Can't Delete RFA Files in Windows Explorer

[rookwood]

I noticed last week as I was in the process of revamping and reorganizing my families that certain files will not delete from Windows Explorer. Going back in thought, I also now recall that certain family components show only as an icon when I attempt to load while inside Revit. When I select a family component that is displayed only as an icon, as opposed to a thumbnail, Revit will freeze and I have to ctr-alt-delete out of the program.

Now I find certain files, icons and not thumbnails, that cannot be deleted, or altered in any way...even changing the name...even cannot change the name of the subfolder.

This happens on my HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop and my custom dual quad core Xeon machine, both running VISTA and RAC 2008.

Perplexing! Is it Vista or Revit? If Vista, this is the only issue I have encountered. If I open a folder where there is a problem file, the address bar in Explorer has movement similar to that when you are waiting for a file to download, copy, etc. indicating some sort of activity.

[Andre Carvalho]

You might want to try deleting these files while on Windows Safe Mode. You can enter Safe Mode when by restarting Windows and pressing CTRL key a few times...

Regards,

Andre Carvalho

[rookwood]

Andre,

Thanks for the advice, but didn't work...seems these files are possessed.mThey even freeze up the Explorer window.

[dhurtubise]

Did you try to delete them using a DOS prompt?

[jyoungner]

File a support request. You can reference mine below. Autodesk support is beating around the bush about this situation. They will probably ask you to upload the file which you may have trouble doing in the first place. The only way I was able to upload is first zip it and move the zip file to a new location. BTW if you have a XP computer. The file will work fine.


I would like to know if it is Vista or Revit too!


SR# 1-2954429261 - Revit crashed and now the recovery file hangs; windows explorer even hangs

[Steve_Stafford]

Are you talking about stock content from Revit? If so, if you can see the properties of the folders/files are they read only? Were they installed by someone other than you? Since I haven't personally worked with Vista yet, my clients haven't deployed it yet believe it or not, in XP, at a couple firms I have not been able to delete files in folders when the permission structure of the firm prevent doing such things to files that do not belong to me, not created by me.

[rookwood]

I've not noticed that any were stock content. The action, or lack thereof, is similar to Joshua's description. I have this happen also, when Revit crashes and produces a recovery file, you can't do anything with it, including copying it. So forwarding to the Factory can't be done. Then, windows explorer freezes, then Revit stops responding.

I have full authority and administrator's rights with both my computers and it doesn't help. Can't access any property info either.

[dbaldacchino]

Old thread, but I'm experiencing the same behavior with some files, mainly rfa, but I think I had the same problem with a couple of rvt files. I was able to delete them after a lot of tries through the DOS prompt after a couple of restarts. I was able to delete a few from Vista after trying to delete through DOS uncessessfully, following some restarts. Today I also tried creating a new docx file by right-clicking and creating a new file and then renamed the extension to rfa. I tried deleting it and now it won't go away from my dekstop.

[brenehan]

I had this porblem with a Revit 2008 RVT file on my desk top. I can't quite remember how I deleted it, but I had tried to delete it several times.
I was running Vista SP2 32 Bit.

Brian

[scgillin.182228]

I experienced this same problem and eventually found an answer that solved my problem.

I used an app called unlocker. after it ran and I pointed it at the problem file I was able to delete it. found the app here:

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

another suggestion if the above app doesn't work is the following:

http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html

[Andre Carvalho]

I experienced this same problem and eventually found an answer that solved my problem.

I used an app called unlocker. after it ran and I pointed it at the problem file I was able to delete it. found the app here:

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

another suggestion if the above app doesn't work is the following:

http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html

I used to use the Unlocker tool but can't anymore since I'm using a 64 bits OS and Unlocker doesn't work on Windows 64...

Andre Carvalho

[dbaldacchino]

Andre, you could have saved me a download if you replied earlier ;)

The second option worked great. The weird thing is that I can log in to the local machine as administrator and delete the files, but sometimes they do the same and I can't remove them. I tried copying some "bad" files to the desktop of the admin account and then was unable to delete them. I also have family folders that are causing this problem. I have no clue what is causing this. I tried uninstalling Revit to see if that would have an effect, but the problem files were still giving me a headache with moving/deleting them. That little app makes it easier to delete on reboot.

[cliff collins]

I think perhaps they get "stuck" in Read Only mode--even when you change them--
they revert back to read only. I also think admin privileges has something to do with it?

let us know if you get to the bottom of it

cheers...

[dbaldacchino]

I have full rights so it shouldn't cause a problem. Also if they were read-only, they would show that attribute. The files even make Revit hang up and you have to force out of it. Another weird thing is that it doesn't seem to happen on all machines. The same files work fine on the PC they were copied from. In my case, this is happening on an M6400 with Vista 64.

