Takes too long for the doc management service to activate in a new BIM 360 project via Forge API

[Anonymous]

The doc management service takes too long to activate. We are experiencing this issue since last Friday. 

Projects get created without problem, and users get added to projects(even-though they do not get an invitation email until doc management services are active). However, the doc management services keep spinning between 1 to 4 hours  so, we do not have access to project folders. I found others having the same issue in Stackoverflow. 

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59570209/is-it-possible-to-load-new-cloud-bim-360-links-in-a-rev...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63691307/the-document-management-is-not-active-from-forge-api

[mikako_harada]

Hi Xavier, 

Sorry for the late reply.  I believe this is the same problem as the one you pointed:  

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63691307/the-document-management-is-not-active-from-forge-api

Our colleague reproduced and has been discussing with the product team.  In a mean time, the issue ID:  
ACSPA-1455:  
[BIM 360][API][EUI] Activating docs service for a new project using API does not work 

Sorry for the inconvenience this is causing.  

[Anonymous]

Hi @mikako_harada ,

Thanks for the update. It has been working a lot better on my end. Hopefully, we can keep it that way.

X

[Anonymous]

Hi @mikako_harada ,

Update: We are experiencing this problem again today. It just started. 

Thanks,

Xavier

[mikako_harada]

Thank you for the report.  And sorry for the late reply.  Checking with the product team, this problem has not been fixed, yet. They are still investigating. (From what I hear, there seems to be some instability in pipeline between admin and docs.)  

In a mean time, my team who did test tells me that in his case, if you use POST users, it does not work, but if you use POST users-import version, it works.   

This does not work for Docs, but works with Cost and others: 

https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/bim360/v1/reference/http/projects-project_id-users-POST/

This works with Docs: 

https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/bim360/v1/reference/http/projects-project_id-users-import-POST/

If you are using POST users, you may try users-import version to activate Docs. Then use Post user version for others to see if it serves as a workaround.  Since behavior seems slightly different, i.e., taking unreasonably long time, or does not work. So I'm not 100% sure if this can be a workaround. But as I'm out of ideas, I want to mention.   

Sorry once again for inconvenience this is causing.   

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tip. We use https://forge.autodesk.com/en/docs/bim360/v1/reference/http/projects-project_id-users-import-POST/ all the time. 

Today, we saw a new scenario where the document management started to spin just after POST project. We did not even invite/activate the doc management service, yet. Not sure if this is related, but also we had this activation issues using the BIM 360 UI.

Thanks for your help.

[mikako_harada]

Our apology for the long overdue.  

Re. ACSPA-1455:  
[BIM 360][API][EUI] Activating docs service for a new project using API does not work 

This is finally resolved.  

The product team says that they will try to release newer versions which should fill the gaps we have with admin API. 

Once again sorry for taking long time to fix this issue.      

[Anonymous]

We are getting errors on the project creation workflow again. On the BIM 360 UI, it shows that the document management is active and users are in the list of members. However, when I try to access the document management, we get that screen with the can't view folder image(I am project admin). 

At that point, after adding the first admin to trigger the doc management and the rest of the members, we try to retrieve the top folder id to create our folder structure. Server returns this:

To give some context, this is the same step where we used to have the issue that started this post. Different error code before. Another difference is that the BIM 360 UI shows the doc management active giving the false sense that it is actually active even-though the API does not recognize it as active. 

In the past, we would also get that CAN'T VIEW FOLDER message, but we found that PATCHING all members would fix the problem. That is not working any more. We found something else. If I go to the member's list in the project admin module and turn off and on my admin permissions (kind of emulating a reset or the patching through the API), it now allows me to enter the doc management and I can see the root folders (Project Files and Plans). However, even after doing that the API returns the same error as showed in the image above. We are out of tricks 😅. The image below shows the admins who I applied the reset trick to.

There are more admins that should be here on the list, but we did not applied the reset permissions trick to them. 

Finally, we just wait until the API does not return the error any more which is 1, 2 or 3 hours later. 

Hopefully, someone finds this pieces of information useful to fix the problem. Please help @mikako_harada 

[mikako_harada]

Hi Xavier, 

Sorry for recurring issue 😞  Thank you for detailed explanation and sharing the your experience. Looking at heath dashboard and internal discussion channel, does not look like it's a service level downtime. So it's probably another API specific issue.  I will report to the product team to see they know of any issues. In a mean time, if you have x-request-id in the failing response, we may be able to look up a log about API access which might tell additional information. (You should be able to send it to me privately by hovering my name.)  

