Sudden place plant problem

[dhbrown]

Help,help!! I was placing plants on my dwg when this started;

I click on the "Place Plant' icon and instead of bringing up the toolbar to select a plant, a dialog box comes up, named "Set Default Plant Tool Options". It states "Plant: NOT_VALID_PLANT" and it won't let me pick Edit Current or New Plant. All it lets me do is Cancel. It won't let me place any more plants! I'm dead in the water!

[Guest]

Have you tried restarting the computer?

[dhbrown]

Yes. No difference.

[dhbrown]

It seems to be doing it on this one particular dwg. I've played with a couple other dwgs and they seem fine (so far).

I really don't want to have to re-do this dwg nor do I want to lose it. Hopefully, someone out there has run into this and can help me undo that. It just won't let me put any more plants on it.

[Guest]

For an immediate response, please contact tech support directly

tech@nemetschek.net or 410-290-5114

[Marietta]

I have had the same thing happen to me on the rare occasion. I don't know if it is the way I created the plant that became corrupt. The last time this happened, I was able to recreate that plant as a new plant and then substitute the plants on the drawing. When my plant became corrupt, The plant symbol disappeared on the drawing, but it still added it in the plant list. I can't remember, but I think I copied this plant from another file instead of creating a new plant in the drawing. Katie would this make any difference? Also, this was in version 12.5.1. What version are you using?

[dhbrown]

Thanks for responding. Yes, I believe I'm working with ver. 12.5.1.also. When I realized my dwg was corrupt, I created a new one, creating new plants within it and after a half dozen plants or so, it starting doing it. It seems to have something to do with creating a new folder in the Symbols Folder. What I've been trying to do is create a folder of the plants we've set up that I can import into new dwgs without having to click on each plant and import them separately, every time. I created this folder, named it Our Plants. The folder is now in the Symbol Folders section of Resource Browser. As I create my plants (bringing up a plant, clicking "New Plant" and defining it), they of course appear in the Res Brow under Symbols/Plug-in Objects. Once I have a half dozen or so, I highlight them, right-click & select Move, click on the Our Plants folder, click OPEN, once in there, click OK. It works great when it works. This way I import the whole folder of our plants, and they are all neat and tidy together...expect when this glitch started...I really hope there's a way around this because having to import individual plants each time is very inefficient and CAD is supposed to help us be more efficient, no?

Has anyone else had this problem when creating Symbol Folders, even for non-plant items?

[Guest]

The error message sounds like you've created some other item - folder, symbol, class, layer, hatch, texture, image, etc. with the same name as "Plant".

You cannot have an item name or ID the same as the name of a tool in VectorWorks. One more, you cannot use the same name for two or more objects -- a class called plants and a symbol folder called plants is going to cause problems. You'll want to work with unique names to avoid problems.

[dhbrown]

True, and I understand naming conventions so all of the "things" I create do have unique names. So that's not the problem.

I'm doing some sleuthing and will reply when I have figured it out. It may have to do with pointers within the programming of VW. I want to figure this out because it can save everyone alot of work if I solve it. I'll get back. Thanks so much for the replies!