Revit Central File - Local File Issues with Multi users

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

Our design office is currently experiencing an issue when multiple Revit users try to access the same Central Revit File by creating local files.

When a second user tries to work on the same project and take a local copy of a central revit model which is saved on the network, they are unable to do so. As shown in the screenshot attached (option blanked out). The only way to open the file is to open the main central file which when doing so, are greeted with the typical message, "Central file has been copied or moved" etc.

To overcome this the only way is to re-save the central file in a same location, overwriting the previous to then allow the second user to take a local copy.

However this then reverses the issue back to the first user whereby they are now unable to take a local copy themselves and must go through the same steps as above and as such we are unable to work collaboratively on the same project at the same time.

It's as if the file path is somehow recorded differently across different workstations but I really can't understand how this is possible.

We all have the same version of windows etc. and are sitting in the same office on the same network.

Hope you can help!

Lewis

[Viveka_CD]

Hi @Anonymous

Sorry to hear that you are facing issues with the software.

Can you forward journals from all users? 

Regards,

[SteveKStafford · Accepted solution]

That looks like the path to the shared resource is mapped differently. The workstation that creates the central file defines what the path for the central file is. If it is mapped on that computer using //Servername/Folder/Project and on the other pc's it is mapped //192.168.x.x/Folder/Project then the other pc's won't be able to recognize the central file properly and regard it as the file it should create a local file for.

Get your IT support involved to make sure all the computers are mapped the same way. If you're dealing with more than one office location then that's part of the problem too.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Steve & co. It seems this was inherently the case. One of us was working on a different version of Windows which seems to map the file locations differently.

It seems also during a transfer of our user profile to a separate office, this also caused the file path to be recognized differently. This is confusing as the folder path appears to be exactly the same word for word on both user profiles.

Now that all users have been transferred to the same version of windows and user profiles registered to the same location it seems to be working fine. I appreciate this is not an ideal solution to many, if some users are operating on different versions of windows.

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@SteveKStafford wrote:

That looks like the path to the shared resource is mapped differently. The workstation that creates the central file defines what the path for the central file is. If it is mapped on that computer using //Servername/Folder/Project and on the other pc's it is mapped //192.168.x.x/Folder/Project then the other pc's won't be able to recognize the central file properly and regard it as the file it should create a local file for.

Get your IT support involved to make sure all the computers are mapped the same way. If you're dealing with more than one office location then that's part of the problem too.

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[SteveKStafford]

It is not recommended to use different versions of Windows operating systems with Revit on the same projects. The file and memory management is different between operating systems and can contribute to unstable behavior. The user(s) with the different OS may create a situation where Revit does not save during synchronization properly. Likewise using the same Build of Revit versions is also important, for everyone that is going to edit the same project files.