Content center locked out

[Anonymous]

Hi there good people,

My issue is to do with editing the content center files, a common issue I’m sure, but it has only become an issue for me in the 2018 release.

Usually, for the benefit of the BOM, I edit the title and description of the ‘CC’ files. Now in INVT 2018 when I open and a project file the file named ‘Lockfile.lck’ is generated in the CC file location (See picture 1)

This file prevents editing the CC files, and cannot be deleted whilst the project/assembly/part file is open. Once you close down Inventor the file disappears and you are free to edit the files in CC using windows explorer.

I thought it may something to do with libraries as you get this message:

‘Cannot modify the library file C:\users\...’

when trying to edit the CC files inside INVT.

However, I have not set my library to this location as depicted in image 2.

I am now at a loss what to do, any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

First question..  Why are you defining your Inventor libraries in a Windows operating system hidden folder called C:\Programdata.  Get that out of there.

In addition Content Center files have never been able to be modified when they are in the Content Center folder location.  If you want to add "stuff" to the information you need to save them as custom.

Final thing..  Inventor Library and Inventor Content Center are 2 different things.

[danmachen]

Hi there,

As Mark says Content Center files are intended to be read only.

If you open the project file options as in the picture attached and press the "configure libraries" option, you will be able to see which Content center parts are ready only or editable. Note how in my image there is one Read/Write library I have created that is available to edit.

See Content Center Editor for more information on how to do this.

I hope this is helpful to you!

[Anonymous]

@Mark.Lancaster

@danmachen

Thank you both for you suggestions.

I get that the library and the contents center are different.

From the top, I assume the libraries installed to 'programdata' by default as 'library' files are highly compressed and would not likely need to be tampered with. 

We have been recycling and renaming content center files for years, just moving/ coping the directory with every new Inventor version to save time on renaming to our conventions. 

We would often change the title and description with use of a macro, but it could be done in properties also.

I moved the libraries to a more reasonable location and rerouted the access options in application options/content center, ensuring the project library directory was also routed to the new location.

I also added a read/write custom library to the project file. 

But alas, Inventor still blocks me in changing the contents center files which is a normal part of my work flow.

Thanks for your help thus far, hopefully there are more suggestions out there.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

May I ask why you are not creating your own custom read/write library in content center and put your information in it?  Why keep messing about and changing stuff with CC components?

[danmachen]

Hi redrowmagic,

If you have created a new custom library to the project file, you should be good to go to start customising it with your own parts! 

Is your project file on a server or network or local on your machine? I notice when I have the "Autodesk Vault Server" icon ticked under Application Options > Content Center, there are more restrictions on editing and creating new libraries as it then becomes "read only". 

[Anonymous]

Well the resounding message seems to be that editing contents center files is not recommended and I now have no choice but to learn the custom library method.

For the benefit of others, I provided a link to this youtube vid with a breakdown of the custom library method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg61Kw-bskA

Thx for the tips