Cant edit path of external reference

[Anonymous]

Im working with some drawings that I didnt create.    All I did was copy them off the server to my local machine and bam, all the external references to raster images are broken.   No big deal, just a new path right?  I right click, choose IMAGE, choose EXTERNAL REFERENCE and I can see the information about the reference.   Sure enough, the path is wrong.   So I click on that field to adjust the path.  Nothing.  The field is greyed out.  Right click.  Nothing.   Look for a "BROWSE" button.  Nothing.  

As far as I can tell the path cannot be changed.   The only two work arounds I have found so far is to either just delete the raster image and insert a new one, or save the file as a DXF, go in with text editor and find the path, change it, and then save back as a DWG. 

Surely there is GOT to be a better way right?  Why cant you just click on the reference and browse to the new path?    This seems like a massive oversight, how did they not think that we would want to do that?

Any help on better ways to fix this?  Thanks!

[Alfred.NESWADBA · Accepted solution]

Hi,

>> So I click on that field to adjust the path.  Nothing.  The field is

>> greyed out.  Right click.  Nothing.   Look for a "BROWSE" button. 

>> Nothing

You have 2 lines with path, "Found At" and "Saved Path" ... only the second one can be changed:

If both lines are greyed out, then this XRef (1) is part of another XRef (2) and you have to edit the path in that XRef (2).

- alfred -

[samir_rezk]

Hi @Anonymous,

hopefully you were able to re-path your drawing based on Alfred's screen capture. I wanted to mention the Reference Manager as well for future reference. you can use the reference manager that installs along side AutoCAD to manage all external reference paths in as many drawings at once with out the need to open and fix each drawing one by one - it is a separate light application, you will find in the AutoCAD folder tree in your start menu.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

Through some trial and error, I found a relatively simple workaround.

I found this posting when I ran into the same problem. An xref link was broken on an old drawing file that I didn't create. I tried to define a new file path, but I was not able to make any selection. What I was able to do, was to right-click on the broken xref (in the xref window), select Attach. I navigated to the xref file I had on my workstation, selected it to load in, and placed it at a random spot. Seemingly, nothing happened. Next, I went back to the xref window, right-clicked on the still broken xref, selected Unload, then went in again and selected Reload. Problem solved.