"The assembly must be saved before performing the Bill of Materials operation"

[DRoam]

This is absolutely driving me batty. I've never been so frustrated with Inventor before.

I'm using an LOD called "Conservative" in every view in the drawing I'm working on, and the main assembly itself is set to the "Conservative" LOD. So there SHOULD be no conflicts of having multiple LODs open. But here's my issue:

Whenever I just open my drawing and work in it, I'm fine. But as soon as I open the main Assembly to make a modification, all of a sudden Inventor refuses to let me open the Bill of Materials!! I invariably get this message:

Saving the Assembly does NOTHING to fix this. Saving the drawing doesn't help. Closing everything but the drawing doesn't even help! I have to close out of EVERYTHING and re-open my drawing to finally be able to open the BOM.

I'm absolutely peeved at the difficulties caused by LODs. Why on earth did Autodesk make Inventor so picky about having another LOD in use besides the Master?? There is no reason whatsoever that I should not be able to have two different LODs open (say one in use in an Assembly and another in use in a drawing) and be able to work with the Bill of Materials without any issues. Just because one representation isn't utilizing some suppressed Components doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to work with something as absolutely fundamental and critical as the Bill of Materials.

Please, someone tell me what is wrong with my workflow that's causing this message to occur, and how I can get around it.

And please, Autodesk, fix the extremely cumbersome, frustrating, and unnecessary limitations that suddenly come into play when I try to use Level of Details.

[salariua]

I have to admit that I've been getting it a lot, and the one with different LOD !

You right click on the view, select open, try and change iProperties and the error occurs.

Wha'ts LOD have to do with iProperties, I have opened the assembly from the drawing, whatever LOD the drawing was the assembly should match, or even ignore, I am only trying to edit iProperties.

Watch this:

Selective Save should be in place. I understand not all operations are permitted but these are general changes that should not be influenced by LOD's

[Anonymous]

That's one of the main reasons I avoid using LOD in drawing views. From what I understand, each drawing view that uses a level of detail loads another instance of the assembly into memory, thus you will have multiple LOD open. I usually have to close the drawing file first before I can do anything in the assembly file.

Have you considered using iassemblies instead of level of details?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have an answer to this? I use vault life cycles so i would need to check the model out prior to doing a save that I dont need to do before i could acces the BOM in the assembly. Ludacris.

I also agree that LOD in drawings are a pain in the behind. Why have autodesk made it so awkward to modify LOD whist doing a drawing, again Ludacris. Giveth with one hand, take awayeth with the other. Both ProE and Solidworks have Inventor licked on this type of functionality.

Can anyone at Autodesk provide a rationale for this clunky modus operandi?

[Anonymous]

If you use Levels of Detail prepare to kiss your productivity goodbye. You will be backtracking and working in circles for hours doing the same thing over and over, saving, re-saving, closing, saving, restarting, saving again and restarting again.

Don't expect it to get any better. I've used inventor for 8 years and its 2019 and still a problem and won't get fixed any time soon, they're too busy trying to rush the next version out the door.  

[Ray_Feiler]

Ludicrous 🙂

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Brian,

LOD has issues. It was somewhat misunderstood and misused. LOD was designed to be a memory management tool to overcome 3GB RAM limit on Windows 32-bit system. It does have the ability to present an assembly in multiple component states. As a result, some users are using it for Configuration purposes. In some limited fashions, it works but for the most parts, there are issues.

The behaviors you are describing are about how the change to one LOD state is saved. This is related to one of the limitations in LODs. Though an assembly can be loaded in multiple LOD states (by itself or drawing or presentation). When there are changes to the assembly in different LOD states, only one LOD state can be saved at a time.

My suggestion is that when you have multiple LOD states of an assembly loaded in the memory, do not try to change anything. If you want to edit, it is better to keep only one LOD state of the assembly in the memory. Close all other doc windows in other LOD states. Also, it is better to edit the assembly in Master LOD so that the compute pipeline can access all necessary geometry from all files. After the change is made, update the assembly in Master LOD and save. Then activate the non-Master LOD and save.

We are aware of the confusion and the frustration built up on LOD. We are working on a project called Alternative Representations allowing users to configure geometry, components, properties, parameters, and so on within an assembly or a part. If you are interested, you can sign up Inventor Beta (https://bit.ly/InventorBeta), where you can try the latest in-development build on an install-free environment. Then give your feedback to the project teams.

Many thanks!