xenological Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 I've been working on an Autocad piping project for a few days now, in Autocad MEP 2011. I've been using butt welded steel pipe and it was working perfectly fine until today. Today, when I started up Autocad, for some reason, when I tried to place pipe or fittings, there were only 5 or 6 different pipe types to choose from. A LOT less than usual. Additionally, almost all of the fittings and valves were missing, so I could no longer find the parts i needed for my project. However, the pipe, fittings, and valves I in the model earlier are still there, so I figure the program can't be having trouble accessing the model files, it must just be a problem with the catalog. What might be causing this problem and how can I fix it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted June 24, 2014 Share Posted June 24, 2014 Did you open the same project file, or a new file altogether? Did you by mistake open up vanilla AutoCAD profile instead of the AutoCAD MEP profile? Also, certain catalog items aren't "always there". They must exist in the drawing first, which is why you should always use the MEP Template file to start from at the very least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeithBrown Posted June 25, 2014 Share Posted June 25, 2014 I am just going to repost my response on the Autodesk forums since you also asked the question there. "Are you using the correct routing preference? Sometimes MEP gets locked into an incorrect routing preference so it only shows the fittings for the incorrect routing preference. A way to double check and see if you still have the fittings is to use the pipefittingadd command and see if the fittings are there. Another way is to use one the pipe tools on the tool palette listed under By Routing Preference and choose a different routing preference. This will shake the property palette from its incorrect routing preference. Please report back and let us know what you find so we can go from there." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xenological Posted June 25, 2014 Author Share Posted June 25, 2014 Okay, so let me clarify a few things, and also share my new findings. First of all, I'm using the same project file that I've been working on for the past two weeks. Up until yesterday it worked fine, but upon opening that same file yesterday and trying to insert new pipe into it, that was when i discovered most of the types were missing. To see how extensive the problem was, I tried starting a new drawing, and inserting pipe into it. Sure enough, I don't get the full catalog there either. I tried the pipefittingadd command. All it opened was that same window from which i can select pipe fittings, and the pipe fittings that were missing earlier are still missing. In my struggle to get this thing working again yesterday I found a few other things. I was able to locate the folder on my computer containing what I'm pretty sure are the pipe files (C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\MEP 2011\enu\MEPContent). In this folder are three folders: Global, USI, and USM. When I'm using autocad, the only parts that show are the ones in the "global" folder. On exploring the folders I found that there is no steel pipe in the global\pipe folder, but there IS steel pipe in USM\pipe and in USI\pipe. Is there an easy way to make autocad use one the USM or USI folder instead of the global folder?? I think this might solve the problem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeithBrown Posted June 25, 2014 Share Posted June 25, 2014 It looks like you started up autocad mep with the global option instead of the imperial option. the easiest way to fix it is to change your profile to "AutoCAD MEP (US Imperial)". Please note that you can tell MEP which profile to use when starting up by changing the options in the shortcut for AutoCAD MEP. When MEP is installed it usually installs a global, imperial, and metric shortcut if you have selected those options during install. Sometimes people delete 2 of the 3 icons and delete the wrong one. Changing your profile to the imperial one should fix the problem but if your shortcut is specifying the global profile then the next time you start MEP it will load up with the global profile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xenological Posted June 25, 2014 Author Share Posted June 25, 2014 Ahhh that explains it! I started up autocad from the imperial shortcut and loaded my file from there instead of just opening my file directly, and all the pipe pieces I need are back! I'm not sure why my file had started opening with global by default when opening it used to just launch it with imperial, but oh well, my problem is solved. Thanks very much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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