Automatic ceiling placement not working

[hkossila]

I have rooms created with room bounding walls and/or columns. Using automatic ceiling to place ceilings in the rooms, hover over room and outlines room in red, when I pick, it changes the outline to pink, but then doesn't place the ceiling. If I continue to pick next room, I get an error, if I hit enter, it just goes away.
My reseller tells me this is a known glitch in 2012, 2013, but I really find it hard to believe, as I am only able to auto place about 30% of the ceilings in my 10 story, 500 room building. That is a LOT of manual sketching of ceilings.

Anyone else have this issue? Any ideas?

Thanks,
Heather

[greg.mcdowell]

Are the rooms oddly shaped? I've found that if the room shape is ambiguous in any way that the automatic ceiling doesn't always take and I have to manually sketch the ceiling outline.

[patricks]

I have had that issue occur when there are for instance several walls in line with each other, or if part of the room is defined by walls in a linked file. Actually I'm not sure you can auto-place ceilings at all in rooms where walls in linked files make up part or all of the room's boundary.

[jcoe]

If you are worksharing, check to see if your active workset is not set to be off in all views.
Also, check to see if your unconnected wall height is higher than your ceiling height.

[jsteinhauer]

Actually I'm not sure you can auto-place ceilings at all in rooms where walls in linked files make up part or all of the room's boundary.

If the linked file is set to room bounding, you can use auto ceiling.

OP,
I would make sure that the area you're looking to place a ceiling is fully enclosed. Room separation lines do not define a boundary for ceilings.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[hkossila]

I do not have any linked files, and no worksets. Rooms are completely enclosed. I have now determined that the rooms that are having the issue are rooms that have a column separating rooms. I'd attach an image, but I can't figure out how. In any case, one situation is there is a wall which butts up to a column, then two walls butt up on the othe other side to form a small chase. The column is defined as room bounding, however, it seems to not recognize it as room bounding. I actually have to draw a wall inside the column connecting the two walls, and butting the third wall to those. It appears columns are not room bounding even though they say they are. I have tried with both structural and arch columns with no luck. THis is really annoying.

[antman]

That may be causing the problem (sorry I don't have a solution either) but I just wanted to add that I've had this happen in models with no columns - just walls, doors, and floor.

[Dean Camlin]

I'm also having this problem, but there are no columns or linked files involved. And I don't find anything in the help files about what to do when that dreaded light pink outline appears in my ceiling sketch. I've tried varying the height of the ceiling, the boundary walls, the cutting plane & view range--all to no avail.

[dhurtubise]

You do have a room placed in areas where it doesnt work right?
Can you post a screenshot?

[Dean Camlin]

You do have a room placed in areas where it doesnt work right?
Can you post a screenshot?

Here's an example, Daniel. Don't spend much time on this, as I've moved on. But t would be nice if Autodesk's documentation for things like this was a bit better.