We've been running into this situation lately. Linked Revit models start using an individuals collaboration cache location for the path instead of the project's BIM 360 location.
At first it seemed that we could resolve it easily by applying the update for Revit 2020. Most of the active projects I deal with are still based on Revit 2020.
It appears that a fair number of firms are deploying "even" years and skipping the "odd" years. The larger the scope of deployment seems to have some influence over that choice. I've been working with 2021 in smaller situations though, wishing it were true everywhere...I digress.
Autodesk acknowledges the issue and has this ARTICLE to contend with it.
Wishing it were that simple, we are still running into it. Naturally there is another ARTICLE that mentions they are still researching the issue but that using Force Relinquish (BIM 360 Manage Cloud Models option) can cause this situation too. This requires us to clear the collaboration cache for a user who has forced us (haha) to use Force Relinquish. We are still in the diagnosis phase ourselves so we're not convinced of anything yet.
The article also tells us that using Force Relinquish should be a last resort and not recommended for routine use. Autodesk article says,
"This is happening because somebody has used Manage Cloud Models to force relinquish that user from that link, which breaks the link in the host model for the affected user."
"Note: Force Relinquish is a destructive operation and should be used sparingly! It is intended to be used as a last resort when the user to be relinquished is unavailable for some reason."
"If someone has been forced out through Force Relinquish, then all the changes that they have not synced, become orphaned and lost. While the central model will be unaffected by the use, people can lose work (and have to close and reopen the model which will be slow)."
"It is better for the user to open the model and use Relinquish All Mine to relinquish their permissions rather than using the Manage Cloud Models dialog."
Okay, that's fair. However the new named user subscription based model "forces" this option on us (not haha) at large because we can't pretend to be another user anymore. As soon as we log off to become that user we lose our Revit session too. Catch 22
It would be nice if employees didn't quit and go elsewhere or earn a dismissal. It would be nice if 3rd party applications didn't need to borrow a workset on our behalf and then refuse to return a workset without our knowledge. It would be nice is 3rd party applications that do automation didn't require their own username to run quietly in the background and then fail to return a workset from time to time.
That world is where we can find pink unicorns with diamond encrusted saddles, at least I think that's where they are, I could be wrong?
Right now clearing a workset conflict in Revit Server projects is not nice. BIM 360 at least has Force Relinquish...but now we're told you really shouldn't use it because it might wreck your linked model paths. It starts the kind of internal conversations that make EyeTee license management "heads spin". Nobody wants users to start sharing log in credentials do they?
Additional Collaboration Cache Article
1 comment:
Thank you for posting this. This has been a known problem for months and it has affected multiple models in our firm. In a big, multi-office firm, where everyone is working from home, it has been nearly impossible to get the word out to every corner of the firm that users should not force-relinquish users under almost any circumstances. But there is no way to curb the user who is working late, discovers that someone left without relinquishing, and so searches the internet for "force relinquish BIM 360". I'm so angry with Autodesk that they didn't take down these pages on force relinquishing the moment they understood what a problem this is. On a large project this can takes hours to fix not to mention the countless hours of work lost for the project team. It's been months since Autodesk first posted their difficult-to-find mea culpa about this issue claiming that they were working on a solution. The least they could do is to take down all the (easy-to-find) instructions on how to force relinquish.
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