AutoCAD 2013: Xrefs Not Loading

I have been having problems with xrefs not loading in 2013, they are "unresolved" or "unreferenced". This is not an issue with any other version of AutoCAD. the link below is from the Autodesk forum where we ran some troubleshooting, but didn't find an answer. Is there a hidden system variable or something?

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCA...g/td-p/3397393


Autodesk Product Support's Troubleshooting Request:

From your screen capture, there are at least two DWG references which did get loaded, and some image references which also resolved. This brings up a few questions:

Are the DWGs which are not resolving located in the same directories as the DWG and image references which are loading?
Are the DWGs which are resolving a different DWG file version (2004, 2007, 2010, etc.) than those which are not?
Are the external reference files located on your own hard drive or are they on a network share?
Are the external references relatively pathed or full pathed? You can tell by selecting one in the External References palette, and then look to see if the "Saved Path" starts with a ... or with a \\ or drive letter. If it's ... then it is a relative path.

As a test, try copying all of those reference files and paste them into a local folder on your workstation which also contains the parent drawing, 12010-A1.dwg. Then, close AutoCAD, reopen it, and open 12010-A1 from that local directory and see what happens. Please answer the above questions and post the results of the proposed test in this thread.


Zac Travis
Autodesk Product Support


My Troubleshooting Results:

1- Yes “12010-TB’ is the dwg title block located in the job folder… which our company keeps all dwgs for each job in the same folder.

2-No, all dwgs are saved to same format (2004)

3- All the files are on the same network drive

4-Both, see the attached images showing the two different “path” methods with the same result. (The title block “12010-TB” that is loaded is full path “f:\drawings\etc\etc....”)



Test Method & Results:

1- Copied all dwgs from job folder 12010 into a local C: folder

2-Closed, reopened AutoCAD 2013; opened parent dwg file “12010-A1.dwg”



Result: xref paths are still looking to the original folder on the network (which is F: drive)

I looked at the screen caps, and some are noted as UNREFERENCED, which means AutoCAD knows where the XREF is (it displays the path, too), but does not know where it belongs in the drawing.

Unreferenced happens when the xref gets deleted from the parent drawing as an object. AutoCAD is finding the XREF, it simply does not know the insertion point, rotation angle, scale factor, etc, etc.

I do not have 2013, strange that the files are fine when opened in earlier versions.

At a guess, the 'uunreferenced' XREFs are nested in xrefs that are not found. If it's the unfound xref that has the instance information for a dependent xref, then the active drawing would not have a reference for the other drawing. It could be verified by using the CLASSICXREF command, and exploring the tree view.

Possible may be helped by using OVERLAY instead of ATTACH for the xref files to avoid nesting?

searching trough the web, nice to know i'm not the only one with similar issues. altho it does seem rare..
my problem - attach with relative path, save, close drawing, open drawing - xref not displayed.
i got 2 screenshots, it's the only drawing so far behaving like this..
Attachment 98631
Attachment 98630

files are all in the same dir on the server.
thank you!