Hi all,
Hoping someone has the knowledge I need out there... I have some files with many xrefs in them that I have had to transfer from one computer to another because the hard drive they were stored on died. The files have the Sheets in paperspace (xrefed title blocks), and other files xrefed into model space (site plan with many xrefs into it for the buildings, details, etc.).
Normally when I open a file like this on a new computer and the xrefs don't show up because the paths are different, I go into the xref box (whatever you call it), click on the xref, browse for the new location, save the path and voila, it reappears. However, with these files it won't work - it says invalid every time I try to save the new path. The original site plans are a mess - I am just doing CAD work for another office so they may have done something strange to the files, but I've never encountered this problem. I just detached all the xrefs from one of the detail sheets and tried just to attach the title block again, and it still won't let me do it, says invalid. I've purged and audited, but have no idea what else to do.
Any suggestions?
Thanks...
Sometimes AutoCAD convinces itself that an x-ref is a block. Go through the insert>block dialogue and see if it's in there. If it is you need to delete it before you will be allowed to attach the x-ref.
Also - The AutoDesk website is an incredible source of information about AutoCAD. http://discussion.autodesk.com/index.jspa?categoryID=1
Thanks... I don't have the block problem, but so far I did find one hint that was useful on the autodesk discussion - it said to recover/audit the xrefs. It worked for the titleblock, and let me reattach it. It won't work for the siteplan with multiple xrefs though, because now I can't even open those files themselves without it saying the file is in use or write protected (enev though I have nothing else open). UGhhh. I'm sure the problem stems from errors within the site & bldg files I got originally, but I would like to find a way to do this without having to detach, revover, thenreattach everything. oh well.
Our worthless CAD help, cannot figure out what this problem is:
I have a set of drawings which like all projects before it, the sheets are composed of multiple xref's. As the project has evolved, blocks, layers, have been added. All items show up on the sheet file, however where a layer color has been changed the "new" color does not load. I have to detach and re-attach the xref in order for this to happen.
Does anyone have a suggestion/solution? (I'd like to throw the computer out of the window, set in on fire and piss on it, but that is not in the cards)
a couple of things make sure visretain is set to 1, make sure your layer states are up to date and make sure all of you colors are on bylayer...those are the immediate things i can think of
The only thing I can think to add is trying a CDG purge. It's a program that more or less deep scans AutoCad files and lets you purge out un-necessary crap. That has helped for me in these instances when standard purge and audit hasn't worked.
Not sure where to get the application. Comes from Cad Development Group.
Make a path on the new computer that is exactly the same as the path from the old computer (existing xref paths). If this works, you know it is a path problem with possible related settings.
I think I have had a similar problem in the past. Does the new layer load, just not with the correct color? Or are you changing the color on an existing layer? In any case, you may have to manually go to the layer dialog box and change the color for those layers, unless you want to reattach the xrefs...
You may find this an odd way of fixing this- and this problem is general-
On one of the xrefs, there may be text that doesn't work with your specific computer- especially the ones that my be in an arc- arc align text command and selecting a text that you may feel is in question definitely does the trick. it was a big problem in our office for about a month before we figured it out....good luck
ok, i'm resurrecting this old thread because i am facing a problem and i know you smart people can help.
we recently got new computers in our office (pretty sweet set up, actually! 24" widescreen!!!) and we relinked our shared external hard drive.
the problem is, the drive changed letters from E: to Z: and now all of our x-refs need to be relinked. is there some way i can globally do this to all of our drawings (there are a lot of them!)? the only difference between the paths is the drive letter. i am running autocad 2007, if that makes any difference.
but etransmit...zips your files so you can either transfer or email to another pc. then you unzip them and all the xrefs are automatically linked to the new designated location....
