Content Library - Linked from A360

[Chad-Smith]

I'm having some issues with getting the Linked Library from A360 working. It has the spinning progress icon, and never finishes.

I've tried on different PCs, different days, and different networks, but it just won't load the content.

And yes, I do have converted content in the FormIt > Content folder on A360 Drive.

[Tobias_Hathorn]

Hi Chad - The spinning wheel indicates the system is loading (downloading) part of the content -

So my question... is there ALOT of RFA based content on A360?

One bummer of using the web / mobile app for content syncing with A360 is that a download step is required...

I'm happy to help debug if you want to share the contents of your content folder with me (I'll DM you to set that up!)

Or I can describe how I'd go about figuring out where the bottle neck is...

• On A360 go into the FormIt/content folder
• Select each folder but one and right click 'move' 
• Move all but one of the folders out of the content folder into the top level FormIt folder
• Now go back to FormIt web and link library to A360... The loading should be much faster with just one folder
• Now go back to A360 FormIt/content folder and add your content folders back in one by one to see which one is the 'culprit'!

Does this make sense? I'm happy to explain more or do this exploratory testing. Thanks for posting your issue!

Tobias

[Chad-Smith]

Thanks Tobias.

My content library test was just the OOTB Revit content which was abled to be converted to FormIt format.

Following your debugging steps I remove all folders except one. This one folder had some subfolders, and 45 files. It didn't work.

I then removed that last folder, and moved back into the FormIt\Content folder just 8 files with no subfolders. This also hasn't worked.

In regards to the mechanics of how this is supposed to work, I'm quite surprised that the content is to be downloaded/synced locally first.

Because FormIt is already linked with A360 Drive to save the projects, then maybe the A360 Content list should just be a graphical representation (i.e. thumbnails) for the purpose of browsing, and then content is downloaded into the project on-demand?

For comparison, the same FormIt Content library stored locally works fine.

[Tobias_Hathorn · Accepted solution]

Hi Chad, Thanks for investigating! The last comment that this works fine locally leads me to another theory / suggestion... did you make the Content folder on A360 yourself? 

One thing to test - rename the folder so it is a lower case 'c' in content. A different thing to try along the same lines

- move all the subfolders out of your content folder,

- then delete the content folder,

- then go to FormIt web and link to an A360 folder

- this will automatically create a content folder for you...

- now move the sub folders back into the new content folder 

And you're right - sorry I didn't clarify - the web app downloads the folder structure / lists / thumbnail previews etc... but doesn't download the geometry until you go to place it. There is a delay but it's not as bad until you go to place the elements from the content folder.

Thanks,

Tobias

[Chad-Smith · Accepted solution]

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@Tobias_Hathorn wrote:

One thing to test - rename the folder so it is a lower case 'c' in content.

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BAM, that's it!

Being picky, no doubt I gave it an upper case 'C' at some time. 

[cwinches]

I'm having the same problem. The solution posted does not work on my end. I moved the one model I have in my A360 drive one level up out of "Content" and then renamed it to "content." Formit returns "No items in Directory." I've tried with the default folder structure as well and I get endless spinning. There is one model on my drive. This should take less than a second to find right? How can we get this working? Why don't the default folder paths work correctly in the first place? I'm having to download the file locally to get access to it. Thanks. 

[cwinches]

Actually, while I can download the component model file, I still can't access it locally. Definitely need a solution here. I'm out of options. Thanks again.

[Tobias_Hathorn]

Hi Cody - Sorry to hear you're having trouble here - can you clarify whether you're testing FormIt web or FormIt for Windows?

Personally I am normally linking to a content library folder on local drive. I see the convenience of A360, but there are always issues, namely that it's still just a personal drive, and not a great 'shared' drive solution. But it is a feature, and we do support it - so let's make sure it CAN work for you.

I tested FormIt web version just now and I was able to get it to work - note that I DID have to make sure my content folder had a lower case 'c' in order to link the folder!

• Visit A360 drive, go into the FormIt folder, find the 'content' folder, open it - make sure you have an AXM file in there (you can have add'n folders)
• Go to FormIt web, sign in to A360, click the content library icon, choose to 'Link Library' and specify A360 
• Click the 'Browse Library' button and a pop-up file navigation tree appears - click the desired folder
• You should see thumbnail previews of the content inside that folder - now you can drag and drop these into the canvas

There are plenty of gotchas in this process, the capitalization of the folder, the fact it only reads in AXM files (not RFA, or RVT, or SAT, or SKP), so I hope that part of these steps or even the attached images help?