Something wrong with packages in Revit 2019

[Dre-Tas]

I'm struggling to identify exactly what's going on, but we're finding some issues with the packages Orkestra uses when running graphs is Revit 2019: It seems that if one of the packages that Orkestra will use already exists in Dynamo, Orkestra won't use the version that is in Orkestra, but the one that Dynamo already has installed. This of course makes the graphs fail when there is a different version of one or more packages, as the different version might have different nodes.

The same thing happens if the user doesn't have one of the packages installed.

Ah, also, when Orkestra runs the graph it immediately returns green, without having done anything. This of course makes it extra confusing as it seems it worked, but it actually didn't.

This doesn't seem to happen with Revit 2020+, but I might be wrong.

[MostafaElAyoubi]

Hey @Dre-Tas ! Thanks for reporting. This seems serious ! The package management is one of the main strenghts of Orkestra and this behaviour is completely abnormal. Let set up a call so we can figure this out. I'll reach out by email then we'll update this thread with our findings.

Cheers!

[Dre-Tas]

Yeah pretty serious indeed 🤣 Thanks mate

[MostafaElAyoubi]

Just updating the thread with new information and solution :

The issue : This happens when the packages that appear in the settings of the workspace are not in sync anymore with the actual packages loaded on the platform. The most likely explanation is that it happens because package settings of a workspace are updated while revit/dynamo is opened and has those packages loaded. Some warnings regarding this should and will be displayed by Orkestra in the future!

The solution : Close Revit and Dynamo, reupload the packages to the workspaces (through the desktop app). This should bring everything back to normal. Your users should also restart Revit if they have it opened at that time. They will automatically be invited to update their packages the next time they log in to Orkestra.

I hope this is clear enough 😅 !

@Dre-Tas feel free to close this issue if it solves the problem on yours and your users side.

[Dre-Tas]

I'll give it until next week to see if it happens again if you don't mind, then I'll close it

[Dre-Tas]

@MostafaElAyoubi this happened again still in Revit 2019 😢 it's becoming scary

I tried deleting the json file from the user's machine and then open the desktop app so it would re-instantiate them and nothing. We also uninstalled and reinstalled Orkestra and nothing.

He's keeps getting this error

Again, it looks like it's not finding the custom packages, but if I check his Orkestra packages folder it is actually there! It works on my machine though.

[MostafaElAyoubi]

Hey @Dre-Tas ! Thanks for following up on this. Can you please try to reupload the packages to the workspace ? (please make sure to close revit before doing so, in order to ensure that the resources you update are not in use). Once you're done reuploading the packages, re-do the json deletion and restart of revit on the users side. I hope this'll solve the issue!

[Dre-Tas]

We have done already the json deletin and restart of Revit. Only thing I haven't done is reuploading the packages, but I don't see how that would change considering that the same script is working on other machines (including mine).

[MostafaElAyoubi]

indeed! if it works on other machines then it might be a machine specific issue and reuploading the packages won't make a difference. One thing you should try- in order to make sure it actually works on your side - is delete the packages from your Dynamo settings (the local ones) and try and run the definitions through Orkestra Online. You'll see if Orkestra actually brings those packages for you.

PS : sorry for closing the issue! didn't do it on purpose 😄

[Dre-Tas]

Just tried and yeah I actually get the same error....

[MostafaElAyoubi]

okay that might actually be a good thing haha 😄 . If you reupload the packages to the workspaces and give it another shot, you may finally have it working.

[Dre-Tas]

Are packages kind of expiring at some point? Because I'm 100% sure it was working a few weeks ago.

[MostafaElAyoubi]

There is no expiration that is supposed to happen. It is most likely an upload/deletion/modification of a package that made things go wrong. I've been investigating this ever since our last talk on the topic and it might be due to the modification of the packages of a workspace that is "in use". We're implementing ways to prevent that from happening.

[Dre-Tas]

I haven't touched the packages in that workspace at all since downloading them

[MostafaElAyoubi]

hmm now that is strange 🤔🤔🤔 Any luck with the reupload of packages?

[Dre-Tas]

That seemed to have worked now. But I'm concerned if this could happen again

[MostafaElAyoubi]

Okay thank you so much for the follow up @Dre-Tas !! much much appreciated.

Will keep a very close eye on this topic. Never hesitate to reach out if you suspect this might be happening again.

On our side, we're implementing extra checks on the packages stored on the server side as well as explicit messages letting admins know when a package upload in unsuccessful due to resources being in use as it is the only way we have been able to reproduce a similar behavior to what you had so far.

[MostafaElAyoubi]

Implemented in v.1.3.0