Material Library Issue???

[RGrandmaison]

Greetings everyone. I've got a problem that seems to be happening now with Revit 2021. Not sure when it started or what I may have done to cause it, but it seems to be connected to my material library in some way.

When opening the Materials manager, most material texture icons will not load, or take a very long time to do so, and my computer's CPU goes into overdrive for some reason. Not sure if this is a missing paths situation, or if it's a missing library materials- though I do seem to have all the RVT 2021 material libraries and textures in my C drive in the proper location.

Any suggestions as to what I might want to do to remedy this ugly condition???

[RGrandmaison]

Thanks so much for that info! I'm looking forward to the update. I'll have to postpone my "Materials" course lecture until after 10/13 as many of my students are also experiencing the same issue.

In the meanwhile, if any Autodesk developer wants to have me test any viable solution, I'd be happy to do so. (Check my credentials as an AutoCAD Alpha Gold Site tester and gunslinger in the past.)

[barthbradley]

@RGrandmaison: Latest update as of 10/13/2020:

"Development is now actively working on the issue and has determined this it is not 'As designed'."

[cbcarch]

Have you checked the path to your material assets is located?

As a test, Manage>Materials>Appearance Tab  Select  simple/common one such as Brick.

Does the map/image appear correctly in the Appearance Dialog Box? If so, click on the path where the image is stored.

Make sure that path is correct and available on the PC and/or network.

Also check render appearnce paths under Options Menu--see attached.

Also, for your classes, are you using standalone Revit sessions, or using Worksharing/Central File/Local copies for students, etc.? 

[RGrandmaison]

All common shared mats libraries/folders are listed in my Rendering files locations.

They will EVENTUALLY load, but it's a long grind, like minutes, for them to load in the preview at times, and I'm running a fast machine with 64GB of RAM, lots of GPUs (latest video drivers) and a ten core Intel processor.

Many of my students have the very same issue with their machines. My students are running standalone educational versions of Revit, courtesy of the Autodesk education website. (THANK YOU, Autodesk!) Normally we run our classroom computers with our site license, but due to the Covid-19 social distancing and remote learning requirements, everyone is working and studying from home. 

[RGrandmaison]

So glad to hear the development team is working on this issue and have recognized this is not "as designed"!

[cbcarch]

So, are the material assets/maps stored locally on your PC? (and I'm assuming same for the students?)

Trying to ask you where the path to the image files is--local PC, or on a network.

If on a network, that could explain the very slow loading time.

[barthbradley]

@RGrandmaison: the latest news, per an email received today (10/15/2020), informs me that Autodesk Development has now updated the status of this issue to: "This incident is being investigated for a possible cause and resolution."

I know what you are thinking. Please don't shoot the messenger. I'm only a user like you.  I share your aggravation. Fortunately for me, we're not using Revit 2021 in production yet, so I'm not feeling it as much.   

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

[Lance.Coffey]

Some additional information on this behavior. It looks like on some systems, the material thumbnail cache is not being read, so that new thumbnails need to be generated every time the dialog is opened. This is leading to the delay when showing the thumbnails and the high CPU activity.

[RGrandmaison]

Lance,

Thanks for the explanation. It does seem like that's the problem and I'm guessing the CPU has to work overtime to rebuild the thumbnails/cache? For the record, all of my materials are in the typical location, locally, on my machine. Glad to hear you all are working on a fix (?).

[RGrandmaison]

Lance, is there some way I could perhaps add the thumbnail preview folder/images into some render path or file location in the Revit options to see if that helps? Or, is this much deeper in the code and has to be resolved at a higher level?

It is rather frustrating. Many of my students are experiencing the same issue. And, it doesn't seem to remember where the thumbnails are even after fully loading them. If I close the materials dialog box and reopen it, it must run at full power to rebuild them all again. I'll be teaching a "Materials" unit in my course very soon- I'm hoping there will be some kind of a hotfix available very soon!

[Mohamed-Nassar]

Could you move them to D partition and check it will consume time as the first way

[Lance.Coffey]

@RGrandmaison, the issue as I’m understanding it, is that Revit is not reading the thumbnail cache (even if it was successfully created). Also, I’m not aware of a way to change where the cache is being stored (no options within the interface to do this).

[Anonymous]

Hello, I had the same problem with the material browser from Revit 2018 up to Revit 2021. For me what Fixed the problem was Graphic Card Driver. I am using the GeForce Graphic Card and an Intel HD. The weird thing is that when I switch to the Intel HD Graphic the Material Browser works as expected, but on the GeForce it crashes and appearance won't be loaded. For Revit 2018 I switched to earlier version of GeForce Driver 353.62 and it fixed the Error, but For Revit 2021 the problem was not Fixed, and I really need to work with Revit 2021. 

[barthbradley]

FWIW: 

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

[RGrandmaison]

Sounds like they're not in any kind of a hurry to fix the problem. "Future release" could be years away.

[barthbradley]

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@RGrandmaison wrote:

Sounds like they're not in any kind of a hurry to fix the problem. "Future release" could be years away.

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Maybe never.  But, one thing is for sure...subscription prices will go up each year.  #$@&%*! 

[Anonymous]

The problem begins when the Autodesk support team even doesn't want to admit the problem. They just release features and updates which are not a real issue, like what we see in update 2021.1.1. They must know that the material browser needs a full revision in its fundamental functions such as the appearance tab, and preview thumbnails.

[FacebookGroupMember]

So glad to hear the development team is working on this issue and have recognized this is not "as designed"!




Source Message URL: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/material-library-issue/m-p/9801255M300426

[Kitty.Ma]

Thanks for all of the feedback and all of your voices are heard as always.

I am Kitty coming from the Revit engineering team, and recently we had a fix ready for a beta test. If you are interested in trying out the fix in a preview beta testing, please email to revit.preview.access@autodesk.com for accessing the preview releases.

[joshlim0918]

Having the same problem too, is there a solution yet?