Styles Browser shared library drawing doesn't update

[Cheryl_H]

 So we are trying to create a shared styles library drawing that will be on the network and that all users can access styles from.  I thought that I had it set up correctly according to other posts I read, but I must be missing something.  See attached screenshots.

Options>AEC Content tab... set all of these to the network locations.

Styles Browser>Drawing File>Manage Content Library... added the file on the network and saved as default.

The styles come in fine, and are visible in the browser.  But how do you get it to update if you change something in the styles file??  I went into the file and purged out a few wall styles and added a test wall style.  I can't get the changes to show up, even if i restart CAD, remove the file and re-add it, etc.

Shouldn't you be able to update it?  Or is that not how its supposed to work?

Thank you!!

[Laks-Autodesk]

Welcome to the community!

Thanks for reporting this issue. It seems to be a problem with the styles browser not able to pick up the update in the content drawing. I've logged this with our development team.

[Anonymous]

Was this ever resolved, still seeing it in 2017 Sp1

Space that was in the style file before, purged and not seen in style manager view of file, still shows (but does nothing if clicked on) in Styles Browser.

Is there a cache somewhere to clear manually?

[David_W_Koch]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Was this ever resolved, still seeing it in 2017 Sp1

Space that was in the style file before, purged and not seen in style manager view of file, still shows (but does nothing if clicked on) in Styles Browser.

Is there a cache somewhere to clear manually?

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I have run into that myself.  I had set up a style source file some years back, without ever deploying it to the whole office.  We made some major changes to our approach, which resulted in a significant change to the plan graphics.  I also added a large number of new styles.  On my computer, the old graphics insisted on displaying, and none of the new styles show.  After playing around a bit (removing the file, closing down, starting up and re-adding the file did nothing), I found that changing the background color to something else forced some of the styles to regenerate the graphics.  A handful of stubborn styles would not update (when the background color is changed, the graphics never generate new images, they just say "Loading"), and the new styles still have not shown up.

On a computer that had never had Styles Browser display that source file, when I do so now, all of the styles show, and all of the thumbnail graphics are correct.  So there must be a "cache" file somewhere, and it would appear to be local, as other computers are not affected by it.  I would love to know where that file is, so I can delete it or edit it to force my machine to show all of the styles, with correct graphics.

[Anonymous]

Submitted a support case for this and it is an acknowledged bug, for workaround see this KB article

Styles don't update in the styles browser in AutoCAD Architecture or AutoCAD MEP

Apr 25 2017

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad-architecture/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcar...

[David_W_Koch]

Thanks.  I tried the suggested workaround, but it did not work for me.  I thought I had done that, previously, but was not certain I had shut down the program with the file removed from the content library.  I did that today, and I may have gotten some of the newly added styles to show up, but I still have thumbnails that show the old graphic image when there is no background and show "Loading..." if I select a color background.

I hope the investigation leads to a fix, and not just for 2018.  (I am doing this in 2016.)

[Anonymous]

Don't migrate to 2017 expecting it to work! I have yet to try 2018.

Weird thing is I'm fairly sure this didn't happen in preview versions of this tool. I wonder if production changed some behaviour or just didn't notice it.

[dtiemeyer]

Well the issue is still present in MEP 2019 as well.  Perhaps this will be useful to others:

I was able to get StylesBrowser to 'refresh' by deleting the 'cache'. I wrote a batch script to execute at login for all CAD users which deletes all the .xaml files (delete all is important because the files get uniquely named on each users PC). Then when AutoCAD launches it re-reads the DWG files in the StylesBrowser path. Upon closing AutoCAD, it regenerates the .xaml files, so upon subsequent launches of StylesBrowser it does not need to regenerate thus opening more quickly.  This is the batch file:

if not exist "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\MEP 2019\enu\MarkerFile1.txt" del /Q "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\MEP 2019\enu\StylesBrowser\*.*"

if not exist "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\MEP 2019\enu\MarkerFile1.txt" echo DoneViaGPOatLogin >"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\MEP 2019\enu\MarkerFile1.txt"

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing, reluctant to mark this workaround as 'A solution' in case Autodesk see as excuse to never fix it

[Valacho_H]

@dtiemeyer Thank you for sharing this.  It's still a problem in MEP 2021, and was one of the main reasons we had not switched over to using primarily the Styles Browser vs. using tool palettes in our current MEP version.

I agree it's not a solution, but it's good to know that's how we can fix things for now to keep going.

Heather

[dtiemeyer]

@Anonymous   I agree, please do not mark it as a solution, I'd like to see a proper solution as well. This was only ever intended as a workaround for those occasional times I update the source files.

@Valacho_H   Same here, I still have my staff use Tool Palettes for placement of content, we only use Styles Browser for swapping one style with another. Light Fixtures being the most common, receptacles too. It would be nice to see Tool Palettes be able to perform the 'Apply to Selection' ability that Styles Browser has for content already placed in the drawing. 

Maybe 2022    😄

[Valacho_H]

@dtiemeyer We use both the palettes and Styles Browser in our current version (2017), but we're going to go all Styles Browser as much as possible in this latest release, depending on how we progress.  This inability to see changes to the browser content was a big stumbling block, but having this workaround will allow us to focus our efforts on other challenges.