Assembly problems

[jagadmin]

Recently with opening some assemblies we have run across a problem where parts simply do not appear. The parts are shown in the feature tree, but you can try to highlight them in the tree or mouse over them where they should be on the assembly, but you do not get an outline or anything of the part. We have tried rebuilding and force rebuild(CTRL-Q) but this does not work.

The only thing that resolves this is to open the part from the assembly. When the part opens the screen is simply blank but if you do a rebuild it finally appears. Once you save the part and go back to the assembly, the part finally appears on the assembly.

We have tried opening these assemblies on multiple workstations with different workstation configurations and the same thing happens. All of the machines are running SW 2004 with SP 3.

If anybody knows why this is occurring please let me know.

 

[Theophilus]

Sounds strange. Were the assemblies built in these same-configured machines or gathered from an outside source?

Almost sounds like a file corruption.

Does this happen on newly-built assemblies?

(I'm taking for granted the parts in the assembly are not "hidden" or suppressed, but that this is an assembly file problem.)

Jeff Mowry
Industrial Designhaus, LLC

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

 

[Heckler]

I ran into this problem when SW 2000 came out. If I remember correctly it was a settings issue. I believe that was the first release that gave us the ability to load light weight parts (correct me if I'm wrong). So I would check the settings.

Also are you using a supported video card and driver?

 

[PDMAdmin]

How large are the assemblies you are loading? We have found that assemblies of more than about 200 parts sometimes send SolidWorks straight into "twilight zone" territory. The usual suspects are in order -- make sure you have enough RAM and virtual memory, make sure your video card and driver are supported / up-to-date. Also, check to see if you're in large assembly mode. SolidWorks sometimes turns it on, even if you're below the threshold. Being in large assembly mode shouldn't cause problems like what you have experienced, but pinpointing the cause of your problem goes a long way towards coming up with a resolution.

 

[jagadmin]

This problem is just very strange. If you open up the assembly as lightweight everything is there, but as soon as you resolve the parts they disappear.

The problem is occurring on all of the assemblies for this project and they range from ten to a few hundred parts. The standard/purchase parts are fine but all of the newly designed parts seem to have this problem and all of the parts are developed in house.

Workstations all have SW certified cards and drivers and problem exists on each machine. The files are located on a Novell server and are using client version 4.90 SP1a.

Workstation config #1:
P4 2.8ghz
1GB RAM
3DLabs Wildcat VP560

Workstation config #2:
P3 933mhz
784MB RAM
3DLabs Oxygen VX1

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Novell is not recommended by SW.
Try copying all the necessary files to a local machine & opening the assy from there?

from (the City of) Barrie, Ontario.

Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have

 

[Standing]

jagadmin,
I am guessing here. Would you do a test? In the SolidWorks main menu click File, then Find References…
In the Search Results window is all the location of parts that disappear in a known location?
We had a similar problem when one designer would use Explore to copy files for the rest of us. His assemblies were on the network, which he copied ok, but some of the files were on his C:\ drive where not copied. When he opened it everything was fine.


Bradley

 

[jagadmin]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried moving the files locally but had the same problems. I also checked the reference locations and everything was in the right location.

 

[Standing]

jagadmin,
Now what I would do, is zip up the files you just moved locally. Then send them to your VAR and see what they can find.


Bradley