Stuff Disappearing?

[dgreen.49364]

I'm really not this naive, but I have to ask.

We have a project, central file based, that I drew. The project was turned over to a new intern architect for construction administration several months ago. He tells me yesterday that things have disappeared. I open up the file and sure enough, a rather large curtain wall and two floor slabs are gone.

I'm of the belief that computers and software only do what they are told and therefore I conclude that he somehow deleted those items.

Is there any possible that a curtain wall and two floor slabs just decided to go bye bye on their own?

[DaveP]

new intern architect
That'd be my first guess.
By "new", do you mean new to the company or new to Revit?

I'd lay money that your new intern saw a "line" in a section or some other view that didn't look right & figured "I'll just delete this line". Only it wasn't a line, it was a Curtain Wall.

The Floor Slabs might be a different issue. Those do tend to disappear once in a while. If the Floor Slab Sketch was locked to the Walls, it's fairly easy to break the Sketch. Say two walls meet at a corner, and you move one of the walls & Disjoin. Now your Walls don't touch, and the Floor Sketch that was locked to them is no longer a closed polygon. There's a Warning message that tells you the Sketch is invalid, but its easy to ignore.

[j_starko]

yes it's strange to have stuff disapear in drawings .


i'm guessing you've checked worksets too ?

[dgreen.49364]

Yeah, I've checked the worksets. And yes, the intern is new to the company and to Revit, but he has had the Revit training and has been using it now for a while.

[jspartz]

Make sure he didn't hide the objects in the view. Click the Reveal hidden elements button at the bottom to find out. I've had something not want to show up twice, but was still there. To find out: if anyone else has an older copy of the file, open up the older file, select the object that is missing and go to Tools - Element Ids - Ids of Selection to find out the Id number of the object. Then open the newer file and go to Tools - Element Ids - Select by Id and type in the ID number (click OK to select, or Show to make it find the object). Either way if it doesn't give you a message saying invalid id then it is still in the model.

[bclarch]

It's very easy to select things by mistake when erasing things using "window" or "crossing". Newbies sometimes forget that views that are perpedicular to parts of the model (such as plans and elevations) are still 3D. Objects behind the "lines" that are visible are still selectable, often without being noticed. New users should be encouraged to view the filter selection list whenever they are not sure of what they have selected. If you really want to track down the "missing" objects you could trace their disappearance via the journal files.

[jspartz]

Also, if they are deleted, go to File - Backups, pick the backup folder, and save a backup file from a previous date with the objects still there and copy them from that file back into the new file.

[dgreen.49364]

Jamie, that's what I did. Am just finishing it up now.

[j_starko]

to minimalize the future occurance of stuff being deleted.
i would suggest the rash steps of unplugging the intern's mouse :P

[kirsten.154952]

Funny I found this thread, as I have had the same issues the past few days. I'm fairly new to Revit, but I believe I've figured it out. I've had the same walls disappear over and over in my model, without my deleting them. This never happened until I started compacting my central file. I've found that when you do this, things disappear. I've tested it out a few times.

[dgreen.49364]

We've never compacted our central files so in this case...it's not the issue.

[chodosh]

Are the walls that are disappearing curved or rectilinear, out of curiosity?

No Design Options involved? No Phase filters?

I would suggest that you check the journals for words like "unexpected" or the obvious "deleted." If you can go back in history and get the ID number prior to the deletion, then you can hunt for unreported warnings related to that/those ID numbers. If it's one user, the journals are at least contained.

Are you both using the same build version?

HTH,
LC

[jmaurer]

We've had some issues with certain things disappearing from central files. In one case, all of the dimensions in a project were mysteriously deleted, but there was only one user accessing the project during this time frame (the other user was on vacation). It happened uniformly across the project - floor plans, drafting views, etc. I've also had reports of missing objects from another job, but I had dismissed them since several users on that job had only just begun Revit and likely had deleted things unknowingly. This only appears to be happening once worksharing is enabled. Is this happening to anyone else and has anyone found a cause?

[kirsten.154952]

I don't remember if it happened before we started worksharing, but after, we still have had walls disappear in a file, and we've had all the dimensions disappear for no reason. Could be another user ignoring warnings, but I'm not sure.

[Chirag Mistry]

Someone had posted these steps a while back and I have found it very helpful to track missing items.

Did something in your project disappear?

1.1. First, check to see if it is still visible in other views.
2. Check Visibility/Graphics. Is the object category (and subcategories) ON?
3. Check Visibility/Graphics. Is the linestyle set to Override?
4. Check Visibility/Graphics. Is the detail level set to By View?
5. Check Visibility/Graphics. Are all the worksets ON?
6. Check Visibility/Graphics. Are all the filters ON?
7. Check Visibility/Graphics. If the object is in a linked file check Revit Links.
8. Check Visibility/Graphics. Check each design option.
9. Try changing phase and phase filter in View Properties (VP).
10. Try changing the detail level of the view.
11. Are all your worksets opened? (it may be hiding in a closed workset).
12. Check View Range in View Properties (VP).
13. Check for Plan Regions if in a floor plan view.
14. The object may have been moved to a new elevation.
15. Check Crop Region and Far Clip settings in View Properties (VP).
16. Set your view to wireframe. It may be hiding behind a filled region or other object.
17. Select the Linework tool (set to By Category) and see if it wasn't hidden with this tool. It would be very benefitial if one could toggle on/off the use of the linework tool in a view.
18. If the problem is with a family file open the family and check the visibility of the elements.

"If you can't find it by now it was probably deleted!"

[captainbunsaver]

We found that this happens with any worksetted project if we don't use "Specify" to select worksets when opening the project. Using any option other than "Specify" will cause objects to disappear. This even happens when we open as a detached model, save to a new name and others attempt to open.
I don't understand it, I just live by it.

