Revit 2016 file slow to open, no error message

[andrea]

Running Revit 2016 on Windows 10, 4 individual licences in small office, files stored on server.  Several of our projects are structured with layers of revit links - "unit" files linked into "building" files linked into "site."  Starting a few days ago, one of the "unit" files took several minutes to open, yet the "building" and "site" open just fine.  As of today, however, the slow open has spread to all "unit" files within one of our projects, and more disturbingly, has spread to another project in another directory.

The "unit" files are relatively small - 15-20 MB, each - and even after purging one and reducing size to 7 MB, the problem persists.  Currently takes 20-30 min to open any of these files.

(While we are seeing other reasons to move away from this file structure, and plan to do so soon, this current problem needs to be solved either way!)

Thanks in advance for any help.

[rosskirby]

My guess is that the problem is not related to any one file, but rather to the quantity of links within the main building files.  Did the problem start to occur after you populated the rest of the typical floors with the unit links?  If so, you may want to try separating the links out into separate worksets by floor, or unit type, or whatever way makes the most sense for your design.  Then just turn off the worksets that aren't relevant to the area you're working on.

For what it's worth, groups will usually trump links in terms of workability when it comes to doing multifamily or hospital type projects, simple because the sheer quantity of instances of links can be overwhelming.  It's better in 2016, but not perfect.  We've got a project with about 300 units linked in (about 50-60 unique linked unit files), and it's a beast to work in.  On the other hand, we've got a project with about 250 units modeled as groups, and it runs like a dream.

Your mileage may vary, and the approach I recommend works best with high-rise or mid-rise.  If you're doing garden style or wrap type projects, with only a few different units, then links may be a better approach.  Keep in mind that you can always bind links and turn them into groups, or go the other route, and save out groups as separate files to make into links.

Hope that helps.

[andrea]

Thanks Ross, I appreciate the response, and will incorporate your suggestion for placing links on different worksets.

For our immediate problem, it has healed itself.  Frustrating in that we may never know what the problem was, but hey, we'll take it! Since we experienced the slow open on the base files, before they were linked into any other revit projects, one theory is that some object or family within that file is generating errors or trying to grab information from the web (the files consistently opened just fine from a desktop, disconnected from the internet... however Autodesk Support was unable to duplicate the slow open, ever.) Another theory, since the base files have been updated from revit 2014 to revit 2015 to revit 2016, is that Windows 10 and some old information in the files are not getting along.  In my highly un-technical parlance.  Of course a third theory would be that the problem is within our office or network.

Meanwhile, for groups vs. links, we've found groups less desirable because of their propensity to create new versions.  Very likely this will improve as our drawing management gets better (compenents modeled in place do not like to be mirrored, for instance!) Still thinking groups are the way to go, eventually.  Thanks for the input - it helps tremendously to know we're not alone.