REVIT 2014 - Why am I having trouble copying ceiling based families?

[Anonymous]

When I try and copy families hosted to a ceiling, the item copies but get's place back in the same location as the original, resulting in the following error message.

"There are identical instances in the same place. This will result in double counting in schedules." 

I've attached two screen shots to help explain. This occurs with all ceiling hosted families, not just the fan shown and regardless of whether the ceiling is raked of flat. The problem also occurs when trying to copy as an array.

Why is this happening, please help 🙂

[arunag]

Try switching off the Snap(SO) and copy. may be its snapping back to original position though it doen't happen always. Try this : you may also  hold ctrl and drag to make a copy and check if it works.

[SteveKStafford]

If they are face based families Revit doesn't much care for copying to new hosts if they are not at the same elevation. In that situation you may need to use Create Similar to start placing a new component but based on the one you want copies of.

[Anonymous]

I tried turning off snaps, but unfortunately that didn't work.

[Anonymous]

I'm not copying to a new host, and even on a flat ceiling where obviously there is no change in elevation I'm still having problems.

Strangely I can't remember this being an issue in Revit 2012. 

[arunag]

Is it possible to send the file or part of the file to check? I hope you are using Copy command (CO)from modify tab & not the Ctrl C & Ctrl V (just in case)

[Anonymous]

Yes I am using the correct copy command from the edit tab. I've attached a sample file so you can see for yourself.

[arunag · Accepted solution]

Well after much trials, found that it is because of the Material of the ceiling,  that it is not accepting, still not sure why. 

My observations:

1. When I changed the Material of the ceiling to 'By Category', it accepted the copy command.

2. Also when the type of ceiling was changed to some other type, it accepted.It wont happen if duplicated the same type & changed other parameters.

3. The same component in a new file on a any other ceiling default types behaved fine with copy.

4. If I try overriding in Object styles the material to some other than " By Category" , it won't accept copy command.

Interesting to know where you have picked this' compound ceiling :Plain'. 

Attached the file edited with Material set to 'By Category' for ceiling

[Anonymous]

Kudos to you Arunag, that sorted it thanks. What a strange problem