Defect: iAssembly with a phantom iAssembly not displaying all parts from each member

[Hunteil]

This is hard to understand without doing it yourself. I've tried to explain this a few different times with some amount of confusion still existing. So I'm just going to explain the steps for everyone to reproduce.

Issue:

I have assemblies with this feature working in Inventor 2019 without problems. This defect / bug occurred after we updated to Inventor 2022. Basically if you have a 'iAssembly' 'Factory' with multiple 'Members'... i.e. Assy1, Assy2, Assy3, Assy4.... and inside these, you have another sub-assy (which is also an iAssembly) with multiple Members and the sub-assembly is set to phantom... each member of the phantom iAssembly would be called Sub-Assy1, Sub-Assy2, Sub-Assy3 and Sub-Assy4... The resulting idw drawing will output a Parts List that doesn't display all Parts within those members of that phantom iAssembly. (Key word is Parts within those Members!)

Example Image: 

Steps for reproduction:

1. Open Inventor and create 8 shape objects and make sure to give them part numbers. Part numbers should be object1, object2 and so forth for ease of checking (Geometry doesn't matter, they can be cubes if you want.) Save them all to the same folder.
2. Create a Assembly.
3. Insert objects 5, 6, 7 and 8.
4. Save this Assembly as Sub-Assy.iam.
5. Next go to Manage, create iAssembly.
6. In the Table (Factory Table or also called iAssembly table), In the bottom area, clear out everything but Member and Part number.
7. In the Table, In the bottom area, Insert 3 more rows.
8. In the Table, In the bottom area, Rename the Member cell as Sub-Assy1, next row cell Sub-Assy2, next row cell Sub-Assy3 and next row cell Sub-Assy4
9. In the Table, In the bottom area, Part Number column should match Member column. Update the cells as needed.
   Looks like this: 
10. In the Table, Upper area, pick the tab for 'Exclusion' and bring in objects 5, 6, 7 and 8.
11. In the Table, In the bottom area, Make the exclusions Include 1 object per Sub-Assy...
    It'll look like this image: 
12. In the Table, Hit Verify for problems button then press Okay if everything is okay. (It'll close the table.)
13. Next to the Tools tab>Document Settings>Bills of Materials>Default BOM Structure and choose Phantom.
14. Press Apply, then Close and save.
15. On the Model Tree where is shows table, Open the +Plus symbol and then select all members. Right click and click Generate.
16. Save again and you're done with this Sub-Assy. (Note currently Parts List will work.)
17. Create a new Assembly.
18. Insert objects 1, 2, 3 and 4.
19. Insert Sub-Assy.iam and just pick Sub-Assy1 when it requests which member you want.
20. Save this Assembly as Assy.iam.
21. Next go to Manage, create iAssembly.
22. In the Table, In the bottom area, clear out everything but Member and Part number.
23. In the Table, In the bottom area, Insert 3 more rows.
24. In the Table, In the bottom area, Rename the Member cell as Assy1, next row cell Assy2, next row cell Assy3 and next row cell Assy4
25. In the Table, In the bottom area, Part Number column should match Member column. Update the cells as needed.
    Looks like this: 
26. In the Table, Upper area, pick the tab for 'Components'.
27. In the Table, Upper area, Pick Sub-Assy and expand the +plus symbol. Pull in the line that says 'Table Replace'
28. In the Table, In the bottom area, Make the table replace cells say Sub-Assy1 for the first row and Sub-Assy2 for the 2nd row, Sub-Assy3 for the 3rd row and Sub-Assy 4 for the 4th row.
29. In the Table, Hit Verify for problems button then press Okay if everything is okay. (It'll close the table.)
30. On the Model Tree where is shows table, Open the +Plus symbol and then select all members. Right click and click Generate.
31. Save again and you're done with this Assy. (Here is where the weird stuff happens.)
32. Open a new idw drawing.
33. Place any view of the Assy.iam or bypass this step and just place the Parts of List... Remember never pick a member file itself in this step... always pick the master file (also called factory file, or factory configuration file, or iAssembly Parent etc etc.)
34. Once the Parts list is inserted, Double click to edit and pick the Member Selection button.
    Example image: 
35. Next Pick Select all and uncheck hide rows of zero zero qty.
    Example image: 
36. Press okay.
37. Sort Parts List by Part number.
38. Press okay to save changes to Parts List.
39. You can see, that it's missing some of the parts now. (you can also see them missing during the parts list edit and also in the BOM menu in the assembly.
    Example: 

Notes:

There's a few extra weird things that happen during this bug.

• If you open the Assy.iam file and 'change active Member' to another in the list. And then 'generate' the members. The Parts List will update and display whatever the current 'Active Member' will also be displayed as well as the previous... This seems to be tied to a memory thing as it only ever displays the last 2 Active Members... So if you have only 2 members in the iAssembly, it'll remain completely undetectable.
• So with the above note... If you never active another member and generate. You will get a different result. I.e. only 1 of the phantom Sub-Assy.iam will display it's contents. Thus confusing you more into thinking you can't get my above example result images.
  Example Image: 
• If you're not using my example iAssembly instructions, things can change a bit for the better. If you have objects in the phantom iAssembly that are also present in the upper level Assy.iam... You will find that the Parts list will also display those changes as well.
  Example Image: 

Goal:

• The hope is to get it to work again like it used to... To output a dependable Parts List (Sometimes called a Tabulated Parts List)
  Example of a Tabulated Parts List: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/454918i880AA699C5AED1C5?v=v2
• Also If Model States could do this as well, we would look at converting to that (again). But currently it does not.
  Idea Link: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/model-state-support-tabulated-parts-list/idi-p/1068619...
• Link to help article: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Missi... Note workaround: Model States Doesn't solve the problem b/c tabulated Parts Lists are not supported.

Additional Search terms:
Defect: Factory with a phantom Factory not displaying all parts from each Factory member.

[Hunteil]

Updated OP: Added Notes section and attached the the .zip file with an example similar to the steps to reproduce.

So feel free to give it a try.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Many thanks for sharing the files and the findings! This is absolutely a bug. I tried it on our latest internal build targeting 2022.3 update. It has been fixed. The PartsList is exactly like what you are seeing on 2019. The update will be available some time in April.

Thanks again!

[Hunteil]

Great! Can't wait for this to start working again. I keep identifying sub-assemblies that I can turn phantom and run off an iAssembly for various options. i.e. we have a set of 4 couplings that get used almost every design and in it I can have the sub-assy contain all couplings and their hardware. Then with the factory, I can set the members to switch out to different lengths of hardware and/or mounting locations/arrangements. But currently I can't do that until this is fixed. And anything we have setup to do this currently fails.

[Hunteil · Accepted solution]

I can officially state this bug is fixed in 2022.3

A little follow-up issue on my side. Our job processor isn't updating our exports correctly (bug is still present). It still shows the incorrect BOM issue that should have been fixed. I went into the server and updated it's Inventor and the Vault Server 2022.2.1 to 2022.3, then to 2022.3.1. Then IISRESET and b2bmigrates with a Autodesk Vendor support helping me... Then updated our job processor too... and it still outputs incorrectly. Case is still open atm. If there's any guidance, please feel free to share. Otherwise I'm depending on the Autodesk Vendor's Support to troubleshoot this. I think our next step is to uninstall everything and reinstall everything on both the Server and the VM we use for my Job Processor.