Linked files unloading themselves after save to central

[Anonymous]

Without warning one day, 2 of my 7 Revit links unloaded themselves after a save to central. All of our linked Revit files are detached and saved as their own centrals when we receive them. All the links reside in the same folder on the server. I am working from a laptop with a local login. Doing a Reload did nothing, literally. Reload From... had to be used to load the links again. This continued for several days as we troubleshot the problem. A Remove was not tried. We first thought it was a pathing issue since these two links were pathed locally and the other links used the network path. 

The fix we found was to open the linked file and make any change to it and then save it to central and exit. Then when we went to our main Revit file and a Reload worked. The file does not unload itself anymore. We are thinking that some action was performed on the server overnight that caused an issue with the pathed saved locations of these two files and making a small change and saving them again created a new, correct path link in Windows for the server.

[andrea.kikuchi · Accepted solution]

Thank you for posting about how you solved this issue. Other things to keep an eye out for when links unload would be to make sure that the path everyone uses to access the central file and the linked file is the same. There are two ways to find network locations, mapped which uses letters for drives and UNC path. When someone accesses it differently, the path gets saved to the central file, and anyone accessing it differently won't find it. 

[lars-ake.johansson]

Hi,

This can happen if the local cached copies of the links becomes 'out-of-sync' with the central, for example if someone does a Force Relinquish or a rollback to a previous version of the files.

Reopening the linked files on the system will the refresh the cached files...

Regards

[Anonymous]

We always create new locals every day to avoid issues like that.

Sent from my iPhone

[Anonymous]

The pathing conflict mentioned about was probably what happened because one user had the server as F: and the other user had the server as P:. We remapped the drive letters to match as part of our t'shooting, but didn't resolve our problem until we re-saved the link.

[wlc]

This problem is resurfacing within BIM 360 Document Management.  We are experiencing this issue with linked Revit filed in BIM 360 Design.  We linked files from the Shared folder and after syncing a couple of the linked files would be unloaded.  We have checked and verified all versions of Revit, Autodesk Desktop Connector, and addons are the same version.  This is causing issues with our production team and is random enough that I have been unable to determine the cause.  It has happened on only a couple of projects, out of 20+ active projects on BIM 360.  We have looked at common users and that has not helped determine cause yet.

[abaumgartner]

We are having the same issue rjpalmer 91.  We are using collaboration 4 Revit and one of our consultants (structural engineer)'s model keeps unloading itself when we synchronize.  The structural model is also a C4R file and the path's are set to BIM 360://Project Name.  Path type = Cloud

[cholden]

Throwing our hat in the ring. We are also having issues with linked cloud models (BIM360Design) unloading themselves, which in turn deletes dimensions. We have a core+shell model and an interior model, both ours. The interior model keeps unloading from the core+shell model when the core+shell is sync-ed with central. I have confirmed that the team is not deleting objects, therefore deleting dims.  Both same versions, both on the cloud, even the same team working in both files. We are NOT having this issue on other projects though. We're having to figure out how to work around this as it's going to be a 300 sheet set. It will cost us quite a bit of time to set up all those views to use by linked view......

[abaumgartner]

Update your desktop connector.

[cholden]

We aren't using Desktop connector for this project. Both of these files are live in BIM360 in the same BIM360 project. How would desktop connector affect these files? I'm honestly asking because it seems unrelated but you never know!

[wlc]

Desktop connector allows you to browse and link non-live models.  I have found that once a team has shared (pushed) their model to the project team in the shared folder in BIM 360 that all of he other disciplines link through desktop connector to the shared folder.  This method seems to keep the link better sense the last desktop connector update.  I am trying it on the couple of projects that have reoccurring unloading issues.  So far they are staying linked. 

[cholden]

I've used desktop connector before. That sounds like it would work if we were linking to the models in the shared folder. However, we aren't using swimlanes and packages for this project. These are 2 architectural models that are linked to each other's live versions - similar to how the old BIM360 Team set up was. We don't want to share them on a schedule - we have it set up so we can see changes every day.

[wlc]

In BIM 360 you can setup auto publishing so that everyday the teams models are pushed to the project shared folder.  We do this to keep disciplines out of each others models to reduce exposure to the (Who made that change).  As a coordinator it is a lot of work maintaining all of the models across many projects, and falls upon us to ensure that the flow of information does not have bottle necks. 

There are many benefits to using the teams and breaking the live model link.  yes it will increase the work of your coordinators but that is just part of the job.   We were very hesitant to stop the live link and now would not go back. 

[abaumgartner]

Yes, I have my project set up in the cloud with no links utilizing the desktop connector. However, when I update my desktop connector the problem went away. Maybe give it a try.

[abaumgartner]

Ok, we thought it was the desktop connector, but no.  We had one user that was was opening the cloud file via his local Revit.  This corrupted one of his links and cause it to unload for everyone else whenever he syncs to the cloud.  We deleted three of his local profile folders and problem solved.  Collaboration cache. Log files and parse...I think.  I’ll post the link when I find it.

[bnovotny]

Has anyone been able to provide an answer to this yet? I currently have a project with this happening. Out of 12 links, only one consistently unloads itself. I have found no issues with file itself.

Thank you,

Bryan

[jakep]

I am having the same issue, but while using BOX. We have the BOX desktop app installed on our machines with the files set to sync offline. (So the link(s) path starts with C:Users/public/Boxdrive/......) When one user "reloads from" on their local, it then will cause another user in the model to lose their link(s) when they sync back to central. This happens back and forth all day long, and it only seems to be one or two of the same links having the issue.

[andrea.kikuchi]

Hi @jakep, 

Using cloud storage solutions outside of BIM360 for workshared Revit models is not a supported workflow, see article below. 

Using Revit files on Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive 

[mmangione]

I am also having the same issue and need a solution.  Our situation is that we have two different Architecture firms working on the same model. I am trying to determine if the broken link issue is originating from our office staff or their office staff. We have verified everyone has the right desktop connector  however, no links are using the connector to link. all models are central in the cloud. I find the links will hold for a day or two then get broken. I am certain we have someone on our team with stray or rogue behavior, but if we know WHO this issue is originating from I can narrow down the WHY. 

Our team has Admin privileges, their team does not but they do have full access to the appropriate folders. 

[Kushal.Gite]

That is really helpful.