REALLY nasty problem that appears to be totally unfixable

[JST]

A minor constituent of the main model got, by accident of mis-typing, a file of its same name as a part within it. The file of the constituent is now bad, and marks everything it is in as bad as well.

Now the entire main model will not open, because the constituent of it has that issue. No sub-part will open if that minor constituent is included in it.

It is an unfixable error from within Alibre, there are no facilities for fixing it. It may require rebuilding the entire model from scratch, without being able to reference it to be sure of avoiding mistakes. We'll see.

It seems that this should not be possible. Since it IS possible, it seems that there ought to be some means for fixing the problem IN Alibre. The bad file is known, and that "cleanup utility" that I mentioned elsewhere would be a good place to put the removal tool.

Mind, this is not just a fix for this particular and individual problem, but a means to remove troublesome parts from a model when the part makes the file not openable, or not editable. I've had situations like that before, where I was pretty sure what the bad file was, but had no way to deal with it.

What I am going to try is to use the OS facilities to delete the bad file from the file system. That MAY trigger the program to just flag a missing file request a substitute, while allowing it to open the remainder of the file.

 

[JST]

OK, I had to delete more files than I thought I would need to, but most of the model will now open.

That DID trigger a flag of missing files, but it allowed opening. That converts it from potentially sparking homicide, down to being just really, really, annoying.

This "solution" works, but it would be far better to be able to correct the problem.

I still think that a utility for "cleanup and fixing" from within Alibre would be good. Being able to get a bad file out of a subassembly without having to lose the subassembly would be a very good thing.

At minimum, some facility similar to the missing file dialog would be good. Alibre "knows" what the problem file is. Alibre knows there is a problem before it even tries to open the model. Put those two together, and you have a way to salvage what is still good.

Ideally, when opening, Alibre would "vet" or "qualify" all the constituent files just as it apparently does now, and flag bad ones for replacement, with the fall-back being opening the model without the bad file, just the same as with missing files.