Currently I’m having an issue whenever I try to use any recently saved assembly that has been converted from .step to .sldasm.
First, I download any step file with more than one part involved (let’s just use the vexpro ball shifter as an example).
Then, I unzip the folder and open the model. It generates with no issues, and everything works great. I save everything in the model to a folder on my desktop, then completely exit my session of Solidworks. No problems yet.
This is where things get strange. I open a new session of Solidworks, and select the recently closed assembly file. The file opens, and suddenly every component in the assembly is permanently suppressed. I try unsuppressing each of the components but it simply doesn’t work. I can access each individual piece of the assembly through the feature tree (as long as it’s a .sldprt), but they won’t display themselves in the assembly for some unknown reason.
When my cursor hovers over each suppressed part, solidworks says that “the file for this component cannot be located”, even though when I open the part through the feature tree, it opens with no problems.
Has anyone else had this issue before? It’s been happening to me every time I’ve tried to do this, including when I had Solidworks 2011 installed (I’ve since upgraded to 2012). If so, would you recommend any course of action?
One thing though, when you first save the model, make sure you explicitly tell SW to save all the parts at the same time. I’ll keep trying to replicate the problem.
I used the windows-native “extract all” function. I also just tried using winrar and it didn’t make a difference. Yes, I can find them in windows explorer as well.
So another possibility: the step file you’re trying to convert is corrupt. Are you getting this with all of your step files, or is it one particular step file?
OP’s problem indicates SW isn’t able to recognize that the sldprt files linked in the sldasm are part of the model. He says he’s able to open them from the Feature Manager, which says SW knows which file is which, but the assembly view shows nothing, and all the parts are permanently suppressed, and saying that the original files can’t be accessed. The files are all where they’re supposed to be - sldasm and sldprt in the same directory. SW appears to be really confused about the sldprt files in the directory. To me, this says SW either has some really screwed up settings or the installation is corrupted, since this is common across multiple step files (so isn’t limited to a single file being corrupted, unless every single step file he touches is corrupted, which is unlikely, yet possible).
I am having similar issues. But it’s only when I try opening the step file. It doesn’t appear, it goes through the normal converting/loading stuff, then just shows the axis, but the assembly never shows up. Though it doesn’t happen for all assemblies or all parts. Main problem has been the Ball Shifter from Vex
I suspect you have a somewhat different problem, since yours only crops up with a particular file. Initial guess is a broken STEP file. It may be a good idea to move this to a different thread, so as to not mask the OP’s problem.
Same issue here, but it only happens with newer generated STEP files. I can open older ones just fine, but some new ones will load, and just disappear.
There is more and more evidence pointing to to either a bug in the SolidWorks converter or a settings issue.
For some reason, I can’t replicate any of the problems on my machine (SW 2012 x64 EDU on Win7 x64 for Intel i7). Can someone attach the problematic step file, with the exact instructions (for each mouse click) as to how they got the problem?