topic Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children in Vault Forum

Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

estringer — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 17:41:34 GMT

I have created an IAM. file which is a release of units of parts. I then inserted other IAM. files containing the parts of the release. I was hoping to create an Item from this so that I could extract a BOM from the IAM. within the main IAM. but I am getting this error.

I looked into creating the Item by dragging and dropping the individual IAM. files into a new Item form but that would require a lot of searching for the individual IAM.s. Is there something that I can do so that a release IAM. type condition will work?

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

CGBenner — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 11:52:00 GMT

@estringer

It’s hard to tell just from these images, but it sounds like there is a circular dependency somewhere in your assembly structure. For example, does one of the child subassemblies contain a reference to the parent assembly?

For troubleshooting, could you try to recreate this with a smaller assembly that you would not mind sharing in a pack and go?

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

Gabriel_Watson — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 13:19:39 GMT

Is the Lvl_16.ipt somehow a derived assembly still linked to Lvl_16.iam? Maybe that's why.

In Inventor you would get an error trying to include Lvl_16.ipt into Lvl_16.iam, but you may have attached it some other way in Vault:

https://autode.sk/3EErpj7

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

estringer — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 14:47:34 GMT

The Lvl_16.ipt was created and then placed in to the Lvl_16.iam.

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

CGBenner — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 14:52:36 GMT

@estringer

@estringer wrote:

The Lvl_16.ipt was created and then placed in to the Lvl_16.iam.

Can you describe how this was created? That may explain this.

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

estringer — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 14:59:37 GMT

I created the Lvl_16.ipt and imported a DWG of a floor plan into the ipt. I then placed the ipt in the Lvl_16.iam and started using the Joint constraint to place unit assemblies on the floor plan.

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

estringer — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:00:44 GMT

@CGBenner,

I have a smaller Assembly that I can do a Pack & Go on but it still exceeds the 71 MB max size. Is there another way to get the file to you?

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

CGBenner — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:02:34 GMT

@estringer

Sending you a PM....

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

CGBenner — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:21:24 GMT

@estringer @Gabriel_Watson

D'oh!! So simple,.... since the part and assembly are the same name, it is trying to create an Item for both.... with the same name. hence the error. All I did was to rename the part, and the Assign Item worked. Thank you for sharing the files, try that and see if it helps.

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

estringer — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:26:47 GMT

@CGBenner,

That worked, thanks again for the help! It seems a little strange that you can't have the same name with different file types. I guess we will have to get a little more creative with our naming conventions!

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

Gabriel_Watson — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:27:44 GMT

Hehe, I thought it would be too obvious so I wondered about references instead of the file name....

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

CGBenner — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:29:00 GMT

@Gabriel_Watson wrote:
Hehe, I thought it would be too obvious so I wondered about references instead of the file name....

Same, I was looking for a complex problem....

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

estringer — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 15:30:07 GMT

I guess my next question related to this then is how I get the Item to include all of the assemblies that are inside this main assembly? I was hoping to create a BOM of the assemblies and their related parts with the Item master.

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

gbelloniGYTH4 — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 07:16:48 GMT

I had this error occurring with an iam file (ABC.iam) made up of many subcomponents (ABC_01.ipt , ABC_02.ipt and so on). Even though the part numbers were different i still got this error when trying to assign an item to the iam file. I managed to solve it by setting the iam File as "Purchased" from within Inventor. If i do that it works fine.

Re: Cannot insert an Item into itself or its children

RajSchmidt — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 16:05:25 GMT

Normally an item’s BOM is created by reading the document structure of the IAM. So you simply can create/update the item for your IAM. On the BOM tab in the creation dialogue you should see that Vault tries to create items for all parts and sub-assemblies.

There is a number of settings to control this, see https://help.autodesk.com/view/VAULT/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-FF26CEE9-A2B7-47BB-9FFF-1655D0A5C91B