Long Delays Saving to Central

[clayway.69266]

We are currently using a central model / workset scheme on a 170,000 sqft building. There are 4 team members on the project. If we only save back to central once a day sometime even two or three times a day, it can take anywhere from 15minutes to 45 minutes.

I initially thought it might be my network or the network traffic. We are running gigabit switches and nics in the workstations.

I know alot of factors could be involved....but...

My question is ...is anyone having similar issues...and if not are there any resolutions....

It seems insane to have to wait 30 minutes for your local file to reload worksets and save to central....

Thanks

Clay

[Mr Spot]

Contributing factors are how often you save to central...
How many people are working on the file and how intensively their working...

When there are any more than 3-4 hard workers working on the file save to central should be made every 45-60minutes.

This limits the amount of new data that has to be resolved and as such results in much quicker more efficient saves.

Our typical save to central time in our office working on a 90MB file with 4 people working on it is around 2-3 minutes...

Network speed has very little to do with saving to central as most of the calculations are done on your local computer...

HTH.

[Steve_Stafford]

One thing to add to Chris's excellent summary.

You mention Reload Latest Worksets and Save To Central in the same breath. I got the impression that you think you need to do both, one after another. If you have work to save, just do the STC. No need to Reload Latest Worksets if you are doing the STC often enough.

I tend to imagine the STC as your 4 people sitting down reviewing comparing what they did all day with the prints of the Acad dwgs they were all working on. How long would it take to do that? Revit does that pretty quickly by comparison.

[clayway.69266]

Chris and Steve,

Thanks for the replies......I will let the team know we need to save every hour or so and see how it goes....

If it is correct..that all the work is done on the local computer....then let me ask this.....

We are in the process of upgrading our workstations.....I work on all workstations for a short period of time before pushing out the the other employees....so point made is that Revit worked fine while I was using it.....The computer was moved to a team member and he is having random crashes while in Revit. One example...he was working by himself last Sunday and the model crashed 4 times in a 2 hour period......I could blame it on OE...operator error....but he is a pretty talented Revit guy.....This desk was about 250ft from the switch...I moved him to a new location...around 50ft from the switch and he has not seem anymore random crashes....

Again..I know there are alot of factors that could be causing his crashes....

On another note....how are you guys dividing your worksets......

we have setup exterior, structural, fp01, fp02, rcp01, rcp02, site , etc....many worksets to split the work and also give a little finer granulatiry to the model.....but we don't check out the whole workset...because invariably someone will need to access something on the workset you checked out....

I guess my point it ..we feel like we are "all over the place" and only check out elements as needed, and this sometimes creates a stall while making editable....otherwise we would need to check out everything...and no one else could work...

Just a few questions.....and thanks for the replies....

Clay

[Steve_Stafford]

...The computer was moved to a team member and he is having random crashes while in Revit. One example...he was working by himself last Sunday and the model crashed 4 times in a 2 hour period...In my experience two check boxes are tied to Revit crashes 95% of the time, both of the Graphics options regarding Open GL. Unchecking them usually resolves it.


On another note....how are you guys dividing your worksets...As few "buckets" as you can get away with from a management standpoint. As many as you need to isolate work and maximize visibility control. Not an answer but that's how it is, every project is a bit different. Think workflow, not like layers... IOTW, don't make worksets for every floor, create them for the types of work different people will do. You may need to consider how and who is doing what too.


...I guess my point it ..we feel like we are "all over the place" and only check out elements as needed, and this sometimes creates a stall while making editable...
Borrowing stuff is the way to go, but don't borrow things onesy twosy, borrow them by selecting everything in the "area" you need to work. When you are done making changes, relinquish them with a STC and borrow the next pile of things.

[LRaiz]

Clay,

Especially in case of workset related issues it is helpful to include in your post the data regarding Revit version and build number that you are using. Also OS and service pack.

[clayway.69266]

Well...here are some results......

Build:
Autodesk Revit 7.0 - 20050227_0414

OS:
Windows XP SP2

We have been trying the STC every hour and it is still hanging the model and taking about 15min. each team member to get saved. Sometimes we are getting that our save did not complete and we need to STC again....that results in a net loss of 30 minutes each users on average.....

Believe you me ...I am not bashing Revit...been using Revit since v3....and love it....

I just need to know why the major delays doing STC and how to overcome it....am I the only one having these issues....I can't believe we are the only firm doing 100000+sqft projects in revit with 3-4 team members and having the problems we are having and no one is experiencing these issues....

Thanks

[ilya.bass]

Well...here are some results......

Build:
Autodesk Revit 7.0 - 20050227_0414

OS:
Windows XP SP2

We have been trying the STC every hour and it is still hanging the model and taking about 15min. each team member to get saved. Sometimes we are getting that our save did not complete and we need to STC again....that results in a net loss of 30 minutes each users on average.....

Believe you me ...I am not bashing Revit...been using Revit since v3....and love it....

I just need to know why the major delays doing STC and how to overcome it....am I the only one having these issues....I can't believe we are the only firm doing 100000+sqft projects in revit with 3-4 team members and having the problems we are having and no one is experiencing these issues....

Thanks

Revit Support would gladly take your data and pass it to development for analysis.

If you can, please prepare a couple of local-central pairs in the following way:
- right before you are about to STC, save your local, copy it in OS to a safe place and copy your central in OS to the same safe place.
with a coulpe of these pairs and also corresponding journal files of your local sessions, we should be able to analyse what's going on and perhaps recommend some ways to speed things up for you.

I assume you know how to contact Revit Support?

Regards,
- Ilya

[clayway.69266]

Revit Support would gladly take your data and pass it to development for analysis.

If you can, please prepare a couple of local-central pairs in the following way:
- right before you are about to STC, save your local, copy it in OS to a safe place and copy your central in OS to the same safe place.
with a coulpe of these pairs and also corresponding journal files of your local sessions, we should be able to analyse what's going on and perhaps recommend some ways to speed things up for you.

I assume you know how to contact Revit Support?

Regards,
- Ilya


IIya,

We are currently scheduled to do an autodesk audit and will ask the necessary questions then.

Thanks All.....

[Mr Spot]

Borrowing stuff is the way to go, but don't borrow things onesy twosy, borrow them by selecting everything in the "area" you need to work. When you are done making changes, relinquish them with a STC and borrow the next pile of things.


I'd have to disagree here... I find that borrowing elements as opposed to make the entire workset only results in havoc and "unable to SC" problems.

If everyone is having to borrow elements then i would re-consider how your worksets are setup.

HTH.

[Steve_Stafford]

...I'd have to disagree here...Guess we disagree here...it's why the feature exists... Anyone else have this objection to element borrowing? We've been doing this for so long now that a user asked today how to save a non-workset project, that was amusing. :-D

[Mr Spot]

Guess its the luck of the draw then... :D

[Steve_Stafford]

...luck of...the draw...Ha ha...good one...pun intended eh? Smart AND funny! :lol:

[sbrown]

Element borrowing has become a lifesaver to me. Prior to it, worksets were totaly unflexible and caused endless hours lost to save to central for one person to move a wall that somehow was on a wrong workset. Now the way our team works is to almost never check out a whole workset, just the views and areas you are working on. This allows for less workset management, which I relate to layer management and more work flow. I have seen some issues with element borrowing and the elements not allways checked back in upon STC even though all the boxes are checked. the other thing I dont like is that walls don't join unless both are editable so I end up taking more than I really need.