Second sketch gone from file - not just not displayed but GONE

[jskinner58]

I have a file with several sketches.  I had worked on one of the sketches and after I had done a bit of work over several days I discovered that the other sketch was not there.  Not just that visibilty was turned off but only the first sketch was on the list on the left.  I thought it was just a mistake on my part and that I had done something and hadn't realized that I deleted the other sketch somehow. 

I went back to a file I had with both sketches (I haven't moved beyond sketches for any of these files yet) and redid the work being careful to keep track of the second sketch.  Everything was ok when I closed the files. 

When I opened the file today to continue I was surprised to not find the second sketch.  This is very strange.  I would rather not put the whole file on the public site.  What can I do?  What should I be looking for?

[Anonymous]

Hi @jskinner58

This sounds frustrating. It will be hard to diagnose without the file, but I will list some things here for you to try. By the way, the list on the left is your "browser" so if I refer to the browser, that's what I mean.

Does the file have many components? If so, have you expanded each component in the browser to make sure the sketch isn't misplaced inside one of the components?

If you use the time line, does rolling back your timeline help at all? When the sketch is gone, is the sketches creation still present in the time line? If so, can you edit it from the timeline? If not, does rolling back your timeline make it reappear?

Also, if you use the timeline, are there any yellow/red items in the timeline?

Try doing a compute all (Under the "Modify" menu.) Does that help?

Are the sketches from an inserted (linked) component, or were they created in this file?

Even if you can't link the file, is it possible to get screenshots of your browser (with all components expanded) and your timeline? The sketch is going somewhere, or is being removed somehow. So, I may be able to spot it (fresh pair of eyes and all that).

Hope I can help!

[jskinner58]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I was never quite sure what people were talking about when they referred to the browser - now I know.

The file has no components - only a few sketches.  The sketches have a lot lines, splines, etc.

Since it is only sketches I don't think I have a timeline to look at.

I will try some of your other suggestions shortly.

[jeff_strater]

I agree that this is very weird.  Sketches should not just disappear.  Even if you delete an upstream dependency that a sketch depends on, it should just be sick (yellow warning), not disappear entirely.  Features can get deleted when other features upstream get deleted, but as far as I know, this should never happen for a design that is all sketches.  Especially if it was there at save time, but not there on the next open.  If you can figure out a sequence of events that causes this problem, please let me know.

Jeff

[jskinner58]

With the suggestions I went back to the files.  Turns out the timeline was set to before I did the sketch that disappeared.  When I moved the timeline forward the sketch was there.  But I know that I did not reset the timeline back that way.  And it was the same on several files - I saved the file with different names as I went along in case anything went wrong along the way.  They all were set to the same point in the timeline after the first sketch.  Not as bad as I thought (although I did spend a bunch of time since I didn't catch the timeline issue for a while) but it still seems like something unexpected happened.  Why would the point in the timeline not be the same as when it was saved?

[jeff_strater]

OK, that's good and bad.  Good that you figured out the problem, and we are not randomly deleting sketches.  Bad that it's a mystery how the timeline was left rolled back.  One way this can happen is if you save and close while editing a sketch.  But, if you do that, Fusion is supposed to put you back into editing that sketch when you re-open that model.   If there is a problem with that I'd like to know.

There could be other causes, but that's the first that jumps out at me.

Jeff

[jskinner58]

I moved the time line ahead and saved.  Then closed and reopened and the timeline was were it was when I saved.  So it doesn't repeat, at least not that easily.

I did notice a sketch with a couple magenta lines that I don't think I did.  That's the only odd thing I noticed.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hey @jskinner58 and @jeff_strater,

If you are editing a sketch when you save/close the file, the next time you open it, the timeline will be rolled back to that sketch. Not sure if this is a bug or planned...

Because editing a sketch rolls back the timeline to when the sketch was created, it sort of makes sense this happens, but it is still a little odd when you see it in action.

I think what may have happened, is that you were editing a sketch created before the other, and saved it without exiting the sketch, so the next time you opened it, the timeline was still back at that first sketch.

Hope this helps!

[jeff_strater]

Nice detective work, @Anonymous.  I suspect you are right- that's what probably happened.  I just tested it and if you save while editing a sketch, it opens rolled back.  However, what I think it is supposed to do is put you back into edit sketch mode.  That's what happens for a Form/Sculpt feature.  If you save while editing a Form feature, then when you reopen the design, you will be back in Sculpt mode.  That doesn't happen for sketch.  I will ask the group here if that's intentional, and if so why.  I vaguely remember having this conversation, but it's been a very long time.

Jeff

[jskinner58]

Yes, I was editing the sketch that it rolled back to.  This certianly seems to be what happened.  Now that I am aware of it I can deal with it although there are a lot of these details to remember and my brain is getting full...  🙂  Thanks Autumn!

[Anonymous]

Hi @jeff_strater

I think if it opened back into edit sketch mode it would make MUCH more sense - but personally, I would prefer if it opened back at the end of the timeline, even if you save or exit when editing a sketch. Maybe this may be something to let everyone choose, but yes, the current behavior is definitely weird.

I run across things like this sometimes - where I can't tell if it's a feature or a bug Unless it really hurts my workflow, I don't bother posting it.

Thanks!

[jeff_strater]

Hi @Anonymous, please do post these oddities when you find them.  We had to make hundreds of decisions along the way just like this one.  I know we did not get them all right, so if you find something that seems weird or wrong to you, it never hurts to bring it up.  This is a good example.  This probably seemed like the reasonable thing to do at the time (though I'm going to talk to people today to see if one of us can remember why we did this), but now it just seems wrong.

Just one comment about this in your post:  "I would prefer if it opened back at the end of the timeline".  We did talk about that at the time (I do remember at least that much of the discussion).  Unfortunately, that's not really practical, because it requires us to compute the model.  And, that can take a significant amount of time, and can even result in errors (say you were only half-done editing your sketch).  So, we thought that would not be practical.  However, a warning when you do this might be appropriate.

One more little tidbit on this:  Inventor does not allow you to save while in sketch mode.  The actual reason is deep in the implementation (funny, I can remember that discussion, which took place a depressingly long time ago, but not the more recent Fusion one), but it does avoid this problem.

Jeff

[jeff_strater]

A followup on this this.  We discussed this problem, and no one can remember why we did this .  So, we have put an item into the backlog to change behavior so that Fusion goes back into sketch mode on open.  I can't promise when this would get implemented, but I appreciate the dialog on this thread on the topic.  This kind of interaction is very valuable to the development team!

Jeff