Troubleshooting and Frequently Asked Questions

This section outlines common issues and their solutions with regards to managing your servers. See also Troubleshooting Model-Level Locks in Revit Server. What is the difference between an administrative lock, a user lock, and an element-level lock?

This section outlines common issues and their solutions with regards to managing your servers.

See also Troubleshooting Model-Level Locks in Revit Server.

What is the difference between an administrative lock, a user lock, and an element-level lock?

  • An administrative lock is performed by an administrator using the Revit Server Administrator tool or Revit Server Lock and Save Command-Line Utility to lock the server.
  • A user lock refers to data or permission locks that are applied to a model by a team member in the Revit application to manage concurrent access to the central server. This type of lock may remain locked if a team member’s system closes unexpectedly or the network becomes unresponsive during a server-based transaction. In this scenario, the administrator needs to clear the lock.
  • An element-level lock prevents multiple team members from changing the same element in a model at the same time. See Editing Workshared Projects.

    Note User and element-level locks are applied transparently by Revit, not by the user directly (unlike the administrative lock, which is explicitly applied).

How do I clear user locks if the network becomes unresponsive or a server-based transaction is interrupted?

You should delete the entire lock file rather than clearing the lock files on the server. Also, often if the team member whose operation was interrupted retries (and the retry is successful), the locks clear without further action needed. Under no circumstances should you manually edit lock files.

Question from Jason Bailly: should both the 'Data_Users.lock' and the 'Permissions_Users.lock' file be removed? The prescribed method up until now has been to clear the contents of the Data_Users.lock file and leave the Permissions_Users.lock file alone. It seems that removing the contents of the Permissions_Users.lock file can render users' local copies useless.

For answers to these questions, please see Troubleshooting Model-Level Locks in Revit Server.

When reporting an error to Autodesk, what information should be included?

Include the local and central server log files, Revit journal files, IIS log files, as well as the operating system log file.

Can team members work with models that are locked for maintenance?

They can continue working in their local files, creating new elements and editing elements that are already in their possession. However, they can not conduct any transaction that would change either the model's data state or permissions state. This includes borrowing other elements, synchronizing with central, or reload latest. Contact your administrator for assistance.

Can team members use the same username in Revit when working with Revit Server?

Team members must not use the same username in Revit while using Revit Server. The exception is when a team member is out of the office and another team member needs to relinquish their permissions so that changes can be made to a model.

If you need to make this exception, immediately revert the username when finished, because model corruption and damage is possible if multiple team members attempt to access the model with the same username simultaneously.

Why is the Connect to Revit Server dialog displaying a message that the operation could not be completed?

This message displays when either the local server or the central server is unavailable. Check both the central and local servers.

Where are log files located?

Log files contain information about operations that have taken place on the server and can be used to diagnose various problems.

Logs folder location:

  • Windows Server 2008 Installation (Server): C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Revit Server\Logs
  • Windows7 installation (Revit user machine): C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\RevitServerTool\Logs
  • Windows Vista installation (Revit user machine): C:\ ProgramData/Autodesk/RevitServerTool/Logs
  • Windows XP Professional x64 installation (Revit user machine): C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\RevitServerTool\Logs

As shown above, log file locations differ depending on the operating system. On a server, the web services' and RevitServerTool's LOG/SVCLOG files are located in the Logs subfolder. On a Revit user's machine, the RevitServerTool's LOG/SVCLOG are located in the Logs subfolder.

The following log files are available:

  • AdminService.log
  • AutoSyncLog.log
  • DataService.log
  • LocalService.log
  • PermissionsService.log
  • RevitServerTool.log (the full name is determined by the location of the Revit Server tool. For example, C:\tools\RevitServerToolCommand\RevitServerTool.exe would have a log file called RevitServerTool[C__tools_RevitServerToolCommand].log . If you have multiple instances of the tool on a machine, you can distinguish between the log files based on the install location.
  • AdminRESTService.log

NoteThe server log file is continually overwritten and the information only goes back a certain period of time depending on how busy the server is.

To open log files, use Notepad or another word processor. To seek assistance, forward your log files to your IT personnel or to Autodesk Customer Support.

The diagnostic log file lists the name of each condition that is checked along with its information and test results. It includes the version of the operating system, its IIS information, the firewall, and any other related configuration information. Other log files are also created during installation.

How do I shut down a central server for maintenance?

How do I assign a new central server?

Why would I change a server’s environment variable?

You would change an environment variable to connect a local server to a new central server or to promote a local server to a central server. See Assigning a New Central Server.

How do I change a server’s environment variable?

Why do team members see 2 identical server-based entities when managing links in their model?

The team member has linked in 2 copies of a file with the same name from 2 different central servers. Because the physical server locations are not displayed in the Manage Links dialog, the paths appear to be identical, even though the links are actually referencing 2 different files.

Why do my model’s server-based links never fully resolve at the same time?

This issue may occur if a team member links in models from multiple servers. For example, he may link in a model from one server, switch his local server (and therefore the central server), and link in another model from that server. Since a user can only be connected to one server at a time, one of the 2 links fails to resolve.

How do I migrate a file-based workshared project to Revit server-based worksharing?

How does Revit Server deal with WAN connectivity issues?

If the connection between the local and central servers goes down, you can continue to work on elements that you already own. However, you cannot access new elements or Synchronize with the Central model until the WAN connection is reestablished.

How do I work around local server connection issues over a Virtual Private Network?

If you attempt to use Revit Server and a VPN or equivalent to collaborate with other firms or across domains, your local server may not connect with the central server if it cannot query the DNS server to resolve the central server name. If you experience this issue, the following solution may resolve the problem:

Add the host for the central server information into the local server's DNS so that the DNS server can resolve the central server IP address. Each local server host must be able to successfully query the DNS to access the central server name.

If the WAN connection is lost, can I open files locally?

Yes, you can still work on a "local" file (one that you have previously opened and performed a "create new local" on). In this case, you can only modify the elements that you have previously checked out, and you cannot synchronize with the central model until the connection is reestablished.

Guidelines for running Revit Server in a Virtual Environment

Revit Server performance in a virtual environment such as VMWare needs careful tuning to avoid significant performance issues. Before deploying Revit server in a virtual environment, note that the basic system requirements still apply and you should allow for additional overhead for the virtual environment.

It is recommended that you compare the performance of your virtual environment versus a physical environment. Test the network throughput and latency of your virtual environment versus your physical hardware and adjust accordingly for best performance.

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