A way to remove references in Creo that creates ghosts objects in PDMLink

[ptc-795193]

After upgrading to PDMLink 10.1 (from 9) PDMLink more often creates ghosts objects to models no longer existing. Typically prt001.prt, prt0002.prt and so on (Probably a model that is temporary used in the assembly but removed or renamed). These models is not possible to find in the reference viewer, but they are still there so PDMLink can find them and therefore create problems during check in.  We need a diagnostic tool (in the reference viewer?) to find and remove unwanted references that creates ghost objects. Both in the models and the drawings. See PTC Case C11278174 that handle this problem and also TPI 137198 that is PTC:s current recommendation to remove ghosts objects from the drawing

[mlazarine]

Check out 'Cleanup ghost objects / incomplete objects' in PTC Community.

[TomU]

Yes!  We desperately need a reference viewer for drawings (with the ability to break unneeded references).  Windchill can obviously read the references from the drawing, so why can't we see them in Creo?  Doing a save-as from a Windchill workspace will frequently leave drawing references to old objects.  Going through the convoluted "backup to disk, erase from memory, reopen from disk" process just to remove orphan references is highly inefficient.

[swood]

We recently found the setting "cleanup_drawing"dependencies" and set it to "yes_cs_not_required". This has made a big difference for us. Searching for it doesn't seem to work, but you can manually enter it.

This is the second resolution listed in case CS28858.

[BenLoosli]

Remember that CS28858 has a warning that the cleanup hidden config.pro options should NOT be enabled unless needed for a particular file.

[mender]

That's correct.  The dependency is a reference that the drawing has to some model that we don't see about right now, but the solids in memory cannot say for certain if it is truly and permanently gone, or if it is merely temporarily suppressed and may return.  So if you set this generally, then someone working on big_complex.asm loads it up and suppresses 90% of the components to do some work on it, and someone else retrieves the drawing to add a note to it, you could end up losing a lot of detailing.  So, use it when you have a drawing with the issue, as opposed to always-on.

[swood]

Thanks for the heads up. I had not seen that warning. Although that would seldom happen at our office, I could certainly see it causing huge issues the one time it nailed us.

This should be a SIMPLE thing for PTC to fix. There's no excuse for them to have these dangling references, and they cause major issues.

[TomU]

This is not entirely accurate.  The option only affects files opened from disk, NOT files opened from Windchill.  Since we never open files from disk (unless we've backed them up to disk for this specific process), we leave it enabled for all users all the time.  Keep in mind too that it will never remove references without asking you first.

[HugoHermans]

It's not only about bogus drawing references.  I had an assembly-assembly reference today causing a ghost in the workspace.  It's an old assembly (probably an Intralink 3.4 assembly), the reference type 'Relation Reference'.  I managed to work around, so the designer can proceed, but I couldn't find a way to remove the reference.

[BrianToussaint]

Along these same lines there should also be an easier way to remove Parameters that were created in the objects from Intralink 3.4 days.  Currently you have to export the objects, use a special config option and then import the objects back into your workspace.

[ArnaudVandeVeer]

As mentioned in CS28858 , there is config option that can be used when required (dont have it always active)

[mkarsten]

The config option cannot be used with windchill because the options does only work when you load parts from hard drive not from your workspace. I tried to backup my drawing and reupload it to remove the references, which worked but Windchill detects that the parts are already available in the commonspace. I cannot upload and overwrite them. 

It is absolutely unintelligible that this issue is 10 years old (see issue reports on cad.net forum) and there is still no decent PTC solution for it! 

Why is there still no reference viewer for drawings with the ability to break unneeded references? (Right now we are using Creo 4.0 and Windchill 11.1)

The only dirty fix for me was to live with this faulty drawing reference and get rid of this ghost by uploading an empty prt with the same name.