Library.io links cannot be severed permanently with Fusion Team libraries?

[tedEUQZT]

In order to get consistent work flow for my team of 4 engineers, we've migrated all of our electronics parts libraries from Library.io to Fusion Team libraries, mostly this seems to have worked, and it has greatly improved the speed of processing the 2D->3D conversion.

Unfortunately, the linkage between Library.io and the current Fusion Team library does not seem to want to go away regardless of how many times we select "Unlink from managed library on library.io". Every time you open one of these library, the link is silently restored, and attempting to unlink causes Fusion to think the LBR file has changed and needs to be saved again. This can be problematic because it is not clear what exactly has changed, accidentally allowing an "update" from the now obsolete managed library causes loss of work, which can be fixed by 'reverting' the library to the correct most recently saved Team library, but now the library version number has to be updated again to overwrite the incorrect 'latest' with the correct 'latest', and as soon as you close the library, the stealth linkage to the managed library will re-appear, generating yet another opportunity to mistakenly allow the file to be regressed.

We would just delete the managed Library.io objects entirely, but there are a handful of 3D models for packages which apparently dont exist in the Fusion Teams library, and are being pulled from Library.io during 2D->3D conversion, although which ones are in this state is not visible until you open the package itself in the library editor, whereupon a dialog pops up "The references package is not stored in Fusion Team. Do you wish to copy the package to Fusion Team and update the reference".  Even after doing this however there appears to be residual meta-data linking to library.io as you can open the library (with the now ghostly linkage reappearing) and drill down to the 3D package and look at the attributes, there's still a "View on Library.io" link present.

This is impacting serious design work - we have libraries with thousands of parts, manually opening each one to find un-ported 3D packages is untenable, but leaving these links and risking continuing regressions also means some 3D models of PCBs are inaccurate leading to failures during PCB-to-enclosure assembly, and PCB-to-PCB mating. Has anyone successfully broken links to old managed libraries or is this an intended "Feature"?

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @tedEUQZT ,

I hope you're doing well. It's nice to hear from you. I've passed this thread along to our developers for review, I think I've observed the issue you are describing.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @tedEUQZT ,

I spoke to a developer, and just to make sure we are eliminating anything obvious, are you saving after you break the link? So far the developer can't reproduce what you are describing. 

Could you detail the actions you perform before and after unlinking the managed library?

Best Regards,

[tedEUQZT]

I got a reply from help-desk with the same suggestion, and yes I am hitting save after I click the unlink. Just to be sure I wasn't somehow seeing a phantom/cached copy, I fully deleted the installation of Fusion360, did a global search for any remaining preference/cache files, and then re-installed. The issue persists. The offending library was originally created using Eagle (desktop), then turned into a Library.io managed library (primarily to support the 3D model), and then uploaded to a FusionTeam library. 

As you can see the test case library has a single device, with a single footprint and a single 3D model.

Clicking over to Manage suggests that the library is not linked, however there is meta-data associating the footprint with Library.io.

 

Clicking the "Unlink" shortcut (which should be greyed out if there isnt a link) does not change the meta-data in the device/package information pane, nor does it change the state of the "Unlink" button, but it does change the state of the Library file (hence the "*" in the tab).

Clicking "Save" in any manner causes the library revision to increase. Close the library and re-open, and you get this:

 There is still some meta-data referencing Library.io, the "Unlink" button is still clickable, and doing so will again make the Library 'dirty'. In this specific test case this library has exactly the same footprint and 3D model as the Library.io version, but for most of my libraries we havent pushed to Library.io since it was deprecated about 18 months ago. For those libraries, he Library.io version will have a slightly different version - and every time you open the Library you'll get a warning that it is out of date and do you want to "Update" to the Library.io version (which is always out of date now for all of my other libraries).

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @tedEUQZT ,

I've been talking to developers about this issue and getting feedback to figure out exactly what is going on. As it turns out, it's behaving as designed but that designed behavior isn't entirely obvious and Fusion gives you no insight as to what is going on. Both points have been acknowledge by the development team and are going to be addressed with the rest of the library infrastructure work that is ongoing. The first fruits of that work should be available shortly. 

