Central File Permission Hell

[patricks]

Well I thought the issue might be the NAS drive, but apparently it's not. I tried saving a central file to our NAS backup drive (not normally done), but it still seemed to work fine. Are you accessing the NAS drive via UNC paths like \\NAS drive name\Folder? Revit tends to behave better when UNC paths are used for everything, instead of mapped drive letters.

We've never had such issues with Central files, but then we've always used an actual domain/file server with Active Directory, with all workstations accessing the server within Revit using \\server\share UNC path naming.

[krzystoff]

In our office, we run off a NAS, which can be a little laggy at times compared to a fully fledged server. We occasionally get central file issues, and it usually comes down to one of two things:

- 1. User Error (ie. trying to open central file directly / archived local file / working with local file after changing user name), or -
2. Network Performance Issues: we upgraded our NAS / router / switch all to Gigabit 10/1000, and cabling to Cat6 — now only older workstations still get network issues causing Sync/Save problems thanks to their vintage 10/100 network cards (really no excuse for using >4yo PCs for Revit ).
There are a wealth of best practise tips here for avoiding the problem, but if you find you're still getting stuck a few fixes we find that help: A: Get all users to Sync and close Revit; Open the file with Detach and Audit, then Save As Central with a new name, close the file and open with Create New Local checked (if it's not checked something's very wrong) for each user.



B: With Revit closed, go to your
Revit User Files folder (in File Manager/Windows Explorer) and delete the subfolders, and files more than a few months old (Also clean the temporary folder %temp% using Windows DiskCleanup, and if you haven't done so already you should move your 'Default path for User Files' in Options from Documents to a local drive with ample space (SSDs are often fill up which can cause save issues). C. Whenever you reopen a project, always choose Append Date and create new local file.

[drubinoff]

Thanks everyone. We continue to have this issue with several projects, and yet not on other ones. I will try some of the suggestions above, but I do think the situation is puzzling and basically is not working well for us except on a couple of lucky projects.

[drubinoff]

"A: Get all users to Sync and close Revit; Open the file with Detach and Audit, then Save As Central with a new name, close the file and open with Create New Local checked (if it's not checked something's very wrong) for each user."

Sorry, this did not solve the problem. It now seems worse.

[drubinoff]

B: With Revit closed, go to your
Revit User Files folder (in File Manager/Windows Explorer) and delete the subfolders, and files more than a few months old (Also clean the temporary folder %temp% using Windows DiskCleanup, and if you haven't done so already you should move your 'Default path for User Files' in Options from Documents to a local drive with ample space (SSDs are often fill up which can cause save issues).[/I] C. Whenever you reopen a project, always choose Append Date and create new local file.

Thanks, tried all this, it did not work. We are still having the same problem.

[drubinoff]

Folks, we even tried putting the exterior walls on one workset and the interior walls on another. Matt made the exterior wall workset editable on his computer and I made the interior workset editable on my machine. We each made our respective worksets current. Guess what: still the same problem. We each have to give the other endless permissions.

This is not a tenable work set up and we are not getting the promised value of this very expensive software.

[drubinoff]

Also of note, when one of us grants a permission, the other person can't keep their workflow going until they go through the interrupting process of "reload latest".

[drubinoff]

A note of interest: I am unable to draw a wall without permission while working in a design option; however, if I work in the main model, I can draw the wall. Are design options related to the problem our team is having, perhaps?

[drubinoff]

OK, everyone: we switched our primary design option, accepted our primary design option, and now that we are rid of design options we are no longer having this problem.

So, is the lesson that teams cannot work on design options? This does not make logical sense from a user point of view: we ought to be able to use Revit in such a way.

[damon.sidel]

So, is the lesson that teams cannot work on design options?

No, we use design options on teams all the time, so I think there is still something going wrong, either an actual Revit technical problem or user error. Glad that you got things working to some extent. Keep at it!