[rmejia]

another suggestion if the above app doesn't work is the following:

http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html

Thank You! This finally got rid of the .rfa files!

[harrisbrett]

Anyone else having trouble with this? This is happening more and more frequently with me. Can't delete .rfa/rvt files. I know how to get rid of them, just wondering what is causing this to happen?

[mcaddc]

I think it has something to do with Vista trying to render the image of those particular file types and then locking them up when it can't quite do so. (Sometimes the file gets corrupted for whatever reason).

What worked for me, was to disable the thumbnail preview mode from your windows explorer and it should then release the files.

To to this, open up your windows explorer and in your "Tool" menu go to "Folder Options"
In the "View" tab under files and folders, Check "Always show icons never thumbnails"

Do a Reboot and windows should then have unlocked the problem files.

I hope this helps!

Ross

[dbaldacchino]

Have you tried holding down the shift key while deleting? That should get rid of the file without going to the recycle bin and might by-pass the issue with the preview thumbnail.

[harrisbrett]

Thanks guys,

Disabling the thumbnails seemed to work well. Just unfortunate that i have no thumbnails for anything now, ah well.

[Les Therrien]

Anyone else having trouble with this? This is happening more and more frequently with me. Can't delete .rfa/rvt files. I know how to get rid of them, just wondering what is causing this to happen?

Yes all the time.
It's not specific to revit files either.
It's a glitch in Vista, and it also existed in XP for some users as well.
It's a really stupid issue as it is not only a problem with deleting files, but copying them as well.
Microsoft really screwed up on this one as deleting and copying files is such a basic command.

[chris.157479]

I had this problem with my old vista 64bit machine, only revit files on my desktop though...
try this:

open up task manager > processes tab > select explorer.exe > end process
make sure to leave task manager open

locate file and delete. it should delete now.

back to task manager > file > new task > type explorer.exe

[cjneedham]

I have had the same issue, on multiple machines, but both were Vista - one was 64-bit, the other 32-bit.

I have had some success, however, in 'salvaging' the dud families. In DOS prompt, rename the offending RFA files to RFT (family template) format.

Just in case ... for those not familiar with DOS syntax:
rename *.rfa *.rft
(You can of course be more specific with your filename if you want to be more selective).

Then start a new family, browse to the RFT, and 'Save-As' to re-create the RFA.

While I have had some trouble still deleting the family's backups (the rename trick isn't working on them at the moment), the RFTs can also be deleted when you're done.

Try the same method, and let me know if you also have success with this...

[jtj]

A couple of you nailed it... but don't blame it on microsoft. I explained the issue to Autodesk back in February, but they still haven't fixed it.

Here's a slightly updated version of the email I sent to Autodesk:

Problem: When using vista (and some installations of Windows XP), some RVT and RFA files can’t be copied, deleted, moved or modified. Also, folders & explorer (aka windows!) may sometimes fail to respond completely.


Cause: Windows Vista is hung-up due to a faulty RevitPreview.DLL that embeds itself into Windows Explorer to allow thumbnail previews of revit files to be created when browsing folders on your computer or network.

Solutions:
1) Run the command window in the Administrator mode (under Windows Start type "cmd", right-click on the result and choose "Run as Administrator"). In the command line then type:
regsvr32 /u "c:\program files\revit architecture 2009\program\revitpreview.dll"
A message confirming successfully unregistering of the DLL module should appear.

2) Disable thumbnails (always show icons) inside "folder options"
- Tools --> Folder options --> View in Windows XP
- Organize--> Folder & search options --> View in Windows Vista.


The problem with solution 1 is that when you start Revit again, it re-registers the DLL, so you're back in the same situation.

John

[dbaldacchino]

Re-registering the dll doesn't always fix the problem, as you can see from this thread. If you delete the offending file by holding down the shift key, it will delete the file right away and by-pass the Recycle Bin, which usually gets the job done. The offending files usually turn "sticky" while they're being moved to the recycle bin, so doing a hard-delete solves the issue. The other techniques that worked for me were to turn off preview-generation through Windows, delete the files, then turn the previews back on.

[dbaldacchino]

I actually mixed this post with another one (that's why I said "as you can see from this post"). I was referring to this one:

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=67013

[jtj]

Re-registering the dll doesn't always fix the problem, as you can see from this thread.

Hey dave, I'm confused, are you responding to my post? Do you mean un-registering the DLL? I think we're on the same page -- unregistering the DLL is a temporary fix.



