Family override function broken/nonfunctional

[m-de-lange]

For 3.5 years i've been working with Revit now and this is the most unstable function i've ever come across.

I have a project with multiple Generic model families, each with different types, colors and parameters.

We occasionally change a few things (mainly parameters) in these families and then reload them in our project.

Revit has this great function that allows you to override the family in the project with the updated version.

Unfortunately this actually almost never works properly. Upon loading the family into the project, it does NOT override the old family with the new. In fact, it didn't do anything at all.

Now i've been changing and reloading those families all afternoon only to find out that revit actually never wrote them over in the project.

So when i open one of the supposedly edited families, they're just like the old ones again.

Whilst loading them in the project i also saved them on my harddisk.

If i open both families, there are noticeable differences in them, simply because Revit refuses to load them correctly into the project.

Has anyone ever encountered this same issue with families not being overwritten when loaded into a project?

Is there any fix for this or is it just another unstable functionality which will never be addressed?

[RobDraw]

It's not override, it's overwrite. 

You mentioned generic families but nothing about what you are changing. Obviously, Revit does not normally have a problem with overwriting all families. So, in order to figure out if what you are having problems with is a known issue or if it's something on your end, you will need to be more specific. 

For starters, if you insert the family as new, does it work as expected? How about if you put it into a new project?

[timlove]

It depends on what you changed and how you loaded them into the project.  If you just changed parameter values and loaded in as "Overwrite the existing version" then  yes, Revit did nothing because you told it not to.  If you changed the the elements that make up the family and it does not change that is a new issue to me.  I have never had that issue.   If you change just parameter values and load it back in you need to use "Overwrite the existing version and its parameter values".

Not sure if this helps, would need to see the project, the current family, and the new family to diagnose more. 

[fabiosato · Accepted solution]

Hello,

In some cases, I have to rename the old family, like include old at the end, load the updated family and select the old type and replace with the new one.

[Unnikrishnan_KNPD4P]

Did you got any solution for this, I am facing same issue now

[msbeityYBPXZ]

if the things you changed in the family are related to parameters only, then you have to choose the second option when reloading into project 

[m-de-lange]

Yea the fix is to rename the old family within the project, then load in the new family under the old name.

You can also delete the old family from the project and then load in the edited version. This however is unwanted if you have already placed more than a dozen..

[m-de-lange]

If i choose 'existing version' only it also overwrites the family with newly added parameters. This is not always the case because i believe it has a bug where revit simply does nothing.

To fix this, one must change the families name existing in the project and then load in the edited version. If you have already placed a few hundred of those families, have fun replacing all of them. Especially if in rare cases the category of the family changed and now you can't simply select all and change instances. Because that only works with families of the same category.

[RSomppi]

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@m-de-lange wrote:

If you have already placed a few hundred of those families, have fun replacing all of them. 

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It is very easy to replace all of them. You can select all in the project and change them in the type selector. It's not a perfect solution for every situation but is quite effective if the changes are minor in nature. 

[m-de-lange]

Read again, The families cannot be replaced if the category is not the same anymore

[RSomppi]

Of course not, if you're changing categories. That's pretty much understood by anyone that's not new to using Revit. Expected behavior and actually not worth mentioning.