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Walls keep coming unjoined


Sam stork

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Hi Christopher

I have attached the file - today it was just the compartment walls that came apart since last night - [that is style 1308_IW_Party wall blocks 1-5] which is referenced from our wall types file. Other walls that are not referenced also come apart. These walls were also locked but it doesn't seem to help.

Any suggestions welcomed.

 

1-5 model.vwxp

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Hi Matt

We've given up joining them - so no we don't have a copy with joined walls.

We wondered if it was because we are using AFP sharing, we tried to change to SMB but it won't let us.

In answer to your previous question we have been editing wall positions and slabs in between save and submit.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Thank for you reply, Sam.

I've always felt slabs had something to do with this problem, but was never able to reproduce it.  Now that I know editing slabs seems to trigger it for you, I will concentrate on that to try to reproduce it.

Thanks again,

Matt

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I've seen the same unjoining behavior with files that don't yet have slabs at all. But only with project sharing.

 

Recently we started a native 2019 SP3 PS project and we're again seeing some walls un-joining.

 

With 2018, the un-joining occurred without any wall-related actions, just doing something within the file. And the unjoining is not constant, different workstations display different results.

 

An old thread here:

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/58706-possibly-the-most-frustrating-workflow-in-vectorworks/

 

This seems to be one bugger of a bug since it's behavior is so ridiculously erratic. No wonder it's almost impossible to reproduce, since we are only able to reproduce it by working continuously for several weeks on a PS project, and even then we have no idea what we did to cause it.

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

@JMR

This is, indeed, a difficult bug to reproduce and it is a critical one as well. I will do what I can to try to reproduce this.

@Sam stork

I understand your frustration and I'm terribly sorry that this is causing you to give up on project sharing. We're very concerned about this problem and will do everything we can to resolve this as soon as possible.

I wonder if referencing wall styles from another document may have something to do with this. @JMR , do you have any referenced wall styles in the files you're having issues with?

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@Matt Panzer 

 

We don't use any referenced VW documents, it's all in one file. The local distributor suspected the un-joining might have something do to with the wall thinking the style has been replaced even though it's not...don't know if this is the case.

 

I can say for certain that one doesn't have to do anything that changes the walls in any direct or interconnected (slabs etc) way. It very likely has something to do with the PS commit/refresh process. We've had situations in which PC1 has nicely joined walls, and when PC2 and 3 refresh, their walls become disconnected, but in a different way! That is, one corner might be ok on PC2 but not on PC3. The only way to remedy the situation was to reshare the project from PC1.

 

One thing that hinders tracking the bug-inducing steps is that it's not that easy to immediately spot some wall join becoming open in a complex building, since you have to zoom in quite close to be able to spot it. Then, when you notice it, it might already be a couple of days back when it actually happened.

 

 

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Good news!!!

I'm now able to create a reproducible case! This is a huge step towards fixing the issue! 🙂

 

I want to explain what I know about this now so it may help those experiencing this problem:

 

Have any of you noticed that Vectorworks sometimes prompts you to check out wall after editing the attributes of a class? You may've not thought anything of this, but every time this happens you run the risk of unjoining walls in the project file after a commit. The only time I see this happening is when editing the attributes of a class that happens to be used for the "Attributes Beyond Cut Plane" setting of a Wall Style (under "Wall Attributes"). BTW, this setting is only used when using Design Layer Cut Planes so many users ignore the setting. However, if the "Attributes Beyond Cut Plane" is set to "Object Class" for a Wall Style, the problem goes away for that style. Just keep in mind that changing the setting will likely effect how walls below the cut plane look in Top/Plan view (if using Design Layer Cut Planes).

 

Until we have a fix, this is the only reliable steps to help prevent the problem:

Note 1: This will not fix broken joins, but should prevent breaking more.

Note 2: If using Design Layer Cut Planes, these changes will likely effect the attributes of walls that are below the design layer cut plane in Top/Plane views.

  1. Backup you files! Seems like a good idea...
  2. Commit all working files to make sure one person is able to edit all Wall Styles and Walls objects.
  3. Edit all of your Wall Styles and change the "Attributes Beyond Cut Plane" to "Object Class".

Hopefully, this problem will soon be a thing of the past!

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
5 hours ago, michaelk said:

Nice catch, Matt.

 

Thanks, Mike!

You can imagine why this problem seemed so random and happening to users that weren’t doing anything with walls.

It took a lot of time, persistence, and help from some engineers to isolate this one. Well worth the effort!!! 🙂

 

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Excellent work, thanks!

 

About the cause, we haven't knowingly edited that particular class...however if the fix works, no matter.

 

I wonder though if editing some other class the walls or components are on might have to do something to do with this as well...? Those I could say for certain we've changed in the process.

 

 

 

 

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The unjoin happened to me today after I committed my file, and I think it was right after I changed the outer wall component class so that it has a texture with a surface hatch (previously none). This would further indicate it is something about classes and changes to those.

 

Please see below. Again, curiously only some corners exhibit this even though all external walls are the same type.

 

 

image.png

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
5 hours ago, JMR said:

The unjoin happened to me today after I committed my file, and I think it was right after I changed the outer wall component class so that it has a texture with a surface hatch (previously none). This would further indicate it is something about classes and changes to those.

 

Please see below. Again, curiously only some corners exhibit this even though all external walls are the same type.

 

@JMR,

 

Interesting. I've not been able to reproduce this with any edits to classes used for wall components.

Did you have the walls (or their design layers) checked out before this happened? If not, were you prompted to check them out after editing the classes?

 

Do you have a copy of the file before this happened?

If so, can you send it to me? If not, can you send it in its current state?

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Matt,

 

I sent you a link to a shared directory with example files. There are states before and after, however since I was working offline this weekend there are quite a bit of steps between the files. I dug the previous ones up from backups and made a new working file based on the PF, which still displays joined walls.

 

As to you questions, I use "automatically check out" functionality so I don't know if the program checks the walls out when editing a component class texture. I've also turned off the repeating prompt about checking out. We don't check out complete DL's any longer since the automatic check out and custom release functionality seems to work so much better (I guess it is lighter for the program to handle).

 

Again, maybe the issue has nothing to do with component class edits - but that's the only "visible" change could guess. Now, between the example files there are other steps as well, unfortunately.

 

 

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

@JMR,

 

I've spent quite some time trying to reproduce this and, so far, I have not been able to trigger it without editing a class used for the "Attributes Beyond Cut Plane" of a wall style. Are you sure you had everyone's changes committed before updating the wall styles to have "Attributes Beyond Cut Plane" set to "Object Class"? I'm thinking there may've been something lingering somewhere that threw things off.

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