Vault workflow - dirty files

[-niels-]

Hey everyone, i'm still pretty new to Vault workflows from inventor so i was wondering:

What are common reasons for files to be flagged as "dirty" (in need of saving, have an * after their name, etc.)?

I've been having a little fight with one of our assemblies and i'm suspecting that a component (sub-assy) that is set to "flexible" is causing problems and i'm still in the process of correcting this.

It would be helpful to have a better idea of things that might cause it to require saving all the time even though the the sub-assy on itself is behaving properly.

Sort of a list for me to check off.

[loren_welch]

Flexible sub assemblies are certainly something that could cause a dirty flag. Essentially anything that would cause Inventor to do a rebuild to validate the top level assemlby is up to date. Think things like; derived parts, top down design, in-context assembly features, skeletal modeling, apaptive features/geometry.

Once a rebuild has been performed, all parts/sub-assemblies effected are marked as 'dirty'. I hope that helps give you an idea of why this is happening. I know it can be tedious as a Vault user, but without the rebuilds to verify these features designs could be incorrect...that would be much worse.

[-niels-]

Thanks Ioren,

So this sub-assy i have has a few components i position in the main assembly while the main body stays in place.
I manage this by having a pos-rep in the sub-assy to enable movement for those parts and setting the sub-assy to flexible.
Is the repositioning that happens in the main assembly enough to cause a rebuild in the sub?

(i have a few other sub-assy's in that main assembly that function in a similar way that behave properly, so i'm having a hard time chasing this down...)

[SBix26]

Chiming in here-- in my current project, every assembly is dirty as soon as I save it.  I've done Rebuild All to no avail.  I've simply gotten used to the fact that every single assembly is never going to close without asking me to save it again, even though that is what I did immediately prior to closing.  I just click No and move on.  It's especially annoying when working with Vault.

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2016 R3 SP1 Update 1
Vault Basic 2016 SP1
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1

[bjzhangzx]

About the "dirty files" mystery, I have some findings and I have some rules for you:

1. Use "Rebuild All" carefully when you are working on an assembly with vault, if it's not that necessary, DO NOT USE IT!
2. If you do have to use "Rebuild All", remember, DO NOT check in immediately after saved your assembly, instead, close it, open it again, Inventor should/maybe prompt you to update the assembly again, update it as required, save it again, now it's the time you can check in!
3. Never click "Yes to all" when you are prompted to save some file that you never changed (or not intentionally) and not checked out, sometimes it's because you just used "Rebuild all", sometimes it may be an file from an older inventor release.

As long as you follow these rules, I think most of the time you will be fine.

Of course, these rules is not necessary if you have checked out all the sub-components of the assembly.

[bjzhangzx]

The reason is as below, I had thinked of post this in the forum, but I am not sure I explained it so well because I am not native English speaker.

Some people always complain that their inventor files are constantly becoming dirty. Well the reason of this symptom may be complicated, sometime it's because you have multiple projects in vault, sometimes it's because you are using library folders, and sometimes it's just a thing that's the nature of Inventor.

However I have a think that maybe the real reason of this is because the habit of some users.

consider this very simple scenario, you create an assembly with a single part in it, you save it and check them into vault, and that you create another assembly and place the former saved assembly into it, check in again, everything happy.

Now this is where things get intersting. I believe some users have the habit of clicking the Rebuild All command all the time. In this case, for the top assembly, you may have worked on it for days and click the Rebuild All command for many times. Each time you use this command, some things happen with the sub assembly, so if you click save, you will see all the sub assemblies in your top assembly show up in the save dialog box, what you will do now? To save or not to save, that's a problem!

I think most people here will think I don't need save them because I never changed them, and this make perfect sense. Well the truth is, even you never changed these sub assemblies by hand, these files in memory has been changed, aka dirty. The worse thing is, even you will not save these sub-assemblies to the disk, when you save the top assembly, the changed sub-assembly information are stored in the top assembly. So after the save operation, there is actually some kind of inconsistency between the top assembly and these sub assemblies. The proof of this is, if you close the top assembly and open it again, you will see that Inventor prompt that the assembly need updating, which means: the files on the disk are not the same as what I remembered!

The real problem now is the user will not realize that there is something bad happening. He will happily check in his top assembly and think that all well done, and the top assembly he checked in will go through the review process and finally get released! Now just think what will happen when another user decide to use the new released assembly! He will find the assembly, even released, get dirty!

