Inventor assembly missing reference to file that is not part of assembly


Issue:
You have an assembly that is missing one or more refences. This is not uncommon when files have been moved or renamed outside of a Vault environment. The challenge in this scenario is that the top-level assembly indicates missing references, but none are shown in the browser. The image below is an example of what you may see.

 
Another confusing aspect of this scenario is that the file indicated by the File Resolution window is not a file that is currently, or has been previously, directly referenced by the assembly. There are also no sub-assemblies indicating missing references.
Causes:
In this case, the root cause is a modeling practice that not all users may be familiar with, which allows a designer to make references between parts via the Parameter Table. To determine if this situation is what you’re dealing with, you can open the part, or parts listed in the assembly or sub-assemblies. Then, if that is the problem, you will see an indicator for a broken/missing reference which is normally only seen in assemblies or drawings.
 
Solution:
The first challenge is to find the file that contains the missing reference. This can be time consuming since the parts do not show the error in the browser. Using the Resolve Link dialog is the best option as it will allow you to see which file is referencing the missing file. 
 

Once you’ve found the file with the missing reference you can remove the broken reference by deleting it as shown below. You’ll notice there is no option to repair or replace the reference.

 

Once the reference is deleted, the parameters that were previously coming from the other part will now show up as User Defined Properties with no relationship to the originally referenced file.
 
Once the broken reference is removed, that should have resolved the file resolution error in the assembly as well, as long as there are not other files with the same type of missing reference.
 

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Heath White

Sr. Technical Support Specialist, Manufacturing

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