Content Center files - Wrong directory - Re-reference?

[travward]

I went on a tangent in a different thread "Vault Mass Rename" http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Vault-General/Vault-Mass-Rename/m-p/4897288#M51900     My underlying problem is illustrated in that thread but it doesn't have anything to do with "mass vault renaming"

About a year ago, we re-routed our content center files to be on a server, and managed by vault. Before then the content center files used to be stored on the local machines. There was a time during this when something wasn't set up right and the content center files were being routed to the local machine in a "c:/library" directory.

We had recently turned on "No Duplicate files" in vault. When we turned this on we had a huge amount of content center files duplicate because of the ones created and placed in the wrong location "c:/library". This is why I wanted to have the capability of "mass renaming" files in vault.

I have deleted my working folder, and the c:/library folder, and I deleted the "c:/user/[user name/document" folders. After this, If I open an old file from vault the hardware is automatically created in the "c:/user/ directory". Now... Regardless to the file being in "c:/user" or in "c:/library", if I right click on the file and change size, w/o changing the size, it will re-reference itself to the correct file location; and I think this is because it's recreating the file from the content center database, which is programmed to route the file to the correct file location. At this point, my only option is to perform this for every file in my assembly.

My question is: Is there a way to re-create content center files in an assembly, which would be equivalent to "changing size, w/o changing size" for all hardware in the assembly.

Follow?

Travward

[innovatenate]

I'm not sure I'm completely grasping this issue. It sounds like you have deleted a folder containing duplicate library refernces after moving to the Vault and disabling duplicate files.  However, upon opening some files, a content center file is created in the old, and incorrect file location? Does this sound right?

If so, you should make sure that you have all of the latest updates and service packs installed for Autodesk Inventor and Vault (if you haven't done so yet). 

This may not be the best solution, but you may be able to use Task Scheduler to create a custom task. 

Custom Task in Task Scheduler

I've attached a programming sample from the Help drop down menu > Community Resources > Programming Help that demonstrates how to replace a content part referenced by an assembly occurrence. Perhaps this could be used to automate a procedure and batch process files.

This seems like a work-around for an un-expected behavoir. Does it seem like the program is not functioning as designed? Would you mind elaborating further on the issue description?

Thanks,

[travward]

Hey Thanks, I'll try the macro and let you know.

I don't know if I grasp it either but here we go:

We were recommended by Autodesk Support to turn on "no duplicate files" in vault, this is after realizing that a couple local machines in our network were setup wrong. Instead of creating the content center file and placing them onto the server (off the local machine), the computer created the CC fiels and put them onto the local machine. The files would be checked into vault as $:/library directory. The rest of the computers were set up to load the CC files onto a network location, //[network name]/CAD Resouces (the correct location). This among other things was why we currently have about 2000+ files that are duplicate in vault.

I wanted to be able to "mass rename" all of the $:/library files that were in vault, because I had (thought I had) found that if the computers were set up right then the files would relink themselves to the correct location in vault (on the server). This seemed to be true up until a week ago when opening some legacy models, I was noticing some of the CC files were showing up in both "c:/library" and in "c:/user/username]/documents/". Mostly in the "c:/user" directory. I don't know why.

I had experimented with deleting the working folder, $:/library, and c:/user/.. folders. AFter when opening these assembly files from vault, the CC files would be placed in the c:/user directory. ... If I were to check out one of these CC files in this assembly it would move it to $:/library/. And again, if I right clicked, change size, w/o actually changing the size (keeping the size it was originall) the files would repopulate in the correct location, on the server.

Thanks,

travward