topic Re: Can't purge arrowheads in Revit Architecture Forum

Can't purge arrowheads

ryley.g.h — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 13:14:50 GMT

Hello, I am currently working on a template and somehow a bunch of duplicate arrowheads have shown up (see image). I can't purge them, and I cannot find them being used in anywhere I've checked so far. Can anyone help tell me what annotation I may have missed?

What I have cleared thus far:
Text styles

All dimension styles, including the spot elevation, slope, coordinate ones

Everything in the symbol panel under the annotate tab

All multi category tags

All space and room tags

Keynote tag

And all the other annotation symbols (door, window, wall, ect)

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

ryley.g.h — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 13:49:09 GMT

Update: I've gone through and edited every single type under the annotation drop down under the families drop down in the project browser, still nothing.

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

barthbradley — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 16:09:55 GMT

Do you have any CAD stuff in your Template?

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

ToanDN — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 17:09:17 GMT

Share the file here.

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

ryley.g.h — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 16:02:51 GMT

Unfortunately I can't, company policy and all that.

I think I found the issue though, but no idea how to solve it. Whenever I delete select families from the project, I can magically purge some of those duplicate arrowheads. What's more weird though, is that after I delete it from the project, I can purge the arrowhead without purging the family from the project first. But, when you "check none" and purge just the arrowhead, it also purges the host family outright at the same time. It is happening to some families that we created and some families our client gave us.

I've attached one of the bad families here.

Edit: I'm on Revit 2020.2.5

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

ToanDN — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 16:30:15 GMT

@ryley.g.h wrote:

Unfortunately I can't, company policy and all that.

I think I found the issue though, but no idea how to solve it. Whenever I delete select families from the project, I can magically purge some of those duplicate arrowheads. What's more weird though, is that after I delete it from the project, I can purge the arrowhead without purging the family from the project first. But, when you "check none" and purge just the arrowhead, it also purges the host family outright at the same time. It is happening to some families that we created and some families our client gave us.

I've attached one of the bad families here.

Edit: I'm on Revit 2020.2.5

What is this family for? Arrowheads are under your project template, not families.

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

ryley.g.h — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 16:49:25 GMT

I know... That's why I'm so confused that I can purge arrow heads when I delete the families. It's as if Revit is importing arrowhead styles from the family for some reason.

That family is a door family I created, and it's the only one that I've created that seems to be doing it.

You can see what I'm talking about if you start a clean project just using one of the default Revit templates. Purge the arrowheads, load in the door, place it, delete it, and then look to purge and you will see another arrowhead popup. Once you purge that arrowhead, the door will purge too.

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

ToanDN — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 20:46:32 GMT

@ryley.g.h wrote:

I know... That's why I'm so confused that I can purge arrow heads when I delete the families. It's as if Revit is importing arrowhead styles from the family for some reason.

That family is a door family I created, and it's the only one that I've created that seems to be doing it.

You can see what I'm talking about if you start a clean project just using one of the default Revit templates. Purge the arrowheads, load in the door, place it, delete it, and then look to purge and you will see another arrowhead popup. Once you purge that arrowhead, the door will purge too.

I loaded the door family in a project against my belief that it would not be adding any arrowhead styles to the project. Guess what? No new arrowhead styles added to the project.

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

RDAOU — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 09:05:56 GMT

@ryley.g.h

Is this what you are experiencing? (See GIF Below)

Using the door you uploaded
Starting with a new Blank Model which has an Arrow Head named Diagonal 1/64"
Once the Door family you uploaded is loaded and Placed in the model, there are 2x Diagonal 1/64"
It even get worse when you edit the family and reload into the project to find out that you now have 3x Diagonal 1/64"

PS: Should Toan consider changing some of his beliefs after the above GIF... we shall all call him Thomas 🙂

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

ryley.g.h — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 22:10:36 GMT

Yes, this is exactly what is happening! But it seems to happen to more than just that one family. Not sure what's going on here....

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

Corsten.Au — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 08:39:17 GMT

Hello

There are different Dimension styles used in the " Door " family. and those different Dimension styles are using few arrowheads which are getting transfered into the project.

I can see " interior tick mark" for one of the dimension style, Revit needs to have atleast one style for the usage in the revit family.

I would suggest keep everything consistent but I guess you know whats happening now.

Have a look at these screen shots from the Door family - dimensions.

Dim - 1 ( I tried to rename the arrowheads to pinpoint the issues )Dim - 2

Dim - 3

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

dc_vadim — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 14:36:10 GMT

It's even more interesting than that. Apparently, the trash arrowheads in the project can be not only attached to some older family dimension styles, but also materials. Here's an example with two detail item families. One of them has been cleaned up and the other still has the trash arrowhead:

The only solution I've found so far is to pinpoint such families by first eliminating each and every view as well as the model itself (of course on a backup copy) in the project so that the families could be purged, then deleting the arrowheads in question and seeing which families they are tied to.

Once you know the family, you can undo purge (or reload the project before the changes), edit the family in the family editor and use the Purge tool to clean it. Interestingly enough there's nothing to purge there there except one material named Default.

Yet if you purge it and load it back into the project, you will be able to remove the nasty arrowhead as it is no longer tied to that family.

And... you have to repeat that for every family that is fauly of that. Remember, that it may happen to the annotation families as well and they won't be so easy to find if they are in use, but you can paste them into a new project and use the purge there to find them.

If you could find an easier solution for this cleanup, that would be a blessing.

Revit file attached (R2023).

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

Andy_ThomasZ822 — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:53:18 GMT

I just had this same experience, following the process of this thread almost exactly. The trash arrowheads (which were also the "Diagonal 1/64"" style) were coming from an elevation mark. After modifying/purging the elevation mark family and reload it, I was able to purge it from the project.

Annoyingly though, I have one trash arrowhead remaining that I am not able to select in the purge dialog box, so I don't know where it's coming from...I don't really want to scour through all the families but it's looking like that's the only option.

Re: Can't purge arrowheads

jordan_mussett — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 18:41:35 GMT

I have had this happen before so I rigged a dynamo script to delete any "secret internal arrowhead types" the two seemed to be attached for whatever reason. When I did that, I was able to use regular revit purge to purge the weird Diagonal 1/64" from purged unused. I came to this thread to see if there was a common place or family that causes it. It doesn't happen on every project here, but some.