[zhong_wu]

Hi Xavier, 

I tried to reproduce the issue as you mentioned, I created a new project with API, and activated the services including Docs, then I use the Data Management API to access the folder within the new project, I can get the folder structure successfully, is there any step I did differently? Or how to reproduce the issue? 

And side question, is this issue only happen with the specified project you created? or you can reproduce the same issue with any of new created project?   

[Anonymous]

Hi Zhong,

Yes, those are the steps we follow as well. We have not seen an error since last week either. It is really random, but I could happen very often at times. For instance, one user created a project that resulted in errors (mentioned above) and within an hour a new project was set up without any errors. I was thinking that maybe the number of members added to a project could be an issue, but it is not really it. 

The issue happens on specific projects. It is not something we can reproduce. It is random. 

It is interesting when the issue happens, as I mentioned above, that through the BIM 360 UI the doc management service shows as active when the API does not recognize it. There seems to be a disconnection, lag, backlog or proper validation of tasks that make this happen. That is the impression I have had over the years. 

thanks for your help.

X

[zhong_wu]

Hi can you share us your project id? we will discuss with our engineering team to see if findings... 

[Anonymous]

Just dm you the id... thanks

[zhong_wu]

Sorry for the long waiting, I checked with different teams internally for this issue, and finally, we got the reason for the failing to Get Project Top Folder.

In short, Yes, this is a regression issue which was brought around one month ago by a including a cache mechanism from DM endpoint, and it's logged as FDM-3462 with high priority for track.

Detail is: Recently, Forge DM caches the status of a project for 1 hour if there is no data changes internally, but the project status change from inactive->active was missing. Which means, as the following steps, the result of step 2 is cached, and the cached result will be used in step 4 even the docs service is activated, unfortunately, that cause your problem.  

1.     Create a new project
2.     Get Project Top Folder to check if you can work with data in Docs. Of course, you will get failure as “Project is not active: b.e496542c-1bd6-4f8b-ba37-5586e647896d” since the project and service is not activated.
3.     Activate Docs service by adding a user, -- works fine to activate the project and docs service.
4.     Get Project Top Folder to start working with data in docs. The issue is here, the system will use the cached result in Step 2 and response “Project is not active: b.e496542c-1bd6-4f8b-ba37-5586e647896d” for one hour. 

I am sorry on behalf of Autodesk, and we are working on the fix. But at this moment, the workaround should be: NOT use Get Project Top Folder endpoint to check status before activating the Docs service.

Let me know if this helps, and again, sorry for the issue on behalf of Autodesk.

[Anonymous]

Hi Zhong,

Thanks for the explanation. I have a couple of clarifying questions.

We never do step 2 to get top folders before adding new members (step 3). Usually, there are no errors adding members and its response does not really tell you if the doc management is active. That POST member request just triggers the activation of the doc management. However, does it have the same effect (cashing status for 1 hour) if right after adding members, we try to get the top folder knowing that the doc management service is still activating because it takes about a minute to do so? We do this all the time and we have not had to wait 1 hour to get the top folder lately. If you think that poking the API to get folders before the doc management is actually active(even-though we already added the first admin user), could you provide a method to check that status? 

Even-though it may take 1 minute to 3 minutes to get the folder structure, we have not had those +1 hour waits lately. So, if my method (poking the get folders endpoint after adding the first admin user), described above, does not cause any issues, then is there  another reason? Also, this issue goes way more back than a month ago, at least the same behavior has been present for a while (you know not in all projects and not all the time to be fair). 

Thanks for your help,

Xavier

[xavier.loayza1]

We were experiencing longer Document management activation times via API and BIM 360 UI. Is anybody experiencing the same? I did not see a report on Autodesk Health.

[zhong_wu]

Does that happen by both UI and API? Is the service always in activating mode? Any details?

[kevin.caicedoNU3RZ]

I'm having the same issue Xavier had. Document Management service is not activating by the API. I've tried the same tricks to force the activation.

Also, we are having issues assigning permissions by company.

[xavier.loayza1]

Hi John, It is both API and UI. We have seen degradation of services lately (past month) with more errors popping up.

thanks for your help in advance!

[adt]

We too are experiencing long "Activating....blue wheel spinning" when trying to initiate Document Management and Design Colaboration on new projects.  Some have taken 12 hours.  It is also taking a long time for some users to be added to projects; the invite is taking hours to come through.  This is via Chrome.  @zhong_wu @mikako_harada