Ghost of non-referenceed part!

[Zestje]

Hello,

I have a check-in Problem with Ilink 3.4/WF2 M230:
When I want to check in a housing part I get a message from Ilink asking me to update the 2 ghost objects. I can then choose to update or ignore them. Either way I can check the part in, so that's not a critical problem.

However, the 2 ghost parts Ilink claims my housing part has refences to are actually NOT referenced at all in my part. These were old designs, which had been referenced as external copygeom. I later updated the external copygeom to reference the new design instead of the old designs.

Global ref. viewer nor the relations dialog schow ANY relation to the ghost parts Ilink is nagging me about. So where on earth does Ilink get the idea from that my part still contains references to the old design, if ProE's own checks tell me there are no references to these parts!?! This is driving me nuts!

Does anyone know how to get rid of this annoying error message?

Thanx!

 

[alfacadfr]

Hi.

I got the same behavior with WFII M240 but working with Windchill 7.0. I was also sure not to have any references, and the global reference viewer was empty. I got ride of the ghost, when I did the check-in, checking the option box: "Auto Resolve Incomplete Objects".

I assume Windchill detected some old references in the Proe file.

 

[Zestje]

@alfacadfr

Thank you for your answer. Unfortunately I can't find this option "Auto Resolve Incomplete Objects" when checking in in ilink 3.4...

 

[pmack009]

Try deleting the old ghost parts first then check in.

 

[kdmgooner]

Does the part have a drawing associated with it?

 

[Zestje]

First of all: thank you for trying to help me out!

@pmack009
The housing part was created with a stand-alone ProE and an old design. I updated the part with a new design before trying to check it in into our Ilink database. So the old design parts have never even existed in Ilink...
Deleting the ghost parts generated by Ilink in my workspace doesn't solve this issue either :-(

@kdmgooner
No, the part has never had any drawings associated with it.

 

[kdmgooner]

Try setting the following in your config.pro:


cleanup_drawing_dependencies yes


cleanup_layout_dependencies yes


open_simplified_rep_by_default no


open_draw_simp_rep_by_default no


Now delete the ghost objects from your workspacethen open the models and save them again. I know this works for when ghost objects become attached to drawings its worth a try. Just remember to put your config setting back to what they were afterwards.

 

[Jacoolo]

make a test - save the model on disk, rename, save it on workspace again
if ghosts appear, then it is related with part, if no, then it is related to metadata(this file contains all info about model that Windchill should know and deal with)

maybe those ghots are already stored in your database? Try to search them and download

p.s it is hard to belive that Global ref viewer does not show the thing, could you attach the screenshot from GRV window?

 

[gggggggggg]

I'm reading this thread with interest as I am a new user to PDMLink 8.0. Where is the Global Ref. Viewer that is discussed?

 

[pmack009]

You do this in the part or assembly not in intralink it's info>GRV

 

[gggggggggg]

I found it, but it is "greyed out". I'm guessing it's part of some expensive module. Any idea which one?

 

[gggggggggg]

I have found the GRV, but only when I started Pro/E with the Advanced Assembly Extension (AAX).

 

[pmack009]

Pro/Engineer Advanced Assembly
<a href="http://www.ptc.com/appserver/wcms/relnotes/category.jsp?version=4075&type=324" target="_blank">
</a>

 

[Zestje]

@kdmgooner:
I already tried the 'fix' for the drawing bug, but without effect.

@muadib3d:
I already tried this: saved the model and the correct design to disk, opened them in a stand-alone ProE. Opened every single External Copygeom (that's where the references to my design are in) and clicked OK again, so that it forced the part to update the references. Then I saved again and imported into the workspace again, but still the problem exists.

I also tried (again in a stand-alone ProE) to open the part and the correct design, then renamed the design in session and on disk to the name of one of the ghost designs and regenerated each Ext. Copygeom just as I wrote above. Then I saved it, deleted all from memory and opened both parts again. Then I did the same backwards, so I renamed the ghost design to the correct design again. This had no effect. There seems to be no way to force ProE to correctly update the references to external parts.