If you delete the offending file by holding down the shift key, it will delete the file right away and by-pass the Recycle Bin, which usually gets the job done.

Good to know!


The offending files usually turn "sticky" while they're being moved to the recycle bin, so doing a hard-delete solves the issue.

Sticky indeed -- I've even run into problems just trying to copy down the central file w/ thumbnails on... that seriously freaked me out -- I thought my central file was corrupt... thank goodness it was just the RevitPreview.DLL problem.


The other techniques that worked for me were to turn off preview-generation through Windows, delete the files, then turn the previews back on.

At this point, I just leave my thumbnails off... I run into this problem too often with thumbnails on.

[dbaldacchino]

Hey John, yep I was replying to your post. As I said, I was confusing this with another thread due to the registering/unregistering of revitpreview.dll. I had never done what you suggested explicitly but did disable previews in Windows as a temporary fix. I have not had this problem as of late.

[wmullett]

I'm on XP, not VISTA, and I don't use thumbnails and I still have the problem deleting some REVIT files so I don't know how the preview can be the problem. I have to find the guilty file again before I can test these solutions.

[cbukowski]

I'm having a similar issue - except mine is with my Revit model. I recently got my computer upgraded to Vista x64 and I started a new 2009 project. The file is only 12.2M and randomly the backup (.000x) files will get corrupted I guess. I can't delete the backup file, and after it happens whenever I go to save the model will save and then hang. I have to shut down Revit and reopen it. If I copy the model to another location then it works fine until I get the funny backup file again...

I've asked our Autodesk reseller about it...and he's doing research...it's been 2 weeks now.

[DaveP]

I think this related, but I''m not sure.
I had two people who were constantly crashing at a Browsing dialog box. One was the Import Fill Pattern and one was at the Load Family. Finally traced it down to the fact that those dialog boxes were set to Thumbnails. Since it crashed right away, there was no way to set them back to List or Details.
I did the Regsvr32 trick in the RevitPreview.dll file, and both people are running fine now.

BTW, this was Revit 2010 WU1 running under XP.

[rwilson.229046]

Has anyone come up with a more permanent fix for this? There are several computers in our office that have this problem. I'm interested in a setting or patch that will permanently prevent this from happening. I think the masses will revolt if I tell them they have to turn off their icons because Revit doesn't want them on...We're running Vista with Revit 2010 on 64-bit machines.

[Andre Carvalho]

Have you tried this free application:

http://lockhunter.com/

It will stop whatever is preventing you from deleting the file and send the file to the recycle bin. Works in all Windows versions (XP, Vista, 7, 32 and 64 bit)

Andre Carvalho

[ron.sanpedro]

Does anyone else find it offensive that we have to go to shareware to resolve a problem that is created by the pisspoor execution of our $5000 a pop "professional" software that autodesk hasn't bothered to fix in four years? Really?

Gordon

[rwilson.229046]

I had actually been using Lockhunter to resolve the problem up until now. It doesn't always work. It seems that windows explorer will sometimes continue to be latched onto the file even after Revit is closed. Lockhunter tells me something like "the file cannot be unlocked because it is still in the process of being locked" (I'm paraphrasing). So far, the only way I've found to get the file to work is to stop explorer.exe through the task manager then restart explorer.exe as described in the comments above. Then it allows me to delete the file. I'm not sure if it allows me to open it; I haven't tried that yet.

[ron.sanpedro]

I had actually been using Lockhunter to resolve the problem up until now. It doesn't always work. It seems that windows explorer will sometimes continue to be latched onto the file even after Revit is closed. Lockhunter tells me something like "the file cannot be unlocked because it is still in the process of being locked" (I'm paraphrasing). So far, the only way I've found to get the file to work is to stop explorer.exe through the task manager then restart explorer.exe as described in the comments above. Then it allows me to delete the file. I'm not sure if it allows me to open it; I haven't tried that yet.

The trick that has worked 100% of the time for me (so far, knock on wood) is to turn off thumbnails (Control Panel > Folder Options > View > Check "Always show icons, never thumbnails"). This then requires a reboot (really Microsoft, in 2010? Puhleeze!) and breaks ALL thumbnails, including images which are actually kinda useful. BUT, it has let me delete (or open and save as) all the files that have gone wonky recently. Then I set Thumbnails back on and reboot again.
What this suggests, and supports my understanding of the problem, is that Autodesk's dll for creating thumbnails is a broken piece of junk, and windows tries to create thumbnails in the background, even for folders that have Thumbnails turned off. Stupid code on both Microsoft and Autodesk's part, big surprise.

