Can't Open Revit Project, Unrecovereable Error

[Anonymous]

I'm currently working on a large project in which I've created an architectural, structural and mechanical model. Today I was instructed that some changes were required to to the mechanical model ASAP, and to my horror, the file crashes upon opening.

There are several linked CAD files, and before crashing I get the "XXXXX.dwg has extents greater than 20 miles...." error, for which I tried both OK and Cancel.

Then I get a "Some elements were lost during import. ActiveX and some proprietary components cannot be imported" error. This has been coming up since the beginning and doesn't seem to be an issue.

Then I get a "Import dected no valid elements in the file's model space, do you want to import from the paper space?" error. I tried both Yes and No, with no different results.

Then after at few seconds I get the "An unrecoverable error has occurred. The program will now be terminated. All of your data has been recently saved, so there is no need to create recovery files" error and then of course it crashes

I tried going Open>All (versus the defaul "Last Viewed"). I also tried checking off "Detatch from Central" and "Audit" when opening with no difference.

I also tried opening both local and central models, and creating a new local model.

As well my Structural model gets the same errors and crashes, as I believe the mechanical model was loaded into it when I last saved. When I reload the mechanical model into my architectural model it also crashes.

Any help or contact info for someone who can provide assistance would be much appreciated. Unfortunately time is of the essence (this needs to be done ASAP for a presenation). Unfortunately it's also confidential project, so I'm trying to obtain permission to send the files to Autodesk for troubleshooting if need be. 

[rosskirby]

Try moving all the CAD linked files to a different location so that they're not found when opening the Revit file.  Then manually re-path them one at a time to see which one is causing the problem.  Also, probably wouldn't be a bad idea to open and audit/purge the CAD files beforehand.

[Anonymous]

I tried this with the file that had the 20 mile warning to no avail. Moving all the links however would be pretty big upset, as they are xrefed into hundreds of other autocad drawings as well.

Luckily I found a fix, installing Revit 2013 update #3 has allowed me to open the file, though I'm still curious what could have caused the issue.

[Anonymous]

Another update, somehow the scale factor of a CAD link went up by a factor of 1000. Of course this far surpassed Revit's 20 miles from the origin limit by a fair bit. Could this have prevented the drawing from opening before the update?

Luckily everything is still justified the same, so all that was required is to change the scale factor of all the linked drawing to 0.001.

[rosskirby]

Well, that would do it.  CAD and Revit don't always play nice.  It's hard to make a specific diagnosis without looking at your actual files, and since it appears that you have quite a few separate linked CAD files, I don't know that I'd even want to try. 

Good luck to you!