Rogue Record Format

[shorter]

We have been victims again of a 'bug' caused by indescriminate importing of DWG data.

 

Somewhere along the line someone probably imported a DWG containing a drawing we issued a few weeks earlier, i.e. a consultant did what we ask them not to do and send our data back to us in their DWG.  Never understand this particularly when it is quite categoric in all BEPs I have ever read, and in all our CAD data exhcange protocols, that you simply do not issue data you did not author.

 

Anyway, the hidden record format 'Title Sheet Border Data' or somesuch, remained in a file that was referenced to a number of files containing title block borders and has corrupted the title block, removing data because the rogue record format was out of date.  It is a common issue with resources.  They tend to conflict if you don't manage them properly.

 

Ordinarily, we know how to fix this but in this case the issue was peculiar.

 

Ordinarily, we can edit the resource and ensure it is up to date.  However, in this case we couldn't.  The Title Block Border record format is invisible, and only edited via the Title Block itself.  It kept telling us it was referenced even after we had removed all references and purged, insessantly, and there were no title blocks left in the file.

 

Anyway, after a couple of hours or detective work, we found the errant files and rebuilding them freed ourselves of the scourge and we we able to stabilise the sheets.

 

While the invisible record is a pain, and we were able to fix it, the issue I have is not that it's invisible or that we spent two hours of our lives that we are not going to get back caused by the original malfeasance by the autocad user, my grievance is with the way Vectorworks will think something is referenced when it isn't.

 

If I create a file A, and reference it to file B, I would expect any resource placed in file A to become a referenced resource in file B.  However, in some cases, a resource in file A, that is 'inactive' or 'not in play', i.e. not placed in file A, becomes a referenced resource in another file.  Why and under what circumstance would you ever want that to happen?  If I reference a resource I do so deliberately and with aforethought.  I do not want resources referenced 'by proxy'.

 

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by shorter

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

Hello @shorter,

 

7 hours ago, shorter said:

Ordinarily, we can edit the resource and ensure it is up to date.  However, in this case we couldn't.  The Title Block Border record format is invisible, and only edited via the Title Block itself.  It kept telling us it was referenced even after we had removed all references and purged, insessantly, and there were no title blocks left in the file.

- If you have kept this version of the file you can send it to me and I will check why it tells you that this record is referenced. Maybe you forgot about the Title Block Border Styles or something similar?

 

7 hours ago, shorter said:

If I create a file A, and reference it to file B, I would expect any resource placed in file A to become a referenced resource in file B.  However, in some cases, a resource in file A, that is 'inactive' or 'not in play', i.e. not placed in file A, becomes a referenced resource in another file.  Why and under what circumstance would you ever want that to happen?  If I reference a resource I do so deliberately and with aforethought.  I do not want resources referenced 'by proxy'.

- Is the TBB record the one that was referenced without you wanting it? If so, could you tell me the steps to reproduce this?

 

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[shorter]

2 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

Maybe you forgot about the Title Block Border Styles or something similar?

 

Unlikely...!

 

The only objects left in the source file were symbols.  Of course, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility for the invisible record format to jump on to a symbol, but there were definitely no title block borders in the file, to the extent that once we had copied the data from the file into a fresh file, by referencing and binding, the record format magically disappeared.

 

2 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

Is the TBB record the one that was referenced without you wanting it? If so, could you tell me the steps to reproduce this?

 

Yes.  I would not be able to replicate it on demand.

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

37 minutes ago, shorter said:

The only objects left in the source file were symbols.  Of course, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility for the invisible record format to jump on to a symbol, but there were definitely no title block borders in the file, to the extent that once we had copied the data from the file into a fresh file, by referencing and binding, the record format magically disappeared.

- The other thing is that if the record is present in the file it will not get deleted with the last TBB in the file that gets deleted, so once created it can be only deleted with script.

[Tom W.]

7 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- The other thing is that if the record is present in the file it will not get deleted with the last TBB in the file that gets deleted, so once created it can be only deleted with script.

 

Will running Purge with 'Special record formats' enabled delete it?

 

 

 

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

5 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

Will running Purge with 'Special record formats' enabled delete it?

 

 

 

- Thanks @Tom W. for this great suggestion! However, I have just tested this and Purge does not delete the hidden records. Seems like a nice improvement to me. I will log it.

[Tom W.]

1 minute ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- Thanks @Tom W. for this great suggestion! However, I have just tested this and Purge does not delete the hidden records. Seems like a nice improvement to me. I will log it.

 

Ah ok. In a recent thread someone couldn't delete a class + it seemed that it was a hidden 'Landscape Area' Format which was preventing it being deleted. In this case running Purge with 'Special record formats' enabled did delete the Format + allowed the class to then also be deleted. But the hidden record format only showed up in Purge once the LA object had been deleted from the drawing.

 

See:

 

 

[shorter]

41 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

Will running Purge with 'Special record formats' enabled delete it?

 

 

 

 

No.  Only rebuilding the file deletes it.

[shorter]

Sorry, I should add that the invisble record does not purge from the source file.  It can be purged from the recipient file, ie the file into which the source file is referenced.

[Pat Stanford]

@MullinRJ has generoulsy help generate a script that will show you a list of the hidden record formats in a file.  This might help you to at least know if you are going to be exporting hidden records.