Given that this has been broken since vista got barfed onto the world, autodesk has had like 5 YEARS to fix this, and hasn't managed to? Gotta believe the developers have the coding chops to do the job, and the bean counters won't let them do the right thing. Nice. Thanks Carl.

Gordon

[rwilson.229046]

This is happening to me almost every time I try to save the file, (I should post a video of my screen when it's happening). Revit will hang when I try to save locally, lately it's been around 75% of the time....obviously this is an issue. The idea of turning off the thumbnails seems like a good one, but am I going to have to do this every time the file gets locked? I would be restarting my computer 15-20 times a day! I'm going to put a support request in with Autodesk at this point. I don't know how much help they will be but in my mind this is a serious issue.

[t1.shep]

In my experience, the culprit files that wouldn't delete and lock up windows are Revit files that had yet to be updated to the current build...Most of the time I'd be able to open the file independently inside revit, without going to the windows explorer and trying to open from there. I think that I would then be possible to save the file and then go back to windows and delete it.
Also, I logged this a support request and got this...
If you have Thumbnail view turned on, try changing to Detail view. (See the Windows help for information on changing the view in a Windows Explorer window.)
If changing the view doesn't stop the crashing, follow the instructions below to put the system into a simplified startup:
1. On the Start menu, click in the box Start Search and type msconfig.
2. Click on the search result msconfig.exe.
3. On the General tab, if the radio button is not set to Normal:
a. Go through each of the tabs and note what items are checked or unchecked.
b. On the General tab select Normal startup.
4. Select the Startup tab and click the Disable All button.
5. Click the Services tab, check the box to Hide Microsoft Services, click the Disable All button, recheck the Autodesk licensing service, and if you see it, recheck the Flexnet licensing service.
6. Click OK and restart Windows when prompted.
Note: after making the changes on the Startup and Services tab the radio button on the General tab should say Selective Startup. In order to restore the startup state of the system, after we have completed troubleshooting, select the Normal startup radio button on the General tab, and if the system was not originally on Normal Startup, go through the remaining tabs, and set them back the way they were.
See if the crashing occurs when the system is in a simplified startup.
I would appreciate it if you would let me know if the steps above fix the issue. If they don't, please reply with full details of any success found, as well as the results of each step.

[rwilson.229046]

Thank you for the info. I hope that's not what they tell me because I can't tell everyone in the office that that is the protocol to solve the problem every time they have the issue. So far, in our office, it hasn't affected every computer, but it has affected a few computers, enough to warrant the masses to demand a more permanent fix.

[patricks]

The trick that has worked 100% of the time for me (so far, knock on wood) is to turn off thumbnails (Control Panel > Folder Options > View > Check "Always show icons, never thumbnails"). This then requires a reboot (really Microsoft, in 2010? Puhleeze!) and breaks ALL thumbnails, including images which are actually kinda useful. BUT, it has let me delete (or open and save as) all the files that have gone wonky recently. Then I set Thumbnails back on and reboot again.
What this suggests, and supports my understanding of the problem, is that Autodesk's dll for creating thumbnails is a broken piece of junk, and windows tries to create thumbnails in the background, even for folders that have Thumbnails turned off. Stupid code on both Microsoft and Autodesk's part, big surprise.


Does not require a reboot in Win7. I just changed the setting and my display's flickered for a second, as if the computer was making the global change, and it was done. I could instantly click on old RFA files within Explorer with no issues.

Thankfully, you can still see the thumbnail previews within the actual Revit Open or Load Family dialog boxes. Trying to find families w/o preview is a HUGE pain.

So for now I just have Win7 set to show icons but not thumbnails, and everything seems to be fine. I can switch back and forth on the fly with no rebooting required.

[ron.sanpedro]

Does not require a reboot in Win7. I just changed the setting and my display's flickered for a second, as if the computer was making the global change, and it was done. I could instantly click on old RFA files within Explorer with no issues.

Thankfully, you can still see the thumbnail previews within the actual Revit Open or Load Family dialog boxes. Trying to find families w/o preview is a HUGE pain.

So for now I just have Win7 set to show icons but not thumbnails, and everything seems to be fine. I can switch back and forth on the fly with no rebooting required.

Interesting. And typical of MS to get their documentation wrong. Now we just need a script to toggle with a keyboard macro and we are set. Then autodesk REALLY has no reason to ever fix this. :(
But this does make it much easier to simply work with thumbnails on (lots of my users like seeing thumbnails of PNG, JPG and the like, very useful) and toggle when something blows up.