I'll try your suggestion also just to be sure...

Also, the ghosts do not exist and have never existed in the database. The part was created with a stand-alone ProE and the the design in the Ext.Copygeom's was updated with the new design and checked in into ilink.

I could add a GRV screenshot but it really only shows the correct design as being referenced.


I think it's a big bug in the Ext.Copygeom command, since I updated the references by editing these and selecting another part as reference. I think if I had deleted the Ext.Copygeom's with the old references and created new ones which reference the new design it would probably have worked. But then I would have had to redefine most steps of the part, because every single step dependant on the design would fail.... that sucks...
Really weird is that I can manually delete the references in Ilink, but they always are back after reopening the part. If I have some time I will post screenshots in the next days.



Edited by: Zestje

 

[pmack009]

Make sure to turn on all reference types in GRV not just the defaults. I might have done this, but you will need to look at the reference models that drive the copy-G in GRV also.

Did you look at Relations and Parameters?

This might sound stupid if so just ignore: Do you have all features including suppressed features shown in the model tree?

 

[Jacoolo]

As far as I remember - I have no AAX now - Copy Geom should has an option - Dependencies - and it should be able to make it turn off. I used very often dealing with unknown ghosts.

 

[Zestje]

@pmack009:
I turned on displaying of all possible references, but the ghost references are still not shown. Neither are there any relations/parameters referencing the ghosts.
And I always have the tree show everything.

@muadib3d:
I'm using External CopyGeometry. I can switch between dependent and indepedent with regards to the updating of the geometry referenced by the Ext.CopyGeom coommand, but this has no effect on which part is referenced.

 

[Jacoolo]

zestje, making Copy geom independent won`t allow you to change the source model of it copy. It just cuts the ext dependencies from file, and then Windchill does not make this painfull ghosts. You are not able to change the model from copy is made.


You can however rename another model in the same manner as copy goem needs, put it in the session and regenerate. as far as I know copy geom regenration should fail )) this is how it is in Pro\e. We should all wait for WF 4.0 release.

 

[Schwick]

To all interested in this post, the company I work for went through data vaulting into Windchill 8.0 ondemand, July-Aug of last year.


We ran into several objects that were indeed referenced by a ghost. The objects were not fixed by the config options mentioned earlier in this thread. What actually was going on is that in an earlier pro-e version an assembly cut was created and deleted. It removed it from the model tree, however when looking at the "feature list" command found under info these assembly cuts were still there and shown as a "sup order" or -10. We do have a trick to remove these ghosts too, but it is rather long to describe here. For further info on this reply to this post and I can try to send a document to your email to describe the proceedure. Otherwise, you could wait 3-6months for PTC tech support to still not be able to help you....

 

[Zestje]

One more remark: Some
people mention Windchill for PDM in their suggestions, but we use Intralink 3.4. I don't know
Windchill at all, so I can't tell to what extent they are different and
which 'tricks' will or will not work with either of these tools. Of course I will try all suggestions anyway.

@muadib3d:
Yes, I know about this. The problem I have must lie in the fact that I have redefined an External CopyGeometry to reference the new design instead of the old design. Somehow ProE internally also kept the reference in the part to the no longer referenced old design. I'm quite sure that if I had deleted the feature and created a new one instead the problem would not have occurred. (Because of ProE's great parametric dependencies it would then have been faster to rebuild the entire part, because every feature with references to the design would no longer work and have to be redefined. The parametric way ProE works is meant to prevent just this...well, at least most of the time it works

)
I never use normal CopyGeom, because of the extra dependancies to the assemby/parts it needs. You must then always have the referenced parts in memeory as well (this is not the case with External CopyGeometry).

@Schwick
My part ever only had references to the design and never to any assembly. I never even reference other parts through assemblies to avoid possible problems as much as possible.
Nevertheless, the problem might somehow be related, so I would be thankful if you could send me your procedure. I'll PM you my email address.

Thanks again to everyone helping out!