But it sounds like you are trying to open your files from another location, that you dragged your files to. So etransmitt, might not work for you. unless you can open the files from its original location.
i can't help with this prob but i will say for you or anyone else who may not know, creating relative paths for xrefs is a must, at the bear minimum. having a standard solid folder set up for every project with these relative paths is even better, but i understand after many years doing this that is very difficult to coordinate and follow with the varied nature of projects. but however you set up your project you should always assign relative and not full paths to xrefs:
.\fuckthisarchitecturebullshit.dwg ....if its in the same folder
..\fuckthisarchitecturebullshit.dwg ....if its one folder back
and so on.. its a good practice to get into for the future.
you can, when attaching an xref, select a pull down such from the dialogue that says 'relative path' instead of 'full path'.
but retroactively on projects though go through and edit the 'saved paths' of xrefs so that, as i said previously, and its kind of difficult to explain be warned:
basically, .\drawing.dwg is equal to the same folder or one+ folder foward (.\folder\drawing.dwg)
whereas ..\drawing.dwg means the xref is back one folder in the tree
example:
if c:\project\drawing\elevation.dwg is xrefed into:
c:\project\drawing\plan.dwg
it would only have to be called .\elevation.dwg in the xref manager.
whereas, if c:\project\elevation.dwg is xrefed into:
c:\project\drawing\plan.dwg
it would be called ..\elevation.dwg cause its one folder back in the tree from the drawing its referenced to
the more complex the folder set up the more difficult it is to figure out the path but the fortunately the computer won't let you change it if it isnt typed in correctly. play around with it and it'll start to make more sense. the help dialogue might expain it better than me but i think trial and error is the best way to get familiar with it.
because if you set up a project correctly and use all standards and don't fuck around with anything custom (unless you really, really, really need to) e transmit isn't ever necessary. you can zip and unzip an entire project folder at once without opening a single drawing.
relative paths are also good for moving entire projects (huge projects) into an archive drive all at once and still having them work in that separate drive if anyone needs to access them.
and many computer programmers would take offense that the concept of minimizing code to be as efficient as possible is a 'hassle' instead of 'your job' ..of course it takes discipline.
thanks difficult FIX, but yeah, i'm not emailing files to anyone. so etransmitting does me no good.
rather, the drive letter designation changed from E: to Z: so now all my x-refs are broken. i know i can just go into each drawing and change them through the x-ref manager, but i don't want to have to do that to all my drawings. i was thinking there may be some global way of doing this.
workforidlehands, thanks for your replies! however, right now i don't have the attention span to really figure out what you're talking about! but i'll give it a try later on when i can focus better.
dumb question maybe, but there's no way to reassign the drive back to its old letter? even if you have to temporarily disconnect some other drives?
i mean, there is of course, but not knowing the environment or setup you're working in i don't know how easy this is or if this would save time or not... but if its gonna happen for every project its an officewide problem and might be worth trying. that's the route i'd pursue first.
yeah, it is possible for us to rename it back to the original letter. however, the reason we changed the drive letter is because we have another drive that we were trying to reconnect that wanted the drive letter of our other hard drive and blah blah blah, i think i've lost you!
i lost myself, actually.
ehhhhh... i guess i'll just have to worry about changing the x-refs back when i open a drawing to work on.
listen to me very carefully, before you do something nutty, autocad, depending on the version has a batch xref repathing utility that does what you want....look for it.
I need all you folks working for me....cause I didn't understand a damn thing you were saying....and I must have 10 projects in various stages in the office...and it is me and the mrs...
try wblock the drawing out as a new file before reattaching your xref. sometimes after the file is corrupted, you cannot do anything with it. create a new one.
I dont mean to be harsh, a problem that i know I have is since i dont have enought time i dont read the post i glance and comment....i really should start reading, i still havent read any of it....
Need ACAD Xref HELP!
Hi all,
Hoping someone has the knowledge I need out there... I have some files with many xrefs in them that I have had to transfer from one computer to another because the hard drive they were stored on died. The files have the Sheets in paperspace (xrefed title blocks), and other files xrefed into model space (site plan with many xrefs into it for the buildings, details, etc.).
Normally when I open a file like this on a new computer and the xrefs don't show up because the paths are different, I go into the xref box (whatever you call it), click on the xref, browse for the new location, save the path and voila, it reappears. However, with these files it won't work - it says invalid every time I try to save the new path. The original site plans are a mess - I am just doing CAD work for another office so they may have done something strange to the files, but I've never encountered this problem. I just detached all the xrefs from one of the detail sheets and tried just to attach the title block again, and it still won't let me do it, says invalid. I've purged and audited, but have no idea what else to do.
