will only affect new state changes into that "Received" state.

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@BSchubring wrote:

2) I thought I looked closely at the user's check in and check out dialog boxes, and neither were set to release bias, both were set in a way that made me think they were going to get the latest version, not the latest released. Is there a default setting I might be missing somewhere in AutoCAD's Vault interface/options? (something that controls the frelease bias behavior of XREF download, not the file you're currently opening?)

---

Unfortunately, I'm not very familiar with AutoCAD's Vault interface, so I'll defer to others on that.  But from your description it sounds like you should be getting latest.  What matters is how you are *getting* the files.  How are you initially getting the file (Doing Get/Checkout in Vault?, Doing Open from Vault in ACAD?  Double-clicking on the file in Vault?).

[matt.smith]

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@BSchubring wrote:

Update- From AutoCAD. I picked 'Get Revision' from the Vault toolbar. It was set to Latest, and non-release bias, but in the XREF window I saw two icons indicating that they were using the latest released, not the latest. I hit OK, and it pulled the latest revision.

So, it seems my queston is becoming "Why does AutoCAD by default seem to be treating XREFs as if the user had chosen to use release bias?" (we are using ACA 2013 and ACA 2012, with the appropriate Vault client on each)

---

Sorry, I'm a bit confused--when you say "it pulled the latest revision", do you mean it pulled the latest version of the latest revision (i.e. it did what you wanted)?  Or that it pulled the released version of the latest revision even though you specified non-released biased?

[mikel_martin]

Just some info on this.

There is another way to acheive the desired result of ensuring that this data is not purged without the need to mark them as released.

In the lifecycle definition dialog there is a tab on the states lalbeled "Controled". There are settings in here that control how much data should NOT be purgeable for versions in that state.

The default for most states is "First and Last" versions in the state. This means that the system should never purge the first and last version of a contigous set in that state. The released rules override these values. Also, just like the "released" flag, existing versions are not effected by changing the configuration.

So, to get the result of making sure that a certain set of versions are never purge you can create a state and set the control option to None. Or setting a state to "First and Last" and just putting a version into that state and then back to WIP would have the same result for that one version of the file.

Hope this helps.

[mikel_martin]

Correction: My first post was incorrect in the set option to set. If you want no versions in a state to be purged the correct setting int he Control tab is ALL (not None). 

[BSchubring]

Matt.Smith:

Here is the behavior we are seeing. if you open an AutoCAD drawing from a Vault client (Get/Check-out), it ALWAYS pulls the latest VERSION of that drawing. (not the last approved revision) This is desired behavior. However, if that drawing has XREFs, AutoCAD is pulling the latest Released REVISION of those XREFs and displaying the symbol notifying you that it has done so. This is not desired, we want it to pull the latest VERSION of XREFs as well.

I believe this behavior is because I has originally set the default initial Lifecycle state to be a Released state to prevent purging (an option I have removed now)

Mikel.Martin:

Thank you, I'll reference this for my next Purge so things go a little smoother!

[matt.smith]

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@BSchubring wrote:

 if you open an AutoCAD drawing from a Vault client

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If you double-click on a file within Vault Explorer to open a file, it will (behind the scenes) do a "Get" with the settings of Latest/Released Biased.  Are you double-clicking on the file within Vault Client to open it?

If so, to avoid that behavior, after you've done the Get/Checkout with the options you want from Vault Client, you should start up AutoCAD and open it from there, or just double-click on the file from Windows Explorer (rather than Vault).  Another option would be to use the "open from Vault" behavior within AutoCAD.

Is this what is happening?  Or is it that after you do a Get/Checkout from within Vault that you already see the xrefs with the half white half black icon--before even attempting to open it?

- Matt

[BSchubring]

Users are double clicking on items in Vault explorer to perform their Get/Checkout. Let me describe a scenario that might clarify better.

1) There is a drawing "A" in Vault. It has two XREFs "B" and "C". All drawings are in the WIP state after having been in the initial state 'Received', which was a released state at one time.

2) All three drawings have multiple edited versions in WIP after their initial 'released' state. Their Revision levels are all at their initial  level "1", and have never bumped.

3) A User decides to open drawing "A", and had never opened any of the three drawings in the past (no local copy), he double clicks "A" in Vault Explorer, and Checks-Out the drawing (same results from a Get as well)

4) Vault downloads the latest version of "A", but the latest Released version of Revision 1 for "B" and "C" (which is the initial upload into Vault because of the beforementioned purge fix attempt)

Spelling this process out to myself, I wonder if just keeping the drawing in WIP, but bumping the Rev level of affected drawings might fix this.

[matt.smith · Accepted solution]

Okay.  Now it makes sense.  Thanks. 

By double-clicking on a file to open it from Vault Explorer, you don't have a chance to specify the options you want (with regard to gathering other files).  On double-click, it automatically gets the latest file you've double-clicked on and gathers the latest *released* files.

Since you don't want this default behavior, you need to change your workflow:

1. RMB on the file you want to open and do Get/Check Out.

2. Set the settings you want (Latest/Non-release biased) and the gathering options you want (include children, parents, etc).  Hit OK.

3. Now Right-click on the file and choose "Go to Working Folder". 

4. Double click the file there.

Or, another option would be to simply do the "open from Vault" from within AutoCAD and (I assume) you get choose the the appropriate released biased settings there as well.  I'm guessing that this is probably the preferred and more typical workflow users would use.

- Matt