2015 Vault Pro - What causes "Unknown Status"

[karthur1]

Trying to figure out what "Unknown Status" means in the staus column.  Looked in the help and that didnt explain much.  Its pretty simple to fix this (either refresh from Inventor>Vault browser or "Get" from Vault).

I just dont understand how it get this way or the hidden implications of correcting it either way.

Thanks,

Kirk

[Neil_Cross · Accepted solution]

It typically means that an iteration/edit/save of the file has been happened without it being checked out.  There's a load of ways it can happen, sometimes avoidable but often not.

One example is the Inventor IPJ file, if you clear the read only flag on the IPJ and make a change, you'll get the unknown status flag against it.  If you move files around in the workspace, rename them etc that can cause it.  Inventor can also cause it by editing files that aren't checked out <- that's the most frustrating and disruptive occurence of this.

But either way, it usually means that the version of the file in the workspace has been altered without a checkout.

[ihayesjr · Accepted solution]

It also could mean that Vault is unable to verify the checksum of the file.  If you know you have not modified the file you can just do a Get to get the latest version.

[karthur1]

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@Neil_Cross wrote:

......But either way, it usually means that the version of the file in the workspace has been altered without a checkout.

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Is that not the same as "edit out-of-turn"?  I thought that would give a solid green dot in the browser.  I never change the read-only status of a file with explorer and then edit it.  If its in vault, it gets checked out then edited, but I still have files with the "unknown status" icon.

@ihayesjr 

It seems that most of the time when I see this, I have not made any edits to the file.

Kirk

[BaronEngineering]

How do you correct the unknown status?

[karthur1]

Right-click in the Inventor Vault brower and choose "Refresh File"... or from Vault Explorer, right-click and "Get Latest".

@ihayesjr 

How can the "Unknown Status" happen on these files?  Watch this video.  The thing that gets me is that only one person has workied on these files.  He is the only one that has checked any of them in or made any nnew versions..... but he still has "Unknown Status" in the browser.  Doing a "Refresh File" from Inventor clears it... just not sure why this even happens.  Is it some workflow that he can do to cause this?

Kirk

[ihayesjr]

Kirk,

This would have nothing to do with the other user checking out and modifying a file.  Did you perform a update of Vault recently?

How clean is your workspace?  Is it possible for you to check in all files you have checked out, delete all local files and get all the latest ones from Vault again?

[karthur1]

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@ihayesjr wrote:

Kirk,

This would have nothing to do with the other user checking out and modifying a file.  Did you perform a update of Vault recently?

How clean is your workspace?  Is it possible for you to check in all files you have checked out, delete all local files and get all the latest ones from Vault again?

---

To make matters even worse, some of the files that are checked out also show unknown status. I am able to make changes and save the files in Inventor, but I can't check them in.  It will not allow me to check out the files.  The only way I can check them out is to check them out from Vault and use the option to not download the file. Theback in Inventor, I can now check them into vault.  It is impossible to know, from Vault or Inventor, which files have been edited. If I just do a "Get Latest" on the folder any edits that have been made will be lost, but it resolves the "unknown status" issue.

The only recent update that has been done is when we applied SP1 for the server and client (11/6/14).

I only have one workstation that is doing this, the others dont have this issue.

Kirk

[mikel_martin]

There was change made recently to help with the "edited out of turn" issue.

Durring donwloads we now store more infomraiton is some hidden files within the workspace.

The "unknown" status can happen for a couple reasons.

1. Vault can not read the file correctly for some reason

2. The local data (hidden by default) is not present. This can happen a couple ways.

• the file was downloaded before the new changes were put into place
• someone copied the files to the workspace manually
• someone deleted the hidden files that are located in the "_v" folders

3. The file on disk is historical data and coresponding version is Vault has been purged.

Hope this helps

[n.schotten]

I'm having the same kind of issues with vault.

Check de screencap film i made of it;

[url]www.ahbest.nl/checkout-error-2014-11-21_1412.swf[/url]

I have not done anything to the _V folders, and i can see them and all thise 1K files in them 😞 Why??? Doesn't that eat up so much extra storage, compared to a single data file?

Anyway. Editing a part that is not checked out does not pop the 'check out' question' it seems. The application options-promts are all set to ask.

I'm open for ideas...

Niels

[karthur1]

Odd that the status changes to "Unknown Status" when you exit the save dialog (1:23).  Do you have any of the vault prompts suppressed (under Vault tab, Vault Options)?

I just have to laugh everytime I see the Autodesk line "You didn't get into engineering to manage data, so don't. ". 

[n.schotten]

Hi,

Nope. All dialogs are active.



