topic Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only option in Civil 3D Forum

Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only option

jeff_rivers — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 15:47:33 GMT

My drawing has a surface created from an xml file, and I deleted the xml file. Now I cannot delete the surface. When I look at it in Prospector, there's no option to delete, only Repair broken reference, Zoom to, Pan to, and Refresh (see attached image).

Selecting Repair broken reference does nothing that I can see, and does not fix the surface nor give me an option to select it or delete it.

I was going to try the trick to add a featureline to the surface definition in order to add entities to it to make it selectable, but there's no Edit option available in Prospector.

How do I delete this rogue surface?

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

autoMick — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 20:25:41 GMT

maybe create a new drawing with dummy surface with same name and reference that. Then delete in the right order?

Cheers

Mick

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

Jowennl — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 21:38:42 GMT

Hi @jeff_rivers,

You got 2 options to delete this.

1. Click the repair broken reference then point to any civil 3d drawing and if it can't find the reference then you will have the option to delete the reference.

2. Re-link the broken reference to any other working reference from data shortcut.

See attached animated gif below to guide you.

Delete or Re-assign - Repair Broken Reference

Visit my article about data shortcut <Link> and view screencast no. 3 Reference data shortcut promote and un-promote for more information.

Cheers,

Jowenn

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

jeff_rivers — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 23:18:32 GMT

Thanks for the advice. I fixed it, but it was here that I got tripped up. When I selected "Repair broken reference", this was the next dialog box that appeared:

Selecting "Repair all broken references" did not do anything.

I didn't hit Cancel because I thought that would cancel the process to repair the broken link. Turns out hitting Cancel *is the right action to take* from this dialog box. Because that caused another dialog box to appear, and I was given the option to delete the surface from that dialog.

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

Jowennl — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 23:52:16 GMT

Hi @jeff_rivers,

I would suggest use option 2 instead and just use the manage data shortcut and un-promote / relink it to another surface. Can you please check this option as I think this is better than option 1. Please check the complete animated gif to show the option 2.

Cheers,

Jowenn

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

kevinW68SV — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 18:22:53 GMT

Option 2 worked great for me.

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

cwitzel5NL5H — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 21:46:23 GMT

I have found that almost always a right click on the surface will get "Select".

The delete key will then delete the surface. I think it has to be delete rather than "Erase", but I don't have anything to test on here.

I have used it a lot when the surface can't be deleted by right click.

Hope that helps,

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

01U — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:34:30 GMT

Unfortunately, this didn't work for me 😓.

I have lots of missing ProjectWise references.

I followed the GIF guide, fails.

Tried clicking "cancel", when the "additional repair" dialog pops up.
still refuses to delete.

Re: Unable to delete a surface - "repair broken reference" is the only

Dominic_Nudo — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 18:09:44 GMT

Thank you. I was doing the same thing.

I was able to delete the reference only after selecting cancel each time the window asking to repair all broken references popped up.