Can't select some features in the Timeline.

[blaisebarrette]

For some reason I can't explain, some features in the timeline can't be selected while others behave normally.

I never experienced this problem before and I use Fusion extensively!

When you click on some features, nothing happens. No contextual menu. 

I have the latest version installed (2,0,6032).

-Blaise

[HughesTooling]

Does running a Compute All Ctrl+B show ant errors in the timeline? Can you edit any features near the start of the timeline?

Mark

[blaisebarrette]

Yes, I did recompute and no error.

I studied a little more why some features work and some don't and I found that they are all "ghosts" of a component I deleted.

Sometimes, I carefully delete components instead of removing them to get a shorter "cleaner" timeline and take the time to cleanup the dependencies problems.

I tried recompute, closing the file and even restarting fusion. Nothing gets rid of them.

Who you gonna call???

[HughesTooling]

Have you brought in any linked designs then broken the link? I had a problem like this caused by using Save As to create 2 versions of a design, the problem is Save As creates a copy with the same IDs for all the features and you end up with conflicts. The safe way to make a copy is to use Save Copy As.

Mark

[blaisebarrette]

I don't recall making copies or breaking links on linked components.

[HughesTooling]

Think you'll need to share the design with someone from support. @jeff_strater  can you take a look?

Thanks Mark

[blaisebarrette]

Yess! My feeling as well!

Thanks for trying!  😉

[jeff_strater]

Hi, @blaisebarrette - can you share the design file here?  I've not experienced this in my usage, so getting to take a look at the design itself will be helpful.

[blaisebarrette]

Hi @jeff_strater ,

I just sent you an email with a link to the file.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Thank you!

- Blaise

[jeff_strater]

thanks for the design, @blaisebarrette - I can see the problem in this design.  I did notice that the features that cannot be selected all belong to a component which does not exist in the design.  I presume it existed at one point, but now is gone.  Any light that you can shed on a component named "Partie pivot"?  Did this component used to exist in this design, and now no longer does?  If so, what happened to it?  As it is now, these features don't seem to have any effect on the design at all.  It is very strange...

here is the browser showing that this component is no longer part of this design:

we will look more closely at this design next week to see if we can determine anything about it.

[blaisebarrette]

Has I said earlier, I deleted this component.

there had been many iterations on this component and it made the timeline complicated and hard to modify the part.

so I deleted the part (not remove it so to lighten the timeline). I know it’s risky but I usually manage to fix the broken dependencies.

So I deleted this component and rebuild it in a much cleaner way without all the iterations. 

I hope I’m making sens!

do you have access to the file’s version history? You could go back a few versions before it was deleted? Maybe that could clear things up?

And just to confirm, the component « Partie pivot » is the deleted component. Except for that weird timeline, the rest of the design seems to work perfectly!

If you need any thing else, don’t hesitate..

- Blaise

[jeff_strater]

@blaisebarrette , no I don't have access to the version history.  The "share public link" command only exposes the most recent version.  If you have time, and can export a version that has this command, we can try deleting it to see what happens.  Deleting the component is supposed to delete all the features associated with it, so it looks like there might be a logic error in that operation somewhere.

[blaisebarrette]

I just sent you an email with attached, a Fusion archive of the file at the version just prior to deleting the « Partie pivot » component.

Hope this helps.

- Blaise

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

I figured out what is going on in this model, thanks to @blaisebarrette's help.  It turns out that this is a combination of as-designed behavior, and some questionable UI.

Basically, what happened is that a "Remove" was done on the component which owns these features.  In that state, the features still exist in the timeline, but you cannot do anything with them, because their owning component no longer exists.  The questionable UI is that you cannot distinguish these from normal, valid features.  IMO, those features should be shown as suppressed or otherwise modified to show that they are "inactive".

here is a screencast that explains it (with audio):

[blaisebarrette]

@jeff_strater, great work! You identified the behavior! So, if I understand correctly, these ghosts features become unselectable in the timeline if the cursor is placed before them at the moment there parent component is removed. If the cursor is placed at the end of the timeline when the component is removed, is the behavior the same?

I will be doing some experimenting of my own tomorrow and try to fix my timeline on the design.

Thanks for your amazing support!

- Blaise

[jeff_strater]

@blaisebarrette - I originally thought the same thing - that you had to roll back, and insert the Remove feature before the features that become unselectable, but a few experiments later today showed that it doesn't matter - any Remove of a component will make any features of that component unselectable. 

Regarding repairing your design, if you really never want to have that component around in your design, use Delete instead of Remove.  See this thread:  what-is-the-difference-between-delete-and-remove-a-component for a more detailed explanation of the difference.  Admittedly confusing...

[blaisebarrette]

@jeff_strater, 

Ok, so no difference where the cursor is. Has it always been like that? It seems strange to me that this has never been noticed before!?

The logic behavior would be similar to when a feature is suppressed and all features with dependencies are grayed out. The remove feature could maybe appear in the timeline just after the last dependency? If all grayed dependent features could be placed in a group, that might be a nice feature?

An even better way to go about it would be that features remain editable but the remove feature would need to be placed after the last dependency or simply at the end of the timeline regardless where the cursor is when the remove command is made. I guess, placing the remove command at the end of the timeline would be best for clarity.

It’s a pretty tough UI dilemma! Hahaha! It will be interesting to see which way you’ll decide to go! 

Thank you again for taking the time to look at my file.

- Blaise