Problem with Revit and multiple office locations

[jrath]

We are a medium sized company about 50 people. We have 5 office locations. The office that I am in we stores Revit files on our server and it works great. But when I take my laptop to any other office location or even when I vpn in from home if I map the O: drive (our server here) then Revit opens very slowly and runs really slow and sometimes locks up. When I don't map the O: drive it runs fine.

I am thinking of implementing Revit Server and we are looking at upgrading from 20mbps internet to 40mbps.

Jeff Rath

Cad/Bim Manager

Rmg Engineers

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli · Accepted solution]

it sounds somthing related to mapped drive latency

I dont know what is causing it, but it sounds like it is trying to search and cached the files and folder of the map drive

As an alternative solution can you please try to turn off windows search and let me know if it works fine after these temporary changes

To Turn off widows search

• Go to control panel
• Select (Program and Features)
• Click on (Turn Windows features on or off)
• Uncheck (Remote Differential Compression) and (Windows Search)
• Click OK and restart computer

[jrath]

This help 2 of my big problems.

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

I will escalate this to the development team and see if they could fix something with Revit or it is a window workflow issue

[jrath]

Well there is still a problem.

At the office it was working well. But right now I am at home with my laptop and either loading a family or trying to apply a jpg to a texture will cause my Revit to lock up and hang. I have to use task manager to close Revit.

[jrath]

I have large libraries of textures ... over 1000 jpgs. and I have over 6000 families. I have these on a server and a copy on a usb drive.

[jrath]

I think there is a problem with the preview cache. I am browsing hundreds of families and textures, making new families and new textures and previewing them in Revit. It is like the temp file of cache files, or memory management is getting overwhelmed. I have seen a similar problem with an older version of Revit going through a lot of families on a slow server drive and locking of in preview mode.

Is there a way to clear the old memory or cache? Am I using the right terms?

I went in and wiped Windows 7 temp by going to run >> %temp% and clearing out everything. But I think Revit stores information other places about previous files opened.

I am using Revit visualization to bring more work into our firm and I need these functions to work.

[jrath]

I am also going to try modifying the Revit ini file to delete recent files list and see if this helps.

[jrath]

OK I removed all of the recent files from my Revit ini file and it seems to be behaving better.

[jrath]

I am still having a problem.

When my computer is on the network at the office it works fine. But when I run Revit at any other location and I try to load a family or load a jpg texture Revit locks up and just hangs.

This is a problem because I am the BIM manager and I need to sometime use this laptop for training and working in other locations.

Jeff Rath

RMG Engineers

[Alaaeldin_Alsahli]

IF you set your windows preview to details instead of Thumbnail, does the issue disappear for the family?

Before browsing to family, go to option and add new library path with only c: as path and move it to the top of the list and then when you try to load a family change the view display and then go to the network 

and for the material, if you are using 2015, I found this link, it may fix the issue

http://whatrevitwants.blogspot.ca/2014/08/hotfix-for-revit-2015-file-performance.html

[jrath]

Actually I had the preview set to list.

Sooo ...  This has been a freaky and strange journey ... Why could I load Families at my main workplace and have it lock up other places? 

Well ...

This is hard to believe ...

When I plug a second monitor into my laptop then I can load families and browse jpgs for materials.

When I unplug the second monitor and try to load families or change a material jpg then it will lock up and hang there forever.

It is a real strange cause.

I will experiment with windows dual monitor settings and see what is going on.

Jeff Rath

RMG

[jrath]

OK I figured out the rest ...

The reason Revit hangs is because the search operation opens a window on the 2nd screen. If the 2nd screen is not hooked up then Revit hangs.

Solution hook up the second screen and move the search window to the 1st screen. Then save and exit Revit. Now when you run Revit with one screen it will work.

Perhaps there is some Revit source code that needs to be changed to address this.

Jeff Rath

BIM Manager

RMG Engineers

[jkarben]

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jrath wrote:

Solution hook up the second screen and move the search window to the 1st screen. Then save and exit Revit. Now when you run Revit with one screen it will work.

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Another option:

Having trouble finding that missing dialog box somewhere on your multiple monitors?
a. Press Alt+Spacebar, then M, then any arrow key.  The window is now stuck to your cursor.
b. Move your mouse around to find it!

[jrath]

cool

nice trick

Jeff