Potential Bug - errant Joint impacts the Align tool from functioning yielding an error message.

[davidpbest]

I just finished a complex (for me) assembly of approximately 150 different components.  There are about 100 joints as well.  What I found is that at some point during the creation of the assembly, the Align tool stopped working.  I didn't discover it was inoperable until near the end of constructing the assembly.  But the Align tool would consistently give an error message "No alignment suggested by geometry could be found" no matter what components in the file I attempted to Align. 

Searching the web I found hints and vague indications that a joint could be the culprit in causing the Align command to cease functioning properly.  So I went on a search.  One by one, I suppressed each of the 100 or so joints and tested whether this action would cause the Align tool to begin functioning properly again.  After a 4 hour search, I discovered one such joint - and only one of the 100 or so joints - that is the offending element.   I can repeatedly and consistently recreate the behavior by suppressing and un-suppressing this single joint, and the Align tool will alternate from working properly to giving the error message (no matter which components are trying to be Aligned).  So this is deterministic response. 

I'd like to submit this assembly file to the Fusion team for analysis to figure out if this is a bug, or some cockpit error on my part (which I doubt).  I would prefer not to post the assembly file on a public forum, but I'm willing to share it with the F360 team (since they already access my stuff in the Fusion-hosted cloud) in hopes this mysterious behavior can be corrected with a bug fix, or explained away as something I've done wrong.  What I need is a way to privately share the file with the right contact in the F360 team. 

Please provide instructions on how to do so and I will ship it off along with clear pointers to the offending joint command.  Thanks.

[davidpbest]

I just finished a complex (for me) assembly of approximately 150 different components.  There are about 100 joints as well.  What I found is that at some point during the creation of the assembly, the Align tool stopped working.  I didn't discover it was inoperable until near the end of constructing the assembly.  But the Align tool would consistently give an error message "No alignment suggested by geometry could be found" no matter what components in the file I attempted to Align. 

Searching the web I found hints and vague indications that a joint could be the culprit in causing the Align command to cease functioning properly.  So I went on a search.  One by one, I suppressed each of the 100 or so joints and tested whether this action would cause the Align tool to begin functioning properly again.  After a 4 hour search, I discovered one such joint - and only one of the 100 or so joints - that is the offending element.   I can repeatedly and consistently recreate the behavior by suppressing and un-suppressing this single joint, and the Align tool will alternate from working properly to giving the error message (no matter which components are trying to be Aligned).  So this is deterministic response. 

I'd like to submit this assembly file to the Fusion team for analysis to figure out if this is a bug, or some cockpit error on my part (which I doubt).  I would prefer not to post the assembly file on a public forum, but I'm willing to share it with the F360 team (since they already access my stuff in the Fusion-hosted cloud) in hopes this mysterious behavior can be corrected with a bug fix, or explained away as something I've done wrong.  What I need is a way to privately share the file with the right contact in the F360 team. 

Please provide instructions on how to do so and I will ship it off along with clear pointers to the offending joint command.  Thanks.

[jeff_strater]

Thanks for doing this investigation!  Yes, we would be happy to take a look at your design, especially in the state you describe where only one joint is active and shows this error.  If you have a commercial license, you can use "Share Public Link" from the data panel, and send that to be via Direct Message on this forum:

make sure to check "allow download" if this method works.

If you have a Personal license, then it gets a bit more tedious.  You can either

1. export it as a "Fusion Archive", and put it somewhere you can share it (dropbox, etc), and send me a link via Direct Message, or, if it is small enough, via email to me at jeff.strater@autodesk.com
2. invite me to your project under the "People" tab in the data panel.  My email is jeff.strater@autodesk.com.  I promise I will only access it to download a copy so I can investigate - I won't do any "save" operations that will modify your data.

and just FYI:  "since they already access my stuff in the Fusion-hosted cloud".  That is not really true.  We don't have access to your data directly, unless you invite us to your project.

[davidpbest]

I have a commercial license.  Now my question is how do I DM (direct message) just you instead of the entire forum?  I don't see the mechanics of doing a DM. 

[jeff_strater]

well, it looks like they changed that again...  It used to be that you could hover over my name, and one of the options was "send Direct Message", but I don't see that anymore.  I just sent you a DM, hopefully you get a notification of that, and can respond.  For me, the link to my DMs is:  https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/notes/privatenotespage , not 100% sure that will work for you.  Let me know if you still can't get that to work.

[TrippyLighting]

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@jeff_strater wrote:

well, it looks like they changed that again...  

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No, Jeff, they broke it. Yet again!

[jhackney1972]

The "Hover" feature has been broken a right good while.  The only work around I have found is to select the user's handle, and then hover over one of their "contributions" and you will see what we all expect to see by hovering over the handle of any post.

[jeff_strater]

To follow up on this:  @davidpbest shared the design with me (thanks!), and I am able to reproduce this behavior.  It sure seems like a bug to me - the problem joint that blocks Align from working appears to be completely disconnected from the movement of the components being Aligned.  We will look into this further, but I don't have any immediate answers as to why this happens.  Thanks for your patience.

[jeff_strater]

Looking at the design further, I found that it has Contact Sets enabled.  I didn't think to even look there, because, surprisingly, I can drag components pretty smoothly in this design, and I am used to Contact Sets causing massive performance hangs...  But, if you disable Contacts, the Align works as expected, even with that joint unsuppressed.  It is still something to look into (FUS-92232 is the bug), but it is an interesting finding.