Saving a STEP file overwrites local components automatically

[Anonymous]

We've discovered a potentially dangerous quirk of the STEP to inventor file format saving mechanism, whereby .ipt or .iam files stored in the same location as the STEP file with identical names to those referenced by the STEP file when it was generated will be automatically overwritten.

For example, creating an assembly of parts in a single folder somerwhere, exporting a STEP file from the assembly to the same location as the original Inventor files, then opening and saving the STEP file. This will overwrite the Inventor file types with "blank" versions of components like you get when importing a STEP file normally (ie. a body exists as before, but all individual features in the tree are lost).

From a usage point of view, we shouldn't ever really be exporting STEP models to the same location as the base models, let alone opening and re-saving them, however it is concerning that the overwriting of existing files happens automatically - that could cost a fair amount of design time!

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Inventor doesn't know what your intent is..  Its following your lead.  If you are not paying attention to what the file name is and the location of where its being save, well that's the reason.  Its not an issue with Inventor.   This can happen no matter if you are using a STEP file or a file you created and you save it to the same location with the same name.

[-niels-]

@Mark.Lancaster

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@Mark.Lancaster wrote:

Inventor doesn't know what your intent is..  Its following your lead.

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I have to disagree, Inventor is deciding to overwrite files on it's own... it should double check with the user in order to asses the intent.

I tried the workflow @Anonymous suggested and created a test assembly with a testpart and saved it out as step to the same location.

After opening the step i hit save and got the dialog stating "initial save", which to me indicates that inventor isn't checking if the files exist.

I would have expected a "do you want to overwrite" dialog...

[Mark.Lancaster]

@-niels-

Yes you are correct that its not prompting and asking if you want to overwrite ..  My reply was not clear enough to @Anonymous and I did leave off some key details.  Guess I'm not awake at this point, my bad..  

I should've included that the STEP import is always consider as a "new" input and it assumes you are creating (importing) this file for the first time (thus no need to check).  Is it correct to assume?  YES and NO, meaning I can see both sides of the story.

I would suggest if not already to post this idea over in the Inventor Idea.

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi Stuart,

Indeed, the behavior does not look reasonable. I would expect to see some kind of warning. The behavior is inconsistent with regular file saving without import. I will work with project team to understand this behavior better and see what we can do.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

@Mark.LancasterI can see where you're coming from! Sorry if that wasn't clear that it's specifically the lack of prompt for overwriting files rather than the mechanics of STEP files themselves that I was getting at.

[bob_holland · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous, @Mark.Lancaster, @-niels-, @johnsonshiue

All,

I wanted to let you know that this has been logged with the Inventor development staff with a reference ID of:  184417

I have also created a tracking page for this:

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/article/Inventor-2018-is-saving-a-STEP-file-overwrites-local-components-automatically

Thank you again for bringing this to our attention and we apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you.