Duplicate alignment reference created upon synchronizing data references

[jameshitt]

Lately on a semi-regular basis, upon synchronizing a drawings data references after hitting "Save" on various non-specific source files, Alignment data references have been spontaneously duplicating.

Upon clicking "Synchronize", I receive a prompt asking whether I want to keep an old reference name or rename the reference name (though I have done nothing at all to modify the either the reference or the source object at all, especially not change its name, or make any copies of it in the drawing). But the "old" reference name the prompt refers to is the unwanted duplicate alignment with a "(1)" at the end of it, and the "new" name is the original name, which I never did a thing to prompt any change in the first place. This prompt to update the name is the tip-off that I now have one of these mysterious duplicate alignment data references in my drawing. The duplicate will also include a duplicate of the original profiles, AND all profile views associated with the original will now have duplicates associated with the duplicate alignment.

Luckily, I can usually just delete the offending alignments and profile views without much trouble, but once I did have to correct a bunch of corridor targets that were erroneously targeting this new alignment and its profiles. This was alarming, and every time I get one of these unwanted, random duplicates, I have to check and make sure my corridors don't have to have targets reset after deleting it.

Anyone share this experience?

Autodesk, your Civil 3D Data Shortcuts are a hideous mess.

I am running civil 3d 2017.

[Jowennl]

Hi @jameshitt,

Potential way to clean your data shortcut issue with alignment. First, make a back up of all your file including data shortcut folder the one with _shortcuts.

 See this <article link> to give you more information and tips about data shortcut. (See screencast 3 from link)

Can you try the following:

1) Go to source alignment dwg and delete the data shortcut for both profile and alignment then check the _shortcut folder then make sure no unwanted file in your alignment and profile folder remains. Delete any duplicate.

2) Make sure alignment and profile is named correct without (1) in source drawing.

3) Once you are sure that the _shortcuts folder is clean already and no extra file or duplicate name there then re-create the alignment data shortcut from source alignment dwg.
4) Go to each drawing that use that alignment and click manage data shortcut from manage tab and re-link the data shortcut. You might want to check and rename the alignment to the correct alignment name as well before re-linking them.

5) For as long as source alignment name and data referenced name are the same then you should't encounter that issue anymore.

Hope that workaround can help you. The article link above is just a guide.

Cheers,

Jowenn

[jameshitt]

No duplicate shortcuts are being created in my case, and neither are the source objects being duplicated at all. Only a duplicate reference is being created.

So for example, if I created an alignment reference in a drawing from an alignment data shortcut, and then created another reference of the same object from the same data shortcut. It would simply make another alignment reference of the exact same source object, only it would now have a "(1)" tagged at the end of the name.

But the problem is, I'm not doing this, either on purpose or on accident. It is just spontaneously creating these duplicate alignment references at randoms times after Synchronizing data references from completely different objects and source files from the one that is being duplicated.

[pthies]

I have experienced the same issue. We can't figure out why it is doing this and the really unfortunate thing is that half of our alignment notes are attached to the original alignment and the other half are attached to the "... - (1)" alignment, so when we try to clean our file out of the duplicate alignment, half of our notes disappear. This is a horrible thing because we are working on a very large project and we are at about 90% plans.

Anyone have any solutions out there that won't make us do a ton of rework? Anyone have suggestions on why this is happening and how to avoid it in the future?

[jameshitt]

Very sorry to hear you are experiencing this problems as well.

Unfortunately, were I you, I would not expect any helpful response from Autodesk on the matter. Often times kind fellow users will be able to provide a solution, but spontaneous, difficult-to-describe, almost ephemeral, problems such as this one will often only elicit misunderstanding and no real solution (as with Jowennl's reply above, though very grateful for the effort I still am).

It is a clear bug with the program. But unless one can provide to Autodesk a specific drawing which will duplicate the problem, they will basically do nothing about it. Too bad for people dealing with bugs like this which are utterly unpredictable and can't be duplicated at will.

File a support case and describe the problem; its pretty straight forward and easy to clearly describe, so it would seem to me that a company with premium software--and premium revenues--would find the man-hours it takes to figure it out and fix it. But I wouldn't get my hopes up.

(Note to Autodesk: data shortcuts are garbage.)

[jameshitt]

I understand my reply might be a little self-conflicting: is the problem easy to describe or is it difficult to describe? Strictly, it IS easy to correctly and clearly describe this duplicate-alignments problem, but the clunky terminology does make it easy to misunderstand.

[jameshitt]

Recently I have once again experienced this phenomenon in a new project with Alignment and Profile data references. One thing I have noticed is that whereas the duplicates have formed after clicking "Synchronize" on the lower right of a drawing after saving the source drawings, it did not occur when I deliberately left the destination files closed, saved the source files after modifying, and then allowing the data references to synchronize naturally upon opening the destination files again.

So, a good practice that might help is to never synchronize your revised data references in an already open destination drawing. Keep them closed as you edit and save your source files, and then open them again after.

[Anonymous]

Hello james. Maybe you find solution for duplicated names in references?

[johnthoreson]

I'm having the same issue - 2020 C3D is making duplicate alignments when I create a shortcut for a profile. 

[zwbates9]

I was having this issue recently. I ended up fixing it by running an audit, and then doing a purge. I purged everything not used, so I'm not certain what specifically needed to be purged, but the duplicates haven't been back since, even after hitting Synchronize.

[ralobaydi]

I am having this issue as well, I tried what was suggested here but no luck, has this been resolved?

[Coffee_Aided_Design]

Still having this issue in 2025.

In my particular case the alignment with the correct name, without "(1)", was still linked and my fix was to delete the newly created alignment. After some troubleshooting, I figured out that these duplicates were being created when I copied my note labels. The trick was that the way I copied mattered; Copy pasting using the keyboard (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V or COPYCLIP command) causes the issue, using the COPY command does not.

I was able to reproduce this error in my original drawing and an empty drawing created without a template. Here is how:

1. Setup two drawings, one with an alignment (no profile needed BTW)
2. Create your project and data shortcut the alignment
3. Reference the alignment in the second drawing
4. Create and use a Civil 3D Note label that has alignment reference text (if you don’t know what this is, you may be having a different issue)
5. After further testing the above can be simplified as the problem also occurs with all of the built-in alignment labels, try the station offset label
6. Now copy and paste the label using the keyboard or COPYCLIP command
7. You should now have a duplicated alignment

Edit#2:
I did one more test and discovered that this behavior happens with other Civil 3D objects (like surfaces) and non-data shortcuts. However, the data shortcut makes the issue harder to catch. With non-data shortcuts, the label and object get copied and translated together and there is a noticeable copy. With data shortcuts the interaction is slightly different; the label gets translated but the Civil 3D object does not, this makes catching the issue harder as the new object will be overlapping the old one.

@jameshitt, @pthies, @zwbates9, @ralobaydi: Do any of you use the note reference feature? I would be interested to know if this is reproducible for you.

If you want to understand how Autodesk handles bugs, read the change logs. They are utterly fascinating. While often vague (I imagine if Autodesk fully described their fixes, it would potentially be embarrassing for the publicly traded company) reading between the lines is fun. My favorite so far was something to the effect of “reduced the probability of encountering an issue”. I personally like my bugs completely removed but to each their own.

Lucky for me, this was reproducible so I will be submitting a ticket. Maybe next release they will find a way to reduce the chance of it happening again.