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[achintam]

In a normal case, you should be seeing a Green Circle icon with the Vault Status Modifier (+) at the end of the file when the file is modified on disk without checking it out from Vault. But there are cases (as outlined by Mikel Martin in his reply) where Unknown Status is shown. The best way to overcome this situation is to download the file again from Vault.

Thanks

[karthur1]

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@Anonymous wrote:

.... The best way to overcome this situation is to download the file again from Vault.

Thanks

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That is ONE way to correct this issue.... but not necessarily the best. The user is allowed to edit a file in Inventor that has "Unknown Status" in the Vault brower,  then he is not allowed to check it in. If the user downloads the latest from Vault, they will over-write any changes that they have made to the files.

This is exactly the issue that we are against right now.  Now several users have "Unknown Status" shown on several files. They "could" have modified the files or they might not have...who knows.  Its just a gamble to overwrite the existing files with the vault data.

I have several users that have folders full of files that shows "Unknown Status". Both Irvin H. and Mikel M. says that another reason this might happen is that vault could not read the file correctly.  Is this a network problem, SQL issue... ect. ????

@mikel_martin 

Just as a test, I deleted several files in a specific _V folder.  I was wanting to see if the ones I delete, show "Unknown Status" in the Vault browser.  It did not, they show the correct status in the Vault browser.

Something has to be done with this issue because we are no longer confident in the Vault data (very bad thing).

Kirk

[mikel_martin]

There is some backup logic to get the status in the event of a missing v file.

But you are rolling the dice, there are many scenerios where you will get an unknown status if you delete the v files.

I dont recommend it.

[karthur1]

I only deleted the local _v files as a test.... just to see if I could make the Unknown Status icon appear in the vault browser.  After I deleted them, the icon did not appear in the browser.

On a different workstation, here is what I see in the Vault browser.  I have the _V folder open and the file selected in the foreground.  A few things I would like to note. 1. there is only one version of the file in vault. 2. This was checked in by EWest and this is EWests workstation we are looking at. 3. The _v is in the folder. 4. The Hidden files/folders were hidden on this system, I had to make them visible.

We have not copied any of the _v files to this folder.

[karthur1]

Here is another way to get the "Unknown Status" which could result in lost work.

1. Create a part and save it.

2. Unbeknowest to you, that filename already exists in Vault.

3. Go to the Vault browser and the "Unknown status" icon appears. Right-click and do a "Get/Checkout".  

You just lost the work that you previously completed. No warnings or nothing!!!  That does not seem consistent to other Vault workflows.  Here is a video of what I am seeing.

I would have expected that Vault would show the solid green circle (edited out of turn) and when I do a "Get/Checkout", it would NOT overwrite my work.... unless I changed and selected the force overwrite in the "Get/Checkout" dialog.

Thanks,

Kirk

[karthur1]

Mikel,

Here is something else that I just ran into this week with the unknown status.

One of the engineers got a new workstation.  Our workstations are setup so that we have one drive (D:\) dedicated soley to our inventor data. So all the files (non hidden and hidden folders) were copied from the old  D:\ to a new D:\ on the new workstation. Now when he goes into Vault Pro and looks at the files, if the file is common between his new workspace and Vault, the files will have the unknown status icon.

You mentioned earlier about the checksum of the file being different.  Would moving the file like that from one hard-drive to another cause the checksum to be different?

I would like to be able to run a search and find all the files in vault that show "Unknown Status", then I could get those and everything would be good. I can't see a way to do that, So we are left with manually working thru the folders on his workspace and doing a "Get Latest".  Very time consuming.

Kirk

[mikel_martin]

The checksum should not change when moving a file from one location to the next.

But I suppose it is possible depending on how you moved them. A checksum change typically only occurs is the file itself has changed.

However, we also use other information that could be changed on a move like this. For example the create date of a file. We use the create date of the file to help identify the version. When moving files through HTTP, FTP, or if moving from an NTFS disk to a non-NTFS disk then the create date will be changed. When we download from Vault (via HTTP) we reset the create date to the correct value. If the create date of the file has been changed, then you may get an unknown status.

Also, in the workspace we place hidden files into hidden folders. Depending on your copying process those files might have been left behind. If those files are not present when they should be then Vault also can not identify the version correctly.

We typically recommend the people not manually move the workspace. The most reliable way is to check-in the data and re-download from Vault on the new machine. 

[karthur1]

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@mikel_martin wrote:

.... 

We typically recommend the people not manually move the workspace. The most reliable way is to check-in the data and re-download from Vault on the new machine.  

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In this case we had a motherboard failure so we could not get the files back into vault.

When the files moved, we also took all the _V folders.  We just drag-drop them from one drive to another using windows explorer. The dates on the files did not change.

What would be the "best" way to move the files in a case like this?

Kirk