Save to Central Loop

[kwallis]

We are experiencing trouble whenever we get more than two people working in their own local files of the same central model.

Someone working on 'Computer A' will get an error when saving to central that says "can't edit the element until 'Computer B' resaves the element to central and relinguishes it and you Reload Latest."

So we have 'Computer B' try to save to central and he gets the same error only it says he can't save until 'Computer A' does.

Meanwhile, there could be a 'Computer C' and/or 'D' working just fine, or sometimes the loop involves 3 computers.

The only way out of it is to have everyone get out of their local file, w/o saving if necessary, and have one person recreate the central file. Then everyone has to recreate their locals.

After this happened a few times, we resigned to only letting two users on a project at one time. Not exactly efficient.

Details:
All users on Win7, 64-bit. Intel I7 processors, 12 GB ram.
Worksets enabled. One for each linked file and one for our work.

I attached a screen shot of the error we receive. This same error would be seen on multiple computers referencing other computers and many times creating the “loop” I described above.

I also attached a screen shot of the worksharing monitor. At the time this was captured, only CCI-REVIT2 was working in the file (he was recreating the central due to the looping problem). CCI-REVIT7 did not even have Revit open at the time.

I appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

[amorie]

Are you really sure you are all working in local files? Looking at your worksharing monitor screenshot, I see the file name on the tab in RED text. My experience is that this indicates that you are actually working in the central file, not in a local file. When you are working in a local file, the file name on the tab will be in black text.

In addition, user CCI-REVIT2's status line says the user is "working in central", also indicating that user is in the central file, not a local file.

I suspect that when you get all users actually in local files you will not have any problems.

[patricks]

MAKE SURE that everyone is opening their files from WITHIN Revit's File Open window, pointing to the Central file location, with the Create Local option checked at the bottom (should be by default). Also make sure each Revit installation has the Default User File location set to a local machine location. This will automatically create a new local file each time a person begins working in the project file.

NEVER double-click a Central file from Windows Explorer. NEVER click on a Central file in the Recent Files window. Both of these will open the Central file directly instead of creating a new local file for the user to work in.

I just sent out an e-mail today to everyone in our office about this issue.

IMHO the Recent Files startup window is hugely flawed for this reason, and I disable it on every installation so that Revit launches with a blank gray window only.

[Bimmer]

The problem here is because you are using the Worksharing Monitor application. Shut that down and you can have 7+ people working with the central file during a busy deadline. I was never a supporter for this application because it caused more taxing on the central file. It has the same effect on Revit 2011. Now with Revit 2012, the part of the poorly written application is included.

For all of you that wished this to be part of Revit, you will likely regret it. The concept is very nice, but in practicality, it is better to toss a sponge ball at your teammate and ask for relinquish then to Place a Request, only to find out the person ignored your request, and shut down or crashed. Then another person access and places a request for the same element, view, or sheet view, only to find out that you have make the request before them. Then when the original person finally figures out that you placed a request, and grants it to you, but now you don't need it anymore. Guess what, now you have to grant it to the third person.

What a nightmare workflow!!!

[Steve_Stafford]

That's a bit extreme reaction, Worksharing Monitor is pointing out two problems (based on the images). One user is working in the Central File and there are two users with the same username.

1. When someone works in the Central File they are very often "reprimanded" by Revit to do a Save As to make a Local File before they can SwC.
2. Two users with the same username is bad for one user, the first user to SwC will "win", the other won't be able to SwC.

Make sure everyone is working in a Local File as Patrick wrote and you will see fewer, if any issues. Worksharing monitor isn't causing any harm, in fact it's pointing out what's wrong.

[robert.manna]

The problem here is because you are using the Worksharing Monitor application. Shut that down and you can have 7+ people working with the central file during a busy deadline. I was never a supporter for this application because it caused more taxing on the central file. It has the same effect on Revit 2011. Now with Revit 2012, the part of the poorly written application is included.

For all of you that wished this to be part of Revit, you will likely regret it. The concept is very nice, but in practicality, it is better to toss a sponge ball at your teammate and ask for relinquish then to Place a Request, only to find out the person ignored your request, and shut down or crashed. Then another person access and places a request for the same element, view, or sheet view, only to find out that you have make the request before them. Then when the original person finally figures out that you placed a request, and grants it to you, but now you don't need it anymore. Guess what, now you have to grant it to the third person.

What a nightmare workflow!!!

It seems to me you're confusing the functionality of Workshare Monitor with the functionality of Element Borrowing and Notifications about borrowing. Element borrowing and notification have always been there, they've just tried to improve its functionality, it has nothing to do with how and what WM does. WM is only reading the slog file which because of its nature can be opened and "Read" without impacting the ability of Revit to continue to write to it, so I'm not sure how you can make the case that WM "taxes" the Central File in any way, since it doesn't care about the Central File in the first place. The fact that WM uses the Slog file also is one reason why it will not work with Revit Server based files, since there is no slog file to read.

[kwallis]

Thanks for all of the feedback. I would like to clear up a couple of points that I think have been misunderstood.

First, I realize that the CCI-REVIT2 is working in the central file (at the time of the screen shot he was recreating the central file because of the looping issue). The problem occured when he was in his local file.

Secondly, there are not two users with the same name. CCI-REVIT7 is only used by one user. Workshare Monitor is just displaying that user twice. To top it of, at the time of this screen shot CCI-REVIT7 was not even in his local file. In fact, Revit was not even running on his machine.

[robert.manna]

Secondly, there are not two users with the same name. CCI-REVIT7 is only used by one user. Workshare Monitor is just displaying that user twice. To top it of, at the time of this screen shot CCI-REVIT7 was not even in his local file. In fact, Revit was not even running on his machine.

So yeah, this is a result of WM using the Slog file to report activity, it has not caught up with the changes because of how the Slog updates. We regularly see "double" users and is definitely not a result of two people working in the model with the same user name. When (a long time ago) we did try to use Central Files over the WAN this doubling up was even worse.

[Steve_Stafford]

As Robert said that can often be a sync issue with Revit and the .slog files it creates for WM. However, as often as I might see "doubles"...I've also encountered actual doubles where the same username IS in use, so I never assume without checking to see, to be sure. It is a awful feeling being the other "double" when you try to sync.

As long as you are certain the other users are all distinctly different, no worries.

It's just as likely that your users are interacting with the same elements, could be a view for example. The back and forth happens when people want to do something using the same view but want it to look different than the other person. Did you expand the warning(s) to see which elements were involved?

[kwallis]

I have expanded the warnings and a view is often listed as one of the items that need to be saved. So are you saying the looping issue can be caused by two users working in the same view and one of them changes a view setting?