Prev. Version RFA w/ Nested Families Issue in 2014

[Anonymous]

Has anyone else had an issue with Revit families (w/ nested families), that were created in a previous version, not loading into a project file in Revit 2014 and displaying the following error message (  ). The family will work fine in previous versions but not in 2014. There is no issue with host families that do not have nested families. What I have found as a quick fix is to save the nested file(s) in 2014, reload into host family and then save it in 2014 - will load perfectly into 2014 project file without any errors. With that said, there lies a huge problem for companies that have a large Revit content (with nested families) library created prior to release 2014. I have not installed 2015 yet to see if the issue still exists but there's a good chance it will. If myself and a few other Revit users are doing something wrong, please provide corrective feedback.

[CoreyDaun]

I've had this issue with a few different Families; Revit seems to like to break them with each new release. Here is my correction process:

1. If the nested Family(ies) are not saved as their own files somewhere, open your Family in the original version and extract them. You can right-click on them in the Project Browser and select "Save..." to quickly export them.

2. Open your Family in the new Revit version. Create a copy if you want to preserve the original; I have been putting the Revit version as a suffix so I know which have been fixed for which version.

3. Open the nested Family file in the new version and immediately load it into the host Family, opting to simply overwrite (not parameter values, though). Note that I have experience errors when trying to open the nested Family by clicking on an instance and electing "Edit..." from the host Family in the new version.

4. Save and close the host Family. Open it again, but this time ensure that the "Audit" option is checked in the "Open" dialog. Save and close  again.

This is a P.I.T.A., but it should correct your problems.

[Lance.Coffey]

If you can post a sample family with this issue, I would like to take a look at it to see if I can reproduce the behavior on my system.

Here is some info on changes to families in 2014:
Data from lookup tables is now stored within the family, eliminating the need for external CSV files: Use the Manage Lookup Tables tool while editing a family to import, export, or delete lookup table data. See Managing Lookup Tables.

And here is some info on changes to families in 2015:
Family restructuring in project upgrades: When you upgrade a project, each family loaded in the project (including system families) is restructured. This change is a one-time process for each project if the project is saved. The internal family-related data restructuring improves overall performance and will slightly increase the project file size.

Important: Projects with large numbers of families will require a significant amount of time to process and complete the project upgrade. Plan upgrade time accordingly.

Family parameter order: The default parameter order for families created in Revit 2015 is ascending alphabetic order by parameter name. When you edit families in the current release that were created prior to Revit 2015, the existing parameter order is not modified. New Sorting Order buttons (Ascending and Descending) are available in the Family Types dialog to sort the parameters for the family you are editing. See Create Family Parameters.

You can also use the API to batch sort existing family parameters automatically in alphabetic or reverse alphabetic order. Code samples (FamilyParametersOrder), included in the Revit Software Development Kit (SDK) for 2015, illustrate how to use the API to batch upgrade families and to automatically sort family parameters. See About the Revit SDK.

[Anonymous]

Thanks CADastrophe... sounds like a similar approach to what I have done. Unfortunately, we would have to go through our entire library to address this issue. Not a good thing...

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Lance - I really appreciate that.

I have attached a zip file for our SkyBar fixture which contains all of the files that we provide along with the Revit model of the product.

[Lance.Coffey]

I was able to reproduce the error with the sample files.

Looking at the journal file recorded when loading the family, I am seeing the following lines:
(This line is repeated for three total elements).
DBG_WARN: Failed to remap elemId 98241; caller id str={__transplantFamily__}: line 50 of Merge\ElementIdRemapperStrict.cpp.

DBG_WARN: Container m_lightSchemeEntries was found to contain duplicate entries!

Duplicate entries generally indicate corruption and can lead to the project/family being unusable.

From what I have found it looks like part of the upgrade process is trying to remap elements, this process is failing and resulting in duplicate entries, which leads to the error.

I have tested the process proposed by CADastrophe with slight modifications (saving out the nested families, opening the host family in 2014, and then right clicking each family and selecting Reload, and overwrite) and it does seem to avoid the error and allow you to load the family into a 2014 project.

I've also found that opening the original 2011 family file in Revit 2015 does not generate this error.

Since the family was last saved in the 2011 version, I tried upgrading to 2012, 2013, and then 2014, and this also appears to prevent the error (although I was using Audit during the upgrades, I'm not sure if this was necessary).

If you have a large library of families to bring into the 2014 version, I would suggest taking a copy of the 2011 library, and then use an upgrade utility to upgrade the library through 2012, 2013, and then 2014. Once upgraded check if the issue continues.