Any suggestions?
Thanks...
Sometimes AutoCAD convinces itself that an x-ref is a block. Go through the insert>block dialogue and see if it's in there. If it is you need to delete it before you will be allowed to attach the x-ref.
Also - The AutoDesk website is an incredible source of information about AutoCAD.
http://discussion.autodesk.com/index.jspa?categoryID=1
Thanks... I don't have the block problem, but so far I did find one hint that was useful on the autodesk discussion - it said to recover/audit the xrefs. It worked for the titleblock, and let me reattach it. It won't work for the siteplan with multiple xrefs though, because now I can't even open those files themselves without it saying the file is in use or write protected (enev though I have nothing else open). UGhhh. I'm sure the problem stems from errors within the site & bldg files I got originally, but I would like to find a way to do this without having to detach, revover, thenreattach everything. oh well.
any chance you can zip one problem file with all of the suspect xrefs and let me have a go at it? i am pretty damn good with this kind of thing.
Our worthless CAD help, cannot figure out what this problem is:
I have a set of drawings which like all projects before it, the sheets are composed of multiple xref's. As the project has evolved, blocks, layers, have been added. All items show up on the sheet file, however where a layer color has been changed the "new" color does not load. I have to detach and re-attach the xref in order for this to happen.
Does anyone have a suggestion/solution? (I'd like to throw the computer out of the window, set in on fire and piss on it, but that is not in the cards)
a couple of things make sure visretain is set to 1, make sure your layer states are up to date and make sure all of you colors are on bylayer...those are the immediate things i can think of
The only thing I can think to add is trying a CDG purge. It's a program that more or less deep scans AutoCad files and lets you purge out un-necessary crap. That has helped for me in these instances when standard purge and audit hasn't worked.
Not sure where to get the application. Comes from Cad Development Group.
Make a path on the new computer that is exactly the same as the path from the old computer (existing xref paths). If this works, you know it is a path problem with possible related settings.
Open each file and save them as a new name. This should eliminate any archive/write protected problems. Be sure to organize your layer of xrefs first.
I think I have had a similar problem in the past. Does the new layer load, just not with the correct color? Or are you changing the color on an existing layer? In any case, you may have to manually go to the layer dialog box and change the color for those layers, unless you want to reattach the xrefs...
You may find this an odd way of fixing this- and this problem is general-
On one of the xrefs, there may be text that doesn't work with your specific computer- especially the ones that my be in an arc- arc align text command and selecting a text that you may feel is in question definitely does the trick. it was a big problem in our office for about a month before we figured it out....good luck
RA
Yes, the new layers load with all objects, just not with the correct colors. Everything is "bylayer" etc. I ended up re-attaching the xref's
ok, i'm resurrecting this old thread because i am facing a problem and i know you smart people can help.
we recently got new computers in our office (pretty sweet set up, actually! 24" widescreen!!!) and we relinked our shared external hard drive.
the problem is, the drive changed letters from E: to Z: and now all of our x-refs need to be relinked. is there some way i can globally do this to all of our drawings (there are a lot of them!)? the only difference between the paths is the drive letter. i am running autocad 2007, if that makes any difference.
All you have to do is Etransmitt..the files
When you unzipp them it will extract all the xrefs and automatically link the drawings. so when you open the files everything will show
its under the file pull down menu....
etransmit..
I didnt read your whole comment till now....
but etransmit...zips your files so you can either transfer or email to another pc. then you unzip them and all the xrefs are automatically linked to the new designated location....
But it sounds like you are trying to open your files from another location, that you dragged your files to. So etransmitt, might not work for you. unless you can open the files from its original location.