Here's what's going on: The 3D package has a different copy/import behavior compared to devices, footprints and symbols. When you copy or import a new device, footprint or symbol a new copy is made in your new library. This is independent of whatever source library the asset came from so there is no link to the original source. In other words if you import a device from library A to library B, library B gets a completely independent copy of the device with no links back to library A. This is not the case with 3D packages from library.io and that's where the confusion starts. When you import a 3D package that comes from library.io, you get a link not a new instance. The thinking behind this originally was that 3D packages should be shareable between libraries so that if the original 3D package gets updated then any libraries that have that 3D package would also be able to consume the update.  This while reasonable, makes a complete separation from the original asset difficult which is what you are trying to do.

When you break the link of a Fusion Team library to a library.io library, you are only breaking the associations between the libs, however the individual 3D packages are still linked. The devs acknowledge that there should be an easy way to fork the 3D packages so that there is no link remaining to library.io. In the meantime, you should be able to break the link by doing the following:

1.In the Fusion Team library. Go to your Packages section. Double click on any packages that come from library.io (if you are not sure, just go through each of them).

2. You'll see a message that says "The referenced package is not stored in Fusion Team. Do you wish to copy the package to Fusion Team and update the reference?" click Yes.

3. At this point the library should be pointing to the Fusion Team reference, it will no longer point back to library.io

Give this a try and let me know how that works for you.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[tedEUQZT]

That sounds pretty much like what I'm seeing, however even after clicking the "copy the package to Fusion Team" the link to library.io persists in the example library with the single device, so it seems pretty obvious that some meta-data isnt getting deleted when you migrate the package, and the library editor is reading that meta-data when you close and reopen the library after migrating the part.

Since most of my libraries contain more than 500 parts now each (7 libraries total) we're not going to commit a huge amount of potentially wasted time trying to manually hunt down Library.io links until we can be sure the workaround works.

[jorge_garcia · Accepted solution]

Hi @tedEUQZT ,

After seeing your response, I went and followed up with the developers again on this. So when you say yes, you get a copy of the 3D package made in Fusion Team but it STILL has a link to library.io so that it can consume updates from library.io upstream. The developer acknowledges that as a user you should be able to make a clean break if you wish and he's added this to his development work for the ongoing library experience re-design.

For now the only option if you really want a clean break is to delete the package and recreate it inside of Fusion Team.

We recognize the inconvenience of this workflow and it will be addressed. Libraries are one of our main priorities right now so this is all getting reviewed and addressed.

Best Regards,

[tedEUQZT]

FYI - I was able to get a library to a state where the problematic "Do you want to update" dialog doesn't appear. As you said, you have to find every single package that might ever have lived on Library.io first, and migrate it, and only then can you click the unlink button and save the Teams library in a state that no longer confuses the editor into running a version check against Library.io.

To be clear there are three states a migrated library can be in, and the problem I described above is when your files are in the intermediate (b) state:

(a) default state where there is an intentional link between the Fusion Team Library file and the Library.io managed library (users can push to Library.io, and pull from Library.io, Library Editor will always check for versions and tell you to update to the Library.io version). 

(b) partially converted state [DANGER] - some packages have been migrated, and work has been done within the Fusion Teams Library file, but not pushed to Library.io and/or Library.io has other changes not reflected in the Team file. Here no unlinking will work, as soon as you close the library and re-open it, the Library Editor will detect something that points at Library.io, the link is restored without user input, and the editor does a check between the versions. If somehow Library.io has a version different from the Teams Library you'll be prompted to "Update" to the now obsolete version, and any work done only in the Fusion Teams Library can be lost.

• The only fix from this point is to either delete the Library.io fileset (with unknown consequences!!) or,
• Go through every package in the library and migrate them to a native Fusion asset
• Only after this step can you unlink successfully. It should be safe (?) at this point to obliterate the Library.io data

(c) Final state for a library that was previously a library.io thing - all packages migrated, unlink has been performed and saved. Now the Library Editor will not respect any version mismatch between Library.io and the Team library files. NOTE: the "unlink" UI does not get disabled as one would expect, and there are references to Library.io in the device inspector pane ("View in Library.io"), but the Library editor no longer seems to take these into account. And it appears to be safe to delete the Library.io data.