Resolving Content Center Links

[LT.Rusty]

This one is getting annoying.

Right now I'm doing most of my work in Inventor 2017, but until I'm definitely sure that it's not going to blow up on me I'm keeping 2016 around, and that means that I'm working with duplicate project directories, duplicate content center stuff, duplicate everything.  I made a copy of my working directory from 2016, with all my files for use with 2017 and migrated everything in it.

The problem comes now when I open an assembly in 2017 that was originally created in 2016.  Yes: content center files in my assemblies have links pointing back to the 2016 folders.  This is a problem, because those file locations are not in my 2017 project file... and they cannot be in my 2017 project file, because I don't want to migrate them, since I want to keep 2016 (and the 2016 versions of those files) around for future use as needed.

So, I've tried just about everything here.  I've copied the contents of users\myname\documents\inventor\content center files\2016\en-US folder over to the 2017\en-US folder, and I can manually go through and find all the links, but some of these assemblies have a few thousand content center parts in them.  That's not a viable option for those assemblies.

Is there any way to just make Inventor automatically generate new content center member parts when it doesn't see them in the project file?  Or, failing that, how in the name of Dread Cthulhu can you get "search here for the rest of the missing files" to actually work?  Or get path substitutions to work?  I've spent a solid 2 hours this morning messing with that, unsuccessfully.  

(No, I don't have vault installed.  Single user environment, everything is installed locally to the default locations.)

[Mark.Lancaster]

@LT.Rusty

Once a content center component is placed into a given Assembly, Inventor doesn't automatically go back into Content Center when content center files are missing.  When you copied, did you just copy the en-us folder (2016 location) to the en-us 2017 location?

Under Tools/Application Options/Files tab where is that location set for content center?  What does it state under your folder location for content center location in your active project file?

[LT.Rusty]

Everything is left at default settings.  Project file has [Default], Application Options-->File has %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Inventor\Content Center Files\R2017\  (or R2016, or R2015, for the earlier versions.  I think I even still do have 2015 still installed.)

I don't have any national CAD manager telling me how to organize my files, and I've never found a reason to change any of the default settings.

And, yes, I've noticed that Inventor doesn't just go back and re-create missing content center files.  That's sort of what I'm complaining about.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@LT.Rusty

Understood..

So do you stil have the 2015 and 2016 content center folder location on your machine?  If so move them so Inventor 2017 can only find the parts in the 2017 location..  Legacy models still know those files are in the 2015 or 2016 location and its confused which one to use.  Report back if that doesn't help.

[smokes2998]

Rusty the best solution to stop losing cc referenced parts is to use the vault 😞 .

This due CC using spreadsheet tables to create the CC parts  once created there is no way to reference back to the CC spreadsheet.

the competitors use A Data Base to get around this problem but the DB is not easilly customisable as  CC.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@smokes2998

I disagree with your statment about the best way to resolve missing links to content center is to use Vault.  

I used Desktop Content Center for 2 or 3 years without Vault and upgraded Invetnor through those years and I never had an issue with unresolved links to CC (when I opened legacy models in newer version of Inventor). 

[LT.Rusty]

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@Mark.Lancaster wrote:

@LT.Rusty

Understood..

So do you stil have the 2015 and 2016 content center folder location on your machine?  If so move them so Inventor 2017 can only find the parts in the 2017 location..  Legacy models still know those files are in the 2015 or 2016 location and its confused which one to use.  Report back if that doesn't help.

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So, then, when I want to use 2016, I'll have to go and move things again to make them work properly?  Because, that's not a spectacular option either ...

(incidentally, no- it didn't work.  I'm still having the same issue.  I have to manually go in and resolve all the content center links.)

(also, since the 2015 / 2016 locations aren't even found in my 2017 project file, but the 2017 locations are, why is this even an issue?)

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@smokes2998 wrote:

Rusty the best solution to stop losing cc referenced parts is to use the vault 😞 .

This due CC using spreadsheet tables to create the CC parts  once created there is no way to reference back to the CC spreadsheet.

the competitors use A Data Base to get around this problem but the DB is not easilly customisable as  CC.

---

Just as there must be balance between the light side and the dark side of the Force, there must also be balance between good and evil within Autodesk.  Inventor is good.  Vault is evil.  I'm not going to use it.

Regardless, it wouldn't work in this case anyway, because it doesn't allow duplicate file names, and since I want Inventor 2016 and Inventor 2017 both to work, there have to be duplicate file names.  I need 2016\en-US\ASTM-F436\ASTM F436-7_16.ipt, and I also need 2017\en-US\ASTM-F436\ASTM F436-7_16.ipt.  This would not be allowed with Vault.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi LT.Rusty,

I'm still unclear if you've copied your entire CC file store folder from the 2016 location to the location that your 2017 folder is looking at per the Application Options > Files > Default Content Center files setting?

As far as I know that should be all that is required.

And just as a reminder if you have the Folder Options > Content Center Files path in the Project file (*.ipj) set it overrides what is in the Application Options > Files > Default Content Center files setting

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[LT.Rusty]

Yes, that is correct, Curtis. The entire contents of 2016\en-us were copied to 2017\en-us. Yes, that's where 2017 is set to look for CC parts, both In application and in the project file.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi LT.Rusty,

This thread seems to confirm what you are seeing as "the way it works":

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-general-discussion/project-migration-2014-to-2015/m-p/5482815...

That is not how I would expect it to work (or how I recall it working)

One more thing that I would try (if you've not already done so):

• Copy over all of your 2016 files (CC files and assemblies)
• Set/check the paths to make sure the project file is looking at the 2017 CC file store
• Use the Task Scheduler to migrate the files to 2017.

I think this should "crack open" all of the assemblies and point them to your 2017 CC file store as they are migrated. It's been a while since I've dealt with this, but I think that would work.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[LT.Rusty]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was afraid of, unfortunately.

What gets me about this is that Inventor is smart enough to recognize when a content center part is out of date and needs to be refreshed ... but it doesn't seem to be smart enough to know that it can just go ahead and generate a new copy of something from content center when it's missing.  I think I need to drift on over to the IdeaStation...

[smokes2998]

Try opening some else project t that you have copy from there  HD  to yours and see what  happens....