Cannot move sketch up into parent component in browser

[Scoox]

The project I'm working on at the moment has two sketches named "Top guides" and "Bottom guides", respectively, which by mistake ended up in the wrong sub-assembly. In the browser, I've never had any trouble moving sketches around. But, for some reason, in this project I'm working on Fusion 360 won't let me do this, displaying a rather unhelpful warning message with very broken grammar:

 

I've tried to reproduce the problem on a small project by recreating the browser and timeline structures, but no dice: Fusion 360 is always happy for me to relocate my sketches in the browser in and out of any component, so I'm at a loss.

Here's the project that's causing trouble: http://a360.co/2DRAzKG

My goal is to move sketches "Top guides" and "Bottom guides" from "Encoders" up into "Small parts". To simplify matters and attempt to pin down the cause of the problem, I've deliberately deleted all features after after these sketches in the timeline. Prior to deleting those, neither sketch could be moved up to the parent component in the browser. After deleting, I'm at least able to move "Bottom guides", but when I try to move "Top guides" I get the above error message. I can only assume this is a bug, since these sketches are not explicitly being referenced by anything---how could they when they are the last thing on the timeline? And, in any case, sketches can usually be moved around in the browser.

In fact, I'm really curious about what kind of situation would prevent a sketch from being moved in the browser, because I can't think of one. For example, even if a sketch references and extrude feature to establish its dimensions, it can still be moved around in the browser. This is the first time I've encountered this problem.

Thanks!

[jeff_strater]

I agree, in this case there is no dependency that should be preventing the restructure in this case.  We'll look into it and get back to you.  Thanks for sharing the model.

[jeff_strater]

I found out more details about what is limiting this.  In the sketch "Bottom guides", you've projected points from the sketch you are trying to restructure ("Top guides").  Fusion blocks restructure when there are any cross-component references.  In this particular case, this restriction is too aggressive.  There would be no problem with this restructure, because both sketches are ending up in the same component.  But, it's hard, programmatically, to distinguish these cases, so Fusion just has a check for any references.

If moving this sketch is important, you can break these links, and then move the sketch:

[Scoox]

(Disclaimer: I may be double-posting here, but my previous submit didn't seem to upload correctly)

Thanks you. That's interesting. I've created three test projects, the third one very similar to the project I shared in my previous post. In all three test projects I'm able to drag the sketches up and down without issue.

Moving sketches 001 - Second sketch geometry references extruded feature. Can move sketches.

Moving sketches 002 - Second sketch geometry references first sketch. Can move sketches.

Moving sketches 003 - Emulates the scenario of my original project, but without the detail. Still can move sketches.

In the third example, there are two sub-assemblies (components) C1 and C2, the latter containing two sketches, Sketch2 and Sketch3. Sketch3 uses projected geometry from Sketch2. In this project we can move both of these sketches from C2 up into C1, one at a time. When moving them back down, if Sketch2 is moved first into C2, Fusion 360 will automatically move Sketch3 into C2 too, I assume this is intentional, but I don't understand why the same doesn't happen when moving Sketch2 up to the parent component. Also, Fusion 360 doesn't complain when Sketch3 (the dependant) is in C1 and Sketch2 in C2, which is sort of the wrong way round as far as the timeline is concerned.

From what you are saying it sounds like Fusion 360 blocks restructuring based on some sort of fuzzy logic or statistical analysis. I guess the take-home message is "get it right at the beginning". The sketch being in the wrong place isn't a huge deal in this particular project, but it can be a problem in complex assemblies involving multiple users.

[Scoox]

Here's the a screencast of the third example in action:

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Admittedly, the rules around what can and cannot be restructured are not obvious.  Even after discussing this with another developer, we are not 100% sure.  In general, though, references outside the sketch will complicate this immensely.  Sometimes, as you've seen, you can do the restructure, and it will pull the referenced sketch with it, other times it will be blocked.

So, no, I would not say that you have to get it right the first time, but instead, I would say be careful and aware of any references into the sketch, as this will affect your ability to restructure your design later.

[Scoox]

Fsion 360 keeps defeating my intuition with this one, but it could be down to user incompetence. Next time this happens I'll try harder to make sense of it.