Strange randomly named (and invalid) parts created

[KenFarley]

I believe this has been addressed in the past but I can't find a discussion that is pertinent.

We're using Creo 4.0, M090.

Users in my company will re-use an old design, modifying it to suit a new situation. In the process, probably after a save, Creo will create a part file whose name is a random string of characters, for example

"d938ei1k61ho5l23kmnenkfti6.prt.1"

These are rather large files, many MBs larger than anything else in the directory, and if you are curious and attempt to open one, Creo will crash.

I'm guessing that this behavior is associated with what version of Creo the model was created in?

Does anyone have any ideas as to what is causing this behavior and/or how we can avoid it happening?

[Chris3 · Accepted solution]

You can't make it not happen.

These are temporary parts that Creo makes in the background that are supposed to be invisible to the user. If you monitor your working directory sometimes you can see them be created and then deleted rapidly. The only way you can stop them from being made is to not run a process (interference check, flexible components, etc) that causes them to be made.

Creo makes these parts when doing things like interference checks where it needs to figure out the volume of the interference. To do that it makes a temporary part and measures the volume and then deletes the part. It also creates temporary parts in the background when you have things like flexible models.

They are not meant to be opened as standalone parts. You are never supposed to see them. If they are not automatically getting deleted reach out to PTC and report it as a bug.

[KenFarley]

Aha. Since we tend to run at least one interference check as part of the "is my design okay" process, and don't normally use flexible components, I'm tagging that process as the most likely culprit. And it's definitely only associated with old (i.e. originally created in the Pro/E era) models. I don't see this behavior myself because I pointedly avoid using these old and usually poorly modeled designs as a basis for new work. Some of these are from the dark times when you had to designate a feature as "CUT" or "PROTRUSION" and couldn't change it (like maybe even the late 1990s). Ack.

I'm kind of out on a limb as far as reporting it, I think. Isn't Creo 4.0 now outside its support period?

[StephenW]

Memories...Feature - Create - Protrusion!~~!~ DBMS - Save 

Creo 4 standard support ended May 2020 and we are still using Creo 4 also. They are still releasing maintenance builds, supposedly for up to one year after that, which is basically now.

https://support.ptc.com/cs/product_calendar/PTC_Product_Calendar.htm