TC

[asandli]

What do you mean when you say '"Specify" to select worksets'? We are having trouble with a stuff disappearing too. I have been using Revit for several years now, and I know that things are not being deleted, the items will show up on other people's computers. This morning I came into the office, opened up Revit, then opened up the local file. I checked out the workset I need to work on, and got ready to adjust a few curtain walls. When I opened the section through the curtain wall, the slab it was sitting on was gone. I checked everything possible, but could not get the slab to show up. I then walked over to my coworker who was working on the same project, just in another workset. I asked him to open the section through the curtain wall, and there was the slab. To my relief the slab was NOT deleted.
I hope someone has run into this before and can give me a helping hand.

[clog boy]

Is it a new sport to bump threads? ;)
Yet I fully support it in this case. Old issues that still exist today could do with reviewing by a usergroup with increased awareness on the topic. I've been part of a 100 man group of volunteers to develop a project within a week, with the purpose to fully utilise the information capacities of BIM software. Sure enough, many people used Revit, and sure enough we started using workset during the last two production days (the fifth day was used to make everything presentable).

So we started using worksets. That was new to most Revit users, as most firms in The Netherlands are relatively small (100 man or less) and the volunteers usually worked in a four to five man draughting room.
It took me a while to get used to the idea of save to central before closing my local file.Since English is not my native language it took me a few goes to realise the meaning of this message:

The current workset is still active. Do you want to relinquish your changes?
or something along those lines.

More people were having these issues, as some worksets were unavailable even if the people using them closed their local file. One thing you should NEVER do is change your Revit username while having a workset opened.

As for the original issue: are you sure the workset containing the slabs and curtain wall was closed and saved to central before closing down and handing the file to the intern architect? This question is merely accademical as it is probably no longer relevant to the original issue, but it might help prevent future issues.
Also, use the Workset monitor to gain more awareness of how operations between central and local files work.

[cliff collins]

Try pinning objects. If they are pinned, and someone accidently tries to delete them
they will get a warning box. They will then have to unpin the object, and be forced into
"awareness" of the object's relationships to the other model elements.

Particularly when the design/documentation is complete, the model should be "locked
down"--ie all objects pinned. Turn on all Worksets, Model and Annotation categories and Select All--then pin.

This is one way to keep things from "disappearing". Your statement is correct---
Revit only does what it is told--there is no "ghost in the machine" which deletes things in the middle of the night!

A couple of other "file preservation" / archiving tips:

-Publish a complete set of DWFs at each critical submittal.
-Save-as the Central File with a date in the name at critical submittals, and place it in an archive folder. Then make a new Central File and new locals for each user.
-Keep all Central File and Local File backups

cheers.............

[twiceroadsfool]

Since the post is reaminated, let me add a few things:

1. Only on ONE occasion, have i EVER seen things certifably *vanish* from a Revit file, that was not because of operator error. It it wasnt modeled geometry, it was HUNDREDS of views. As stated before, opening up the journal files showed hundreds of lines of "unexpected" actions and "missing" items. Sending the file to support showed it had been corrupted.

Aside from this occasion (im sorry to say), most of what im reading sounds like operator error.

2. Compacting the central file, using worksets, not SPECIFYING worksets, not relinquishing, not checking back in worksets, etc, do NOT make items disappear or delete themselves. We dl many or all of the above daily, and do not have objects disappearing out of the models.

3. Worth mentioning, in a LOT of the cases above: Its very possible revit is deleting the objects while presenting the users with warning dialogues they dont understand, which they are then blindly clicking OKAY to: giving the instruction to delete. It happens more often than not. Someone nudges a wall, it makes a line reverse in a floor sketch, revit prompts you to delete the LINE, which makes the floor sketch invalid, which asks you to delete the floor. Your option is to cancel, or hit okay... And your floor is gone. If you nudged that wall in a wall section, you may not have noticed your floor disappearing.

I personally wouldnt start pinning things, because if it IS people ignoring warnings, then the warning of *pinned object deleted* wont do much good. It WILL let you delete a pinned object, just not move it.

4. Since someone mentioned it, no one should be changing their Revit username EVER while inside a revit file. Not only that, but if you change your username, you need to get a new local file, before entering the model.

Its hard to admit that we make goofs such as not reading warnings from time to time... But things mysteriously disappearing from the model at random times is a growing pain EVERY NEW REVIT TEAM goes through, before they fully understand what is going on in the model. Consider it growing pains, and hunker down in the documentation on dialogue boxes...

[TreyK]

Hi asandli (and anyone else who has had stuff disappear in their Revit files)--

We at the Factory would be very interested in tracking down these mysterious disappearances. It would be most helpful if anyone is able to provide the following:

A) The Central File
B) The Local File where stuff has disappeared
C) A Local File where the things still exist
D) A Revit journal file where the non-disappeared stuff is at least selected (or provide a list of the element IDs)

Also, if anyone is able to successfully recreate a sequence of steps that leads to a disappearance, we'd like to get that. For example: "1) Open file test.rvt; 2) Note that it contains 4 walls and a chair; 3) STC with Compact Central checked; 4) Re-open the file and note that the walls are gone." I realize that it's not going to be that simple, but you get the general idea.

For our analyses, we either need to be able to recreate the issue (either from scratch or from a file that you can provide to us) or we need as many of the pre-missing and post-missing files as we can get (Central File, Local Files, journals).

If anyone thinks they can provide some of these for a disappearance, please contact me and I can give you a Buzzsaw site for uploading the files to us.

Thanks very much!

Trey

trey.klein@autodesk.com
Revit QA Analyst