2024.1 Schema Warning

Glynnis with IDEATE posted information at the Autodesk User Forums that you should be aware of if you're using 3rd party tools and are going to deploy, or have deployed, Revit 2024.1. Ironic that this update is the one that has caused a potential disruptive issue since many firms wait for this point release to deploy. I've taken her initial post and copied it here, go read the entire thread for any more recent commentary. Thanks Glynnis!

There's been a lot of chatter about the Schema error that was landing in a post about What's New in 2024.1 so I took the good suggestion from @RobDraw to start a new thread here.

What is a Schema?

I welcome other people's input on this, but from my perspective, a schema can be best thought of as a blob of Revit metadata, held in Extensible Storage workset, that has a unique GUID. This blob of data is most often used by 3rd party developers but is also used by Autodesk (or companies acquired by Autodesk). The structure of that data, per each GUID, needs to be the same. If a developer alters the data structure, then a new GUID is needed to avoid the error.

What causes a Schema error?

In order to experience a Schema error, you need to have two files (or a file with a linked file) that have the same schema GUID but with a different data structure. Whichever file is opened first 'wins' within the active Revit session. This makes solving these problems REALLY hard because the file that displays the error is not necessarily the file with the 'problem' schema. It's also why this problem seems to be squashed sometimes and then resurface later. If you only ever open one Revit file at a time within a session of Revit, you'll never see the error.

What's the New Problem

The new problem seems to relate to Revit files that are upgraded to 2024/2024.1. The 11 July Revit 2024.1 release notes show that in there were changes made to the API to try and fix an outstanding schema condition. It feels like that change may have created some new conditions. We have an open case with Autodesk on this issue.

This is the latest schema article on this at Autodesk

Autodesk Revit schema issue article

Revit 2020.2 Internal Origin Part Three

John Pierson and Parallax Team Apps recently shared a solution at the Autodesk App Store called Internal Origin Hide-ifier. I thought mine was cool but it doesn't install itself or come with a Doge.

It's only 1,000 bucks...nope its free!! Check it out.

Reference Planes without Names

It is a common practice to add a name to the reference planes we create. If it isn't common where you work then it ought to be. The name helps give a hint to anyone that works in the model that this reference plane is more important than those without a name. It can also help understand what it is for, why it was made.

There are some who make the effort to clear out reference planes that are not named periodically, just another of any number of model/housekeeping chores. I've even seen Dynamo scripts intended for this task.

If you're using Ideate's Explorer you'll find it easy to see a summary of all the reference planes in the model. In the following image I've created two reference planes, one with a name and another without a name.

Notice that there are five (5) reference planes listed though. As it happens, when the Edit Profile concept is used on a wall four reference planes are created and internally applied against the sketch of the wall. They are only visible to us while editing the wall's profile sketch. We can't see these reference planes in the regular user interface, it only becomes very apparent with their Explorer tool.

It is also possible for us to create reference planes while creating any sketch based element, like a floor or stair for example. These reference planes are only visible to us while editing their related sketch.

The reference planes associated with a wall's edited profile can't be deleted via IDEATE Explorer. It can delete them when we've created our own within a wall's profile and other sketch based elements.

Attempting to clean up these unnamed reference planes might also be an issue if you're writing your own code or Dynamo script to delete them. We can/could add names to these internal reference planes (wall profile) but I don't think that's a task that worth the effort.

Something to keep in mind.