Central file problem windows 7

[houston.cad]

I am having problems sharing a central file from my workstation. I created a shared folder on my workstation and made a central file. Other users can access the central file but it doesn't allow them to create a local file. Once they have opened the file I am no longer able to make my own local file. When either of us tries to close our local copies it will not allow us to relinquish elements. When I try to access the central file saved by another user it tells me that the local file created by the other user was moved.

We do have a domain and we don't have the same issue with files saved on the server. I want to keep new project files on my computer because our server is getting full and saving to the server is really slow. It is much faster having the central files on my workstation.

We have no problems creating or opening other files like PDF's or DWG files in the same folder so it seems to only be a Revit related issue. I set the permissions for all domain users and computers as well as allowing everyone and we still have the same issue.

Does anyone have any advice or similar experience?

Thanks

[cdatechguy]

My guess is that Revit doesn't like having the same location of a local as the central file...probably along the same lines as you don't install applications on the server...

But some items to check....when you created the central file...was it on your computer first or on the server? If on the server did you detach from central before saving it to your computer?

Is the Share folder on your computer setup for Read/Write? Besides sharing the drive you also need to add users to the Security Tab.

Where are you saving your local file?

Personally, your best bet is to keep the file on a computer without Revit...like your server...might be time to add some more drives, cleanup the current drives or perhaps purchase a network storage appliance...

[david_peterson]

Did you set up any worksets? No worksets = no central file from my understanding.
I know this is the "is it plugged in" question, but hey; sometimes people forget.

[dhurtubise]

The last time i encounter that issue (local file greyed out) was because of the way the drive was mapped.
Say Revit was seeing the T drive as \\10.0.0.01\share on one machine and \\servername\share on another.
But if you have a domain, get some hdd space and use a login script to map drives.

[cdatechguy]

The last time i encounter that issue (local file greyed out) was because of the way the drive was mapped.
Say Revit was seeing the T drive as \\10.0.0.01\share on one machine and \\servername\share on another.
But if you have a domain, get some hdd space and use a login script to map drives.

Yep...that is a good point

[DaveP]

Disk space really isn't that expensive. You seriously need to expand your server.
If your desktop is faster than your server, you've probably got more network issues that just hard drive space, though.

One other major item for you to consider: How often is your local hard drive backed up? Ever? What would you do it your workstation crashed. Or for that matter, locked up. If you have a couple of people working on a Revit file off your machine, and something else (Outlook, Photoshop, even IE8 ) hangs up your machine, not only do you lose work, but they will too.

Your setup sounds way riskier than I would be willing to chance.

[cdatechguy]

We tried this approach with ArchiCAD when our drafting manager got a new PowerMac G4...we wound up just working in different models as every save to model would slow his to a crawl... A server is built for this sort of thing....a workstation is not.... my computer slows to a crawl if someone is just listening to my music folder across the network..

[houston.cad]

The last time i encounter that issue (local file greyed out) was because of the way the drive was mapped.
Say Revit was seeing the T drive as \\10.0.0.01\share on one machine and \\servername\share on another.
But if you have a domain, get some hdd space and use a login script to map drives.

I just occurred to me today that when my project folder is accessed from the network the path is different so we are fighting each other when accessing the central file. I will make sure everyone maps to the same path and that should solve the problem.

We are waiting on a new server and I am not sure when that will happen. We don't have room to add an extra drive and we are without an IT guy right now. We would need to copy the existing drives to new larger drives and I don't want to be the one responsible for that. We also need a gigabit switch and I don't know when they will get around to that. I know its not much money for upgrades but it's like getting blood from a stone sometimes around here. Our main workstations have a couple of terabytes each so we might as well use that. I think mapping the drives will fix the problem.

Thanks

[houston.cad]

Mapping the drive to a common letter on all computers solved the problem. I should have realized this because I encountered the same issue with image links in decals before.

[dhurtubise]

All the things we go through for... BIM