I can't access files in my network when opening via Inventor file explorer

[BrennanJWilkie]

When I have Inventor open and go Open File, I am unable to navigate to an internal server at my work. I am connected to it on my desktop so I don't know why I am not able to find it. Any thoughts?

[CGBenner]

@BrennanJWilkie 

You may have to map the network drive inside of the Inventor explorer window, even though it may already be mapped in Windows Explorer.  I've seen this happen randomly before.

[BrennanJWilkie]

Do you have any idea how to do that? I can enter the file explorer in Inventor but it doesn't show the Network to navigate to.

[CGBenner]

@BrennanJWilkie 

I'm sorry, it's been a while since I had to do this... had to think about it for a bit.  The trick I found was to open an instance of Windows Explorer, and navigate to the netowrk drive you need, and select it so you're viewing it.  Leave that window open.  Now go to the File Explorer if Inventor, and Right Click on This PC and select Map Network Drive.  For some reason, having that Network Drive open in the background makes it show up when you do the mapping.

Can I ask what version this is?  Is it 2019 0r 2020?  I can't remember in which release I encountered this.  It was random and very annoying.  I thought it was just me, but with you also seeing this I think we need to tag in @johnsonshiue to alert him of a potential defect.

[BrennanJWilkie]

My version is Inventor 2020 Professional. I will report back when I get a chance to try that out. Thanks for your insight!

[CGBenner]

@BrennanJWilkie 

You're most welcome.  I'm pretty sure I saw this also on 2020, in my previous job.  Only six months ago but it's already fading!  😂

[BrennanJWilkie]

It didn't seem to work for me - when I had the instance of the network file open in the File Explorer outside of Inventor, then tried to open it inside the Inventor file explorer, the network folder I am looking for still didn't show up. All the other network folders are (everyone else's desktops and the Inventor Vault) but still nothing on the one I need. Our IT guy is coming in today so I will check with him and get back to you.

[CGBenner · Accepted solution]

@BrennanJWilkie I neglected to mention that the drive may not show up as selectable, even though it should.  You need to know the name of the drive going in.  In the Mapping dialog, select the Drive letter you want to map it to, and then instead of scrolling for the network location... type it in manually as: \\servername\drivename.

[mcgyvr]

Try closing Inventor and then restarting it by right clicking on the icon and selecting "Run as Administrator"..

Did that help?

You may also want to try the Inventor Reset Utility loaded on your computer (search in start menu for it).. Backup your application options in Inventor first as those will get reset)

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! This is likely due to Windows User profile setting. Somehow Windows is blocking Inventor from accessing certain folders. If possible, try set up an Admin account on your machine and retest. Does it work better?

Many thanks!

[BrennanJWilkie]

All right, the IT guy showed me how to do it.

@CGBennerwas pretty close with what I needed - Open the place in the file explorer and create a DESKTOP SHORTCUT to the network. Since Inventor doesn't have any trouble accessing the desktop, you can follow this path to access it.

[mcgyvr]

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@BrennanJWilkie wrote:

All right, the IT guy showed me how to do it.

@CGBennerwas pretty close with what I needed - Open the place in the file explorer and create a DESKTOP SHORTCUT to the network. Since Inventor doesn't have any trouble accessing the desktop, you can follow this path to access it.

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@BrennanJWilkie  That's probably not the "best" solution here but more of a hack.. As stated it sounds like you may have a Windows user permission issue. Which could cause additional problems with Inventor so you may want to get that fixed properly and your networking issue should/will go away too..  I've had a few other programs fail to see mapped network drives in their open dialogs and its always been related to that permission/profile issues. 

Did you try starting Inventor as "admin" to see if the problem goes away?  Often times "IT" locks down users and Inventor and other programs require a bit more access than some "IT" people default standard user profiles to. 

I can't remember the exact fix but I want to say it was due to having "EnableLinkedConnections" sytem policy off which IT can enable. 

You can also address it this way if they don't want to correct the user permissions/registry via group policy or whatever.. https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Can-t-...