RELEASED IAM OPENS FINE BUT RELEASED IDW WANTS UPDATE

[brendan.henderson]

I seriously don't get what is happening with Inventor and Vault and I'm looking for ideas.

I have an assy and the associated IDW file. The assy is largish assy (about 8k parts - 1.2k unique) and it is released. From Inventor "Open From Vault" I select the assy file and have Released Bias on and the assy opens fine. No updates, no dirty files. All children are released. Life is good 🙂

The IDW is a diffeent story. On opeing it from Inventor "Open From Vault" and with Released Bias on or off it opens and prompts "blah blah.iam is read-only or is use. Continue with edit? " Usually, thinking that the computer is smarter than me I answer YES to the update. But for Released files this prompt should not appear. Here life is bad 😞 Switching between sheets at this time and I get the same message about "blah .iam is read-only or is in use. blah".

If I set the Open options to Defer Updates it also opens fine with no prompts for Updates but with the usual pop-up about defer updates being on and turning it off to se the updates. But the thing is THERE ARE NO UPDATES! What I do get with Defer Updates on is a question mark in the IDW tree next to the Parts List. I don't know what this means or if it means anything.

I doubt my problem has anything to do with the file size as I also get this problem on the odd small asy file (10 odd parts). The problem is not consistent which is very annoying and makes it impossible to track down.

Any and all ideas appreciated.

[cbenner]

Brendan,

When you open the assembly are you checking it out and updating properties?  Is it possible that you have some properties on parts that are set in Vault, to push down to the file?  If so, and they are making even the slightest change to any iproperties, the drawin's BOM will want to update... causing to old dirty file issue on the IDW.

If you did NOT check out the assembly or update properties.... then I'm as clueless as you. 

This would be a good time for Mr. Hayes or Mr. Martin to educate us. 

[mikel_martin]

Why Inventor (or other  CAD applications) want to update files in a given context is one of the mysteries of the universe that may never be understood. 

For a long time Vault has tried to fight against files changing when the user did not explicitly ask for a change. But, recently we decided that this was a losing battle and that Vault was just adding to the frustration.

So, in the latest subscription release of Vault 2014 we added a new change. This is commonly known as the "Edited out Turn" issue. The change now just gently indicates to the user that a file has been changed, while retaining enough information to allow the user to make easy choices about how to handle the fact the file has changed. This includes the ability to ignore the change.

In short; we can't stop CAD systems from changing files "for the user", but we can attempt to make the experience better.

Here a link to the "Under the Hood" blog article about the change.

http://underthehood-autodesk.typepad.com/blog/2013/10/getting-your-edits-back-in-turn.html

[cbenner]

Mikel,

I remember hearing something about this at AU either last year or 2011... but I was afraid to mention it because I wasn't sure it was active yet.  Glad to hear it's in play now.  Can't wait to see what's in store for 2015.... anything exciting... even if you can't say what?

[mikel_martin]

YES!

Be sure to attend my class at AU this year to find out what. 

[BLHDrafting]

Thanks for the comment Chris. I don't believe I have any properties on parts that are set in Vault to push down to the file, but I will get my VAR to check it. Cheers.

[brendan.henderson]

Mikel, I'm looking forward to the updates in Vault 2014. But I'm on 2013 and I need a solution for that.

I am instructing my team to select NO to the Continue With Edit prompt for released files.

In an attempt to get a solution I offer the below Diagnostic Information.

If I open (Inventor - Open From Vault) the IDW and select YES to the prompt the Diagnostic Info shows this :-

If I then open the IAM by RMB and OPEN on the IDW view (above) the Diagnostic Info shows this :-

If I open (Inventor - Open From Vault) the IDW and select NO to the prompt the Diagnostic Info is clean. No flags shown and do Dirty Bits. But I can't change sheets without the prompt showing again.

If I then change sheets in the above IDW the Diagnostic Info shows this :-

I can supply this dataset to you and/or Autodesk for examination/testing. It's a big assy so it will need an FTP upload. I'm okay with being told I have done something wrong that causes this problem. I just want to know what it is so I can roll out the fix to my team.

[mikel_martin]

I understand what you are saying, and I know that upgrading is not a simple task, but the problem of files getting updated at seemly random times has been an on going issue for some time (for Inventor and many other CAD systems) and is not likely going to change.

The only fix to alleviate the symptoms, caused by this, is to upgrade to 2014 + subscription release.

Given the nature of the change it not likely to be back ported to earlier releases.

I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don't.

[cbenner]

Just scheduled it.  Thursday morning!?  Bad time slot, man.  😄

[mikel_martin]

Yeah, not what I would have chosen.

It's out of my control.