Areas not Associated with Correct Area Scheme

[dtpeter2901]

I have a really odd issue, one I didn't think was possible, but apparently it is.

Project is in Revit 2020 and is hosted on BIM360 (doubt that makes the difference)

In the project we have 2 Area schemes that were created (I'm not sure how they were created as I didn't create them) "Plumbing Calc2" and "Plumbing Clac3".  I'm adding the names as I'm not sure if they were duplicated or if that's just how they were named.

When I run an Area Schedule for "Plumbing Clac3" I get a large list of areas.  When I go to looking for that area plan, none seem to exist in the project.  So I have area objects, that have an Area, Perimeter, X,Y location and a level associated with them, but I don't have a plan.  They are on a workset and the Main Model Design Option.

I have an Area plan for "Plumbing Clac2" that also has a bunch of areas associated with it as well as a couple of plans (level 1 and level 2).  If I run a schedule for "Plumbing Calc2" I also get a bunch of area objects that have an area, perimeter, x,y coordinate.... and I can find those on that plan.  However, that schedule is also listing some of the areas that are associated with "Plumbing Calc3".  I'm really not sure how that happens.  

If I delete the rouge area that's associated with "Plumbing Calc3", it's not available to place in the "Plumbing Clac2" area plan.  If I select the element by ID, copy it to the clip board, paste aligned to current in the Plumbing Calc2 area plan, the area doesn't show up and I get a warning saying I have a duplicate area.

I can go into the Plumbing Calc3 Schedule and delete all of the areas and it doesn't appear to change the plans.  But if I go and delete the Plumbing Calc3 area scheme, I get no warnings about objects or views being deleted and all of the areas that are showing in the Plumbing Clac2 area plans disappear.  If I try to copy those areas that are shown in the Plumbing Calc2 plan to the clip board first, then delete the Plumbing Clac3 Area Scheme, there's nothing for me to paste.  

So questions.

1 - Has anyone else experienced this issue?

2 - Any idea how this happens?

3 - Any good suggestions for how to resolve the issue other than starting over.

Thanks in Advance!

[ToanDN]

Why can't you recreate PlumbingCalc3 Area Plan(s) to reveal the actual Areas?

[dtpeter2901]

Perfect, that worked.

When I tried this before I did the dumb thing and forget to check workset visibility for the existing areas.

Silly me

Thanks!

[ToanDN]

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@dtpeter2901 wrote:

Perfect, that worked.

When I tried this before I did the dumb thing and forget to check workset visibility for the existing areas.

Silly me

Thanks!

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Keeping Areas of different schemes in different worksets is unnecessary.  They are scheme dependent (only show in the scheme's Area plans/schedules).  

[dtpeter2901]

However that doesn't really answer the question of why when I delete the Plumbing Clac3 area scheme, all of the areas associated with Plumbing Calc2 and Plumbing Calc3 are deleted from the model.

After thinking about this further, the only thing I can think of is someone used transfer project standards from the same project at about the same time and Plumbing Calc2 and Plumbing Calc3 are the really the same even though their schemes have different GUIDs

I showed this behavior to our reseller support staff and they agreed with my assessment that it's behavior is something that shouldn't happen.  No idea how, but there's some type of a programming bug or glitch in there somewhere as deleting one Area Scheme shouldn't effect any other area scheme or plan.

[ToanDN]

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@dtpeter2901 wrote:

However that doesn't really answer the question of why when I delete the Plumbing Clac3 area scheme, all of the areas associated with Plumbing Calc2 and Plumbing Calc3 are deleted from the model.

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I know, it is just a step to diagnose the issue.  Can you share the model?

[dtpeter2901]

Confidential Client so I can't really share much of anything.

But I can try to explain the potential "bug" or Error that we ran into in super simple terms.

I have Areas in the model for 2 areas schemes.  One had plans, the other didn't.  

If I delete Scheme B from the Area Schemes Dialog box, the Area objects for both Scheme A and B are deleted from the project with no warnings or errors.  The plans for Scheme A are still there, but the areas that were placed are deleted from the model.  

[ToanDN]

Have you audited the file? 

Try cut and paste aligned in place for all Areas within each scheme Area plan.

[dtpeter2901]

Yep, All of the Above.

I even tried copy to clip board, delete the unwanted scheme and paste, but there's nothing to paste.

Just really screwy.  

I've got the workaround (which is just don't worry about it and delete the areas that are associated with the unwanted scheme).

Our Reseller Support person was also super confused and had never seen anything like it either.  

My only other option (which I don't think I'm going to bother with) would be to export the areas and their coordinates to excel, create a dynamo graph to create new areas and place them in the correct scheme.  But that's going to be more work than I really want to do.  There's not that many of them.  I can always just add new areas and place them by hand pretty quick.  Just a really screwy thing that the programming really shouldn't allow.  Makes no sense.

[RDAOU]

@dtpeter2901 

I have seen that on 3 different projects ... all 3 of them were in Germany. First 2 projects then contractor was actually using the model of a previous project, deleted all model elements therein and used that instead of starting from template. And the template which some firm set up for them (funnily enough same firm) both contractor were using to transfer standards from it to the blank model they created from the previous project.

The third time I saw this exact scenario you described was some 4 or 5 months back...They turned out to be generated from some Area Management plugin which some firm sold it to them...Guess which firm? The same one that was handling the first 2 contractors

[ToanDN]

If you are already exhaust all the resources and don't want to recreate the Areas, here is how I would do to fix it:

- open Scheme A plan, select all Area boundary lines and Areas, copy to clipboard

- start a new Project, add a Scheme with the exact same name as Scheme A, create Area plan of this Scheme

- paste aligned to current view the Boundaries and Areas

- go back to your model, delete Scheme A, create a new Scheme A and Area plan

- link the other model in Origin to Origin, set the link in the Area plan to by linked view (just so you can see the linked areas/boundaries), bind link and the areas/boundaries will be there

See if this fix can disconnect the schemes.