Cannot place windows in wall

[Damo]

Does anyone have a clue as to why I cannot place my windows all of a sudden?

The upper level wall construction is as attached. I keep getting warnings “Instance is not cutting host”, regardless of whether I try and place the window in the upper or lower floors.

[patricks]

hmm that's odd, looks like it's trying to cut (or it thinks it should be cutting) the lower wall when you place it in the upper wall, and vice versa.

[Steve_Stafford]

Does anyone have a clue as to why I cannot place my windows all of a sudden?Can you cut and paste the offending wall and window(s) into a blank project and post it so folks can do a little poking around?

[tamas]

Just a guess:

Try to edit your window family.
Make any change.
Change back to as before (but not with undo). (E.g. Add a model line and delete.)
Reload to the project. See if you can insert it to the walls now.

The change refreshes the window family as if it was brand new. We sometimes check family versions to preserve old behavior and yours resembles to one.

Let me know if it helped. If not, please post the file so we can look at it.

Tamas

[Damo]

Can you cut and paste the offending wall and window(s) into a blank project and post it so folks can do a little poking around?Here it is.

Thanks

[Damo]

Just a guess:

Try to edit your window family..........
If not, please post the file so we can look at it.Hi Tamas,

Did as you suggested, (changed the width and changed it back, reloaded family back into project).

No joy.

File has been uploaded (previous posting).

Thanks for your input.

[bowlingbrad]

Your window was using voids to cut the wall. I replaced the voids with an opening cut. All is fine now...

[Damo]

Your window was using voids to cut the wall. I replaced the voids with an opening cut. All is fine now...Thank you Brad, and all the others, for taking the time to help me.

I just logged on to say I've discovered the reason (but not necessarily why) I couldn't place the windows in the wall.

I had the top wall joined to the bottom wall. Unjoining the wall (which leave an undesirable line in the sections) allowed me to place the windows.

Maybe the factory will be able to give us an answer.

[Steve_Stafford]

Your window was using voids to cut the wall. I replaced the voids with an opening cut. All is fine now...That shouldn't have had anything to do with it. The reason it works now is most likely as Tamas suggested, the change in the family was enough for Revit to completely reload instead of a "refresh".

It is often necessary to remove an opening and use a void instead because you can't have both a void and opening in a host. So if you need to use a void too you have to remove the opening and use a void for it instead.

[Damo]

I’m obviously missing something here Steve.

This was a project started wholly in Revit 8.

I tried Tamas’s suggestion and it didn’t work.

After un-joining the top wall from the bottom wall I could place the windows OK.
HOWEVER, after placing my new windows and trying to re-join the top wall section with the bottom wall section I got an error message (cannot remember exactly, but it said it would delete the instances of the newly placed windows).

Some of you will observe that Revit didn’t object to me joining the walls the first time after I had already placed some windows.

[Mr Spot]

Maybe its to do with the actual extents of the wall, top and base constraints.

If you change the top offset to something a bit larger, maybe to a height where it will extend beyond the roof above then try placing the windows.

My reasoning is i think its because revit believes if the wall isn't attached it cannot place the windows in that wall because they wouldn't be tall enough. Even though the attach to top causes there to be enough wall... Am i making any sense? I think i'm confusing myself here...

[beegee]

I would doubt that, since you can place a window in a wall that is well below the window head height.

[Mr Spot]

yep your right BG just tried it with a wall set to about 150mm high then attached to something much higher and tried placing windows... no probs.

Just thinking out loud i guess.

[tamas]

I tried Tamas’s suggestion and it didn’t work.

After un-joining the top wall from the bottom wall I could place the windows OK.
HOWEVER, after placing my new windows and trying to re-join the top wall section with the bottom wall section I got an error message (cannot remember exactly, but it said it would delete the instances of the newly placed windows).
. Damian,

I think my suggestion does help, but not very visibly. The error you mentioned is still posted, but it is now continuable, that is it is a simlpe warning only and you can continue without deleting the instance.

Before upgrading the family, the error was a hard error and you either had to cancel or delete the window.

So I think the fresh window behavior is not perfect, but acceptable.

It is a mistake that we post this error and I made a note of it and will look into the fix for the future. You are also right that it is related to the join geometry between the two walls.

I have not fully debugged this yet, but I suspect the window thinks it is bigger than it really is and this is why we try to add it to the other wall as well. Did you use some invisible line trick in the family? I can not see anything wrong with it though.

Tamas

[Damo]

I think my suggestion does help, but not very visibly. The error you mentioned is still posted, but it is now continuable, that is it is a simlpe warning only and you can continue without deleting the instance.

Before upgrading the family, the error was a hard error and you either had to cancel or delete the window.

So I think the fresh window behavior is not perfect, but acceptable.In the end I didn't change the Window family, I just un-joined the wall

I have not fully debugged this yet, but I suspect the window thinks it is bigger than it really is and this is why we try to add it to the other wall as well. Did you use some invisible line trick in the family? I can not see anything wrong with it though.It's the standard Revit Building 8 Metric UK Install window, plain out-of-the-box. :D