OSnap...this is a very old...topic...... Just noticed the date
i can't help with this prob but i will say for you or anyone else who may not know, creating relative paths for xrefs is a must, at the bear minimum. having a standard solid folder set up for every project with these relative paths is even better, but i understand after many years doing this that is very difficult to coordinate and follow with the varied nature of projects. but however you set up your project you should always assign relative and not full paths to xrefs:
.\fuckthisarchitecturebullshit.dwg ....if its in the same folder
..\fuckthisarchitecturebullshit.dwg ....if its one folder back
and so on.. its a good practice to get into for the future.
etransmit
you can, when attaching an xref, select a pull down such from the dialogue that says 'relative path' instead of 'full path'.
but retroactively on projects though go through and edit the 'saved paths' of xrefs so that, as i said previously, and its kind of difficult to explain be warned:
basically, .\drawing.dwg is equal to the same folder or one+ folder foward (.\folder\drawing.dwg)
whereas ..\drawing.dwg means the xref is back one folder in the tree
example:
if c:\project\drawing\elevation.dwg is xrefed into:
c:\project\drawing\plan.dwg
it would only have to be called .\elevation.dwg in the xref manager.
whereas, if c:\project\elevation.dwg is xrefed into:
c:\project\drawing\plan.dwg
it would be called ..\elevation.dwg cause its one folder back in the tree from the drawing its referenced to
the more complex the folder set up the more difficult it is to figure out the path but the fortunately the computer won't let you change it if it isnt typed in correctly. play around with it and it'll start to make more sense. the help dialogue might expain it better than me but i think trial and error is the best way to get familiar with it.
Why bother with all them hassles....etransmit...will do the job...
if i remember correctly autocad does have a batch utility that does what you need.
because if you set up a project correctly and use all standards and don't fuck around with anything custom (unless you really, really, really need to) e transmit isn't ever necessary. you can zip and unzip an entire project folder at once without opening a single drawing.
relative paths are also good for moving entire projects (huge projects) into an archive drive all at once and still having them work in that separate drive if anyone needs to access them.
and many computer programmers would take offense that the concept of minimizing code to be as efficient as possible is a 'hassle' instead of 'your job' ..of course it takes discipline.
thanks difficult FIX, but yeah, i'm not emailing files to anyone. so etransmitting does me no good.
rather, the drive letter designation changed from E: to Z: so now all my x-refs are broken. i know i can just go into each drawing and change them through the x-ref manager, but i don't want to have to do that to all my drawings. i was thinking there may be some global way of doing this.
workforidlehands, thanks for your replies! however, right now i don't have the attention span to really figure out what you're talking about! but i'll give it a try later on when i can focus better.
dumb question maybe, but there's no way to reassign the drive back to its old letter? even if you have to temporarily disconnect some other drives?
i mean, there is of course, but not knowing the environment or setup you're working in i don't know how easy this is or if this would save time or not... but if its gonna happen for every project its an officewide problem and might be worth trying. that's the route i'd pursue first.
yeah, it is possible for us to rename it back to the original letter. however, the reason we changed the drive letter is because we have another drive that we were trying to reconnect that wanted the drive letter of our other hard drive and blah blah blah, i think i've lost you!
i lost myself, actually.
ehhhhh... i guess i'll just have to worry about changing the x-refs back when i open a drawing to work on.
thanks for your help, though.
listen to me very carefully, before you do something nutty, autocad, depending on the version has a batch xref repathing utility that does what you want....look for it.
Cris...Etransmit...m,akes a zip that you transfer to another pc....
So dont be stup...
Dont blame your inexperience of CAD...on me...
difficult FIX, why are you being so obtuse?
stourley, thanks, i'll look for that.
I need all you folks working for me....cause I didn't understand a damn thing you were saying....and I must have 10 projects in various stages in the office...and it is me and the mrs...
try wblock the drawing out as a new file before reattaching your xref. sometimes after the file is corrupted, you cannot do anything with it. create a new one.
I dont mean to be harsh, a problem that i know I have is since i dont have enought time i dont read the post i glance and comment....i really should start reading, i still havent read any of it....
anyways back to work
don't work so hard, dude. it's friday night! =D
this is the problem with reigniting an old thread, some people just read the first few posts and add their comment.
cris, if you have the batch xref tool, it'll work fine...i had to do it on more than one occasion...
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