Could not find file thread.xls containing Thread data

[Anonymous]

Inventor 2016

Vault 2016

Our Inventor users have been getting this message on and off lately.

Could not Find File Thread.xls containing thread date

We use Vault are have used the same project file for years so I know that my paths are correct.

What I find is I go to the thread.xls file on our network and try to open it and it say that it is open by one of the Inventor users.

So I call them up and ask them to close it and they say they don't even have Excel open? They try and open thread.xls and it says that it's lock by them too and they can not release it. So I have to get our IT department to release it and all is fine for a day or so, then it locks by someone else.

So we have not found how this thread.xls file is getting locked by users just by using Inventor.

Any ideas?

[Frederick_Law]

It should not be shared.

It should be managed by Vault and copy to each user's local folder.  This should apply to the whole Design Data folder.

Vault admin can check out the file to prevent user from modify.

Reason it is locked could be crashed Inventor running in background.  Reboot the locking computer might help.

It also could be network connection, congestion problem preventing release of the file.

[Mark.Lancaster · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous

Your anti-virus application could be causing this or something in your network traffic could be doing it as well.   In addition having your Inventor design data on your network can cause performance issues within Inventor.  Not saying you can't have it shared but having it on the network could cause issues.  Have your IT department set its file attributes to read only to see if that stops others from locking it out.   One more question..  Those who had it did they ever crash in Inventor prior to locking it out (meaning they opened a part file with holes in it)?

Another thing to try is to re-register Inventor with the operating system

Use the following steps to re-register Autodesk Inventor with your operating system:

1.  Exit Inventor if still running

2a.  Win 8/8.1/10: Select the Windows start button and type CMD (but do not hit an enter)

2b.  Win 7:  Select the Windows start button and type CMD in the search field (but do not hit an enter)

3.  When CMD or command prompt appears in the list, right mouse click and select run as admin

4.  When the command prompt appears, navigate using dos commands to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor <version>\Bin or where your Inventor.exe is located if you changed the default install location of Inventor.

In this example I'm navigated to my Inventor 2018 (exe) location.

6.  Type Inventor.exe /install.  

Wait a few mins and restart Inventor.   At this time you will not see anything occurring.  Don't panic.    However if you launch Windows task manager you can watch the Inventor.exe process (and see when it ends).