Missing Tabs in Assembly

[jmfowler1996]

Hi Guys.

I'm experiencing a strange problem in some of my assemblies.

When I open the assemblies with this problem, the tabs in the ribbon are not correct - it is missing the assemble, design, 3D model etc. tabs. Please see image below:

I only get annotate, electromechanical & collaborate. Oddly, If I right-click, I can still find the place and constrain commands, but they aren't in the ribbon. I have tried restarting IV, refreshing the ribbon, checking that another user doesn't have the same project or assembly open. Nothing is working so far.

It is a bit odd in that it only affects some assemblies and it hasn't ever happened to me in 4 years until the last couple of weeks. The only things that have changed recently are that I have updated Inventor, and that there are now two Inventor users in our company.

Using IV2019.1.2.

Thanks in advance.

[gcooper79]

If you change the ribbon to normal, and then right click on the ribbon, you should have an option to show panels.  Are the missing panels ticked?

[jmfowler1996]

Thanks for the reply.

It isn't the panels which are missing from the tabs, it is the tabs themselves which are missing entirely (with all of the panels in them).

i.e. for normal assemblies, in the 3D model tab there are panels such as "relationships" and "position". These are what the 'show panels' option controls the visibility of. I am missing the whole tab.

[mdavis22569]

Try going through these:

If that does work, try doing the Inventor Reset Utility:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcartic...

[jmfowler1996]

Thanks for your advice Michael.

Cycling through the different ribbon styles did not do anything unfortunately. I should clarify also that I always have my ribbon as the small version, hence it is shown without the panels in my earlier screenshot - this is normal. It's just the tabs missing which is new.

I used the reset tool as you suggested too. Unfortunately, this didn't work either. Below is a screencast of me opening one of the relevant assemblies. While it is loading, the tabs do actually show up, but after file is fully loaded, they disappear! That's weird, right? In the screencast, I choose to update the assembly, but I have tested selecting 'no' and it does the same thing.

Any help is appreciated as this is getting to be quite a nuisance when working on the assembly. There are lots of tools I can't even reach.

[mdavis22569]

2 options I'd try next ...

I'd try a reinstall from the control panel ...

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/screencast/Main/Details/eef0cd4f-3e2a-4433-a947-1b...

and a Reset again ...

Or my last option, clean uninstall something is looking at something it shouldn't or something is missing.

[mcgyvr]

Go to Tools..Application Options.. Assembly Tab... 

uncheck "Enable Express Mode Workflows"

restart Inventor and try again..

Did that help?

On second thought it doesn't seem like you have that many parts in those files to even get into express mode based on a unique file limit

can you share the assembly (zip up the iam and all associated ipt files)? 

[jmfowler1996]

Thanks guys.

Another couple of things I have tried:

Unchecking express mode workflow - this was checked before.

Repair of IV from control panel.

Reset IV again.

Leave IV with default application and customization options.

Open the assembly again.

Still nothing I'm afraid. I can't attach the assembly for IP reasons, but I will see if I can reproduce the problem on a different assembly.

A full reinstall is something I'm reluctant to do as I will struggle to find time, but I might try it later.

At this point, I'm kind of hoping an update will be released and magically fix my problem, but maybe that's a bit unlikely if nobody else has experienced this before.

[jmfowler1996]

I have attached an assembly file with the problem.

It doesn't have any parts in it so it shouldn't require any other files for it to open.

Thanks.

[mdavis22569]

What I see:

Then

[JonathanFWorkAccount]

Thanks.

As I was writing a reply to you, it occurred to me that three error messages occur when I open my file. Each pointing to the assemblies which contained a certain subassembly. That subassembly is an assembly which I imported as a step file before converting to an assembly and it seems that removing it solved the problem.

I have attached the bad assembly for reference.

I don't know what it is about that assembly (maybe because it was converted from a STEP file?) but it seems to act badly when nesting is loaded. I expect it is a problem with the nesting utility rather than the assembly itself.

Thanks again guys, for all of your time and help.

My problem isn't necessarily solved, but this workaround will do for now at least!

[mdavis22569 · Accepted solution]

Something wrong with the file .... it's opening in the Nesting templates from the start

Did you import / place it in the wrong template?

If I open the step file it works fine now via AnyCAD

[jmfowler1996]

That must have been it.

I don't know how I did it, but I must have placed it using the wrong template.

Moving the "Standard.iam" template from the "OldTemplates" file to the root templates folder has worked.

I will need to pay closer attention next time I am changing a part from a STEP file to an assembly.

I think it's the same issue as this:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/importing-step-file-opens-a-nesting/td-p/8222062

as was suggested by our reseller.

[jmfowler1996]

Update:

I think I found where the problem started.

I didn't actually convert this from a STEP file to an Inventor assembly - I downloaded it as a multi-body .ipt from the website directly:
 The download must have been made in a standard template, which I don't use. That would explain the problems I was seeing.