Different Material Libraries appearing in different Templates

[RNDinov8r]

We recently discovered that some of the template files we use have materials from one Material library, while other template files are showing materials from a different material library. I have verified that the work stations are all pointing to the correct styles and templates folder on our server. Any idea what might cause this? From what I can tell, this isn't a local/network issue, because everyone sees the files the same way. 

Win 7

Inventor 2016 SP2

iPropWiz 6

[Xun.Zhang · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Not quite sure about the problem here. 

Material library are usually configured in the project setting which is not related with any template file at all.

Would you mind share some pictures to illustrate the problem in detail?

Thanks!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I think I understand the issue. You have multiple material libraries, let's say LibA and LibB. Each contain unique styles. In one template, some styles came from LibA. In another template, some styles came from LibB. In yet another template, styles might come from LibA and LibB. Is this what you are having?

I personally think having styles scattered in multiple libraries could become a style management issue. In theory, as long as LibA and LibB are always available to the user, it should work. However, based on our experience, it is better to have one consolidated library and lock it in user's local drive (only admin can edit it). This will provide the best performance and stability.

The concern here is that Inventor has to check if a given style in the document is in sync with the style in the library. This operation can be frequent and costly. Please avoid keeping a lot of unused style in the document. All styles in one document should be used. Also, you may not know if where a style came from, since there might be duplicate styles in LibA and LibB.

Many thanks!

[RNDinov8r]

Johnson, 

That sounds like exactly what I am seeing...oddly, all the projects point to the same library of styles...so for me, it's weird that one part in a the same project doesn't see one of the libraries. Moving the library locally would definitely be an issue, or at the very least, less than ideal. I will see if I can consolidate the libraries at the very least. thanks.

[Frederick_Law]

Each Inventor file (ipt, iam) will keep a copy of used material.

User could also save a copy of a library in the file.

You can open the template, set material to Default and purge all local style.

This will keep the template clean and use only style in Project.

This could be result from old template before material library.

[RNDinov8r]

Guys, thanks for the hints...I went back and found the root of the issue. Our Template.ipj file we use to start all new projects (we copy it to a new folder with a macro) was pointing to only one of the two libraries...I am going back and adding it manually to the older projects, and will update the template.ipj file to point to the corret file(s) going forward. Thanks for the ideas to look at.