This situation can go on and on, and more and more files get dirty!

[-niels-]

Thanks for the advice.
I'm not rebuilding the assembly so i haven't needed this procedure yet, but it's good to know.

I am noticing that i can't get the update icon to turn off no matter how often i let it update, but if i remove the flexible sub-assy then it does turn off.
I'm only at work for 30 more minutes, so i'm not sure if i can solve it today but this is helping.

[-niels-]

Ok, my work day is over now...
I've found that this sub-assy behaves when it's in the "master" pos-rep, but as soon as i set it to the pos-rep where the components are able to move the main assembly's update icon turns on and won't go away.
(even when it's not set to "flexible")

Is this still in line with the behavior you describe @loren_welch ?

[-niels-]

Ok i've been going slightly insane over this assembly almost all day, but i think i've found the cause of the perpetual dirtying of my file.
As far as i have found it seems Assembly features do not play well together with positional representations.

I have a simple dataset to show the behavior, but i'm unsure if i should continue this here or on the general forum or submit a support ticket for it.

Please advise.

[loren_welch]

Assembly features are going cause dirty flags because of Inventors desire to rebuild to verify they are up to date (especially if you are not in the Master rep).

Opening a support ticket for this dataset sounds like a good idea.

[-niels-]

Thank you Ioren (ioren or Loren?), i've opened a support ticket for this.

In case you want to follow it, it was assigned Case ID: 11466642

I'll also attach my simple dataset here, for those interested.

[bjweix]

Hi niels,

Just want you to know, I downloaded your dataset and tested it in Inventor, but I see no problem at all. What should I do to trigger the problem?

[-niels-]

Hi bjweix (and welcome to the community),

If you open the "faulty_assy.iam" it should ask if you want to update upon opening.
The fact that it wants to update is the problem, since it was saved in a fully up-to-date state.
The "main_assy.iam", which doesn't have an assembly feature, doesn't ask for an update.

In order to reproduce that, open the "main_assy.iam" and from that open the "no_features.iam" and add an assembly feature (like an extra hole) to the "base" part. (or any part probably, but i needed features in the static base.)
Go back to the main assy and update everything, save and close everything.
If you open that assembly up again, it will keep asking if you want to update.

My original file (of which i included a screenshot) acts up a little more than this simple setup, but the cause seems (to me at least) to come from the assembly features.

[smilinger]

Hi niels,

First I must say sorry that bjweix is actually me using my colleague's account doing something else and forgetting that is not me, now I'm back.

When I first open the Fauly Faulty_assy.iam, it do ask me to update, but after I saved it and then open again, nothing bad happen, no problem.

I also add a assembly feature to the no_features.iam, and then save everything, and everything is OK.

If you observed repeated update request after save, on this simple dataset, then I think it's something wrong with your inventor or some settings. I even did it in the 2017 beta, and everything is OK.

[-niels-]

Ok, i'm seeing that as well but... (!)
From that seemingly "ok" assembly, open the "no_features.iam".
Don't touch anything when it's opened, just close it down again...
If it's the same as mine, it will ask you if you want to save changes...
And that's something i just don't understand...

[smilinger]

No, that's not happening to me.

[-niels-]

Hmm... ok... very confusing, that turns this into a bigger hunt for the cause...

Can you check something for me?
When i open the "no_features.iam" from the "Faulty_assy.iam" when it's in that "OK" state you see, at the top if you hover over the undo button it says "undo activate positional representation"...
What does it say on your system?

[smilinger]

Assemblies will only be saved in its main pos rep state by itself.

So yes, if the no_features.iam is set to the Flexible state in main_assembly, when you open it from the main_assembly, the no_features.iam will be opened with main pos rep state and quickly switched to the Flexible state as is in the main_assemlby, so I think that's why you will see "undo activate positional representation".

[-niels-]

Yeah, you're right.
I've been staring myself blind on this, i think I'm losing track of the obvious...

I'll see what my test assembly does on my laptop at home during the weekend.
Thanks for your interest, much appreciated. 🙂

[-niels-]

Ok, just tested it on my own laptop.
I'm also not getting the request to save changes...

So that means there's something else going on and i have a hunch:
When I'm back at work Monday I'll see what happens when i turn off our own addin.
I'm suspecting there are some on-open/on-save events that are causing this grief...

I'm really hoping that'll be it, this is really frustrating me.