Good catch. Thanks,
Gordon

[griggs]

Honestly, I would be happy if Autodesk provided a procedure to simply disable the thumbnail .DLL at the Application level; rather than at the OS level. You would think that by simply unregistering the offending Autodesk .DLL that would be enough do disable the thumbnail hook, but not so. It's beyond annoying to break thumbnail previews for photos as well at an OS level. IMHO, Autodesk really dropped the ball on this one. I can't imagine how many cumulative tens of thousands of wasted hours this issue has caused Autodesk's customers. Our case with Autodesk has been open for 4 months without a response from Autodesk and from what I understand, this issue has persisted for several years now. Autodesk is losing serious street cred by not fixing the issue or providing a reasonable workaround.

What if a car company decided to start selling cars with a sophisticated door locking system that only worked 50% of the time? Problem was, when the system failed, the owner of the car was locked out and had to call a locksmith. The customers discovered that if they simply never locked their cars -very inconvenient and frustrating for the owners- they would not get locked out. Although not ideal, the customers chose the better of two evils and never locked their cars. Since the customers found a workaround the car manufacturer didn’t need to fix the problem. Would that situation seem wrong?

[DaveP]

This has been floating around the ‘Net for a long time, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. I laughed out loud when I read it again, so I thought you might enjoy it.
Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”
In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times! as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.
The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation” warning light.
The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.
Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.Stolen from here:
http://www.blogarithms.com/index.php/archives/2005/01/07/if-cars-worked-like-windows/

[rwilson.229046]

So, I heard back from Autodesk. Their solution was to do a clean uninstall and reinstall Revit. I did this, and it actually has worked great so far. I reinstalled a few weeks ago and have had very few problems with files getting locked since. Follow this link for the instructions on how to reinstall:

http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS13712572

Note that they recommend that some folders and registry files be deleted before you do the reinstall, so it's more than just "reinstalling." I followed the procedure they described step-by-step, and have had good results.

[mbalsom]

I used to use the Unlocker tool but can't anymore since I'm using a 64 bits OS and Unlocker doesn't work on Windows 64...

Andre Carvalho

I have been using this free app. http://lockhunter.com/ on 64bit with great success.

[raul.pacheco]

we are experinecing a similar issue on Windows 7 X64 OS with a corrupted revit file. Our IT guys have been trying to delete this recalcitrant file. Any insight will be appreciated!


Are you talking about stock content from Revit? If so, if you can see the properties of the folders/files are they read only? Were they installed by someone other than you? Since I haven't personally worked with Vista yet, my clients haven't deployed it yet believe it or not, in XP, at a couple firms I have not been able to delete files in folders when the permission structure of the firm prevent doing such things to files that do not belong to me, not created by me.

[burke]

Question: How do I delete locked file, I can't delete file, windows locks up when I delete, open or right click a file, can not delete revit file, can not delete rvt, dat, bak related to thumb.db or windows indexing.

This is not related to Internet Explorer and only applies to WINDOWS EXPLORER.exe because it controls the thumbnails and indexing. Also keep in mind, google search bar, google and bing desktop search also index files and could cause these issues.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: Make sure you have backups or other project files on your server before deleting anything anywhere!!!!!!!!! <------------ Our lockups, crashes and can't deletes are all on WORKSTATIONS REVIT LOCAL not our Server Central Files. Make sure you understand the process and what you are doing before you delete your only project file!


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fix for Can't delete, Explorer crash, can't open:
I didn't read all 5 pages but we've had this issue on Vista 64bit, Windows 7 64 bit fully updated on Revit 2009 and 2010 we have 2011 but havn't used it yet on any projects.

the solution we found and where others are missing a step is you have to end task on "explorer.exe" from task manager which manages thumb.db and others to delete the file from cmd(command prompt) .

We reported this problem since Vista 64-bix beta but there have been not real solutions other than this. Others on this forum use a unlocker program but thats to difficult when running 10+ revit workstations on alot of projects.

We've tried all the other solutions of reinstall... with failure

Process:
Start CMD
Change directory to location of locked file
c: (or drive letter it's on)
cd c:\revit_local\ (Director locked file is in)
Click CTRL+Shift+ESC, then click processes and click explorer.exe and end task.
NOTE: your start menu, task bar and everything else will disapper!
In CMD type del "locked file name.rvt" (File name of locked file)
then go back to Task Manager CTRL+SHIFT+ESC if you closed it
Click File-New Task-under open type "Explorer.exe" and OK
This will restart explorer and bring back the start, task bar and others.

Long Term Solutions are, turn off Indexing, Turn off Thumbnails and default folder views with Revit files to non-preview or thumbnail view,some people delete thumb.db but it will come back.


You are finished and the file is gone
-Hope this helps,

Jeremy jb@dontpanic.biz