Synching & Reloading won't update between live linked Revit Cloud files

[trevor.clarkM88RA]

Our firm splits large projects into multiple files and live-links them together to manage file size, scope, etc. Previously, changes could be synched on one file and seen be reloading the other file. A project team is having issues with this workflow today, the linked file is not showing the updates. Looking online, I found an article dated 8/19/2026 stating that a potential "cause" would be that files aren't published, but might be related to only Forma? This has never been true of live-linking before, is this a change? It's not really a "live" link if you have to publish each time, not to mention a workflow headache.

If that is not the issue, I cannot fathom what the problem could be that a live-linked model wouldn't show updates until it was published, any guesses? Files are in the same folder, no permissions can be different between. And it's been working fine in previous months. I've gone through the Live-Link checklist as well, I don't see any hiccups there:
Changes in linked Revit files not updating in Host after synchronize with central

[GaryOrrMBI]

If you are live linking, then Publishing the model(s) should not be a requirement for reloading any modified links. From a Revit model perspective syncing will update what you see when reloading into another model.

Where the Model Publishing comes into play is if you have enabled and setup the Design Collaboration module. This module segregates the models between teams, requiring team 1 to publish their changes when they think that they are at a solid point, and then requires team 2 to decide if they want to update the version that they see and are linking from or to continue to use the previous version... This negates live linking but is handy for really large projects as it allows for easier Point-in-time comparisons to assist in understanding and adjusting to changes between versions.

The other scenarios that require publishing are viewing models directly in the Web browser interface, only the published versions are viewable (or downloadable) through the Website, or, in some use cases, when working through the Desktop Connector (which uploads and downloads locally cached versions of what's on the Cloud Project website and can cause mis-matches due to recent changes in how that is handled and managed).

But, if you have Model A in folder one, and you have Model B in folder one and are linking between them using the standard cloud path linking then there should be no need for Publishing to be part of the sync-reload workflow.

-G

[trevor.clarkM88RA]

Thank you for your thoughtful response, yes this is exactly how I understood the process to work. However, yesterday our team was making adjustments in one model, synching, and then reloading in the other model has the first live-linked, but nothing. Only publishing would push the changes. I tried every trick I could think of, verified all the paths, confirmed worksets, etc, but it would only show the previously published version. The process was working fine a few weeks ago, then suddenly not working. I'm stumped on what the issue could be. This is in Revit 2026 on BIM 360.

[GaryOrrMBI]

Are you specifically in BIM360 with a 2026 Project or is it a Forma project?

The older BIM360 platform is being phased out (even though they haven't given a date and haven't directly said so) and, possibly, could be part of the issue. The only projects that we still have on that platform are 2023 and earlier so I can't really research if that might be related.

Another thing worth asking: Have any of the team members upgraded to 2026.5 while some are on the earlier versions? That is another possible recent culprit since it changes some of the "background" functionality of Revit due to the migration from the underlying original .NET8 being upgraded to the newer .NET10 that Revit 2027 is built on.

-G

[trevor.clarkM88RA · Accepted solution]

While working on some screengrabs to show the issue, I managed to find the problem. Someone did a "reload from" and pathed to the cloud file through the Desktop Connector path even though it's a native cloud file. This meant it was only updating with publishes as it's a Forma dependent file at that point. I re-pathed the link via Autodesk docs straight to BIM 360 and it's working as desired again! I feel a bit dumb for not seeing it sooner, the issue of the only reloading on publish should have been the red flag to get me to the mis-link at the start.

Unrelated, yes, we're still in BIM 360, unfortunately Forma doesn't have all the features BIM 360 has which are vital to specific consultants we work with. Until Forma allows a consultant to add team members that have their firms email to that team's specific folder without full project admin rights, we'll always have projects in BIM 360. If you work for Autodesk, please make this change - consultants must be able to staff their own projects without an intermediary step within the folder permission structure!