AutoCAD MEP 2013 - Bizarre display theme problem?

Since my previous attempt to streamline circuiting didn't really pan out, I've hit upon another potential way to try and simplify/hasten the device circuiting process, but I'm running into a bizarre problem that I don't know how to solve:

I've created a display theme - which, on a side note, is a thing that I only discovered exists within this last week, so I apologize if the solution to this is really simple/obvious or something - which is supposed to pull the [CircuitNumber] property of my devices, and then color them depending on whether or not they've been circuited. Blue is circuited, red is uncircuited. More specifically, my display theme style logic is:

Index 1)

IF property[CircuitNumber] =/= [a blank space] AND

IF property[CircuitNumber] =/= [NA]

THEN color = blue.

Index 2)

IF property[CircuitNumber] == [a blank space] OR

IF property[CircuitNumber] == [NA]

THEN color = red.

This logic works perfectly fine with the devices I've been able to test it with; I've no issue with the actual logic of the thing, but I felt I should include it in case I'm wrong about that - which is certainly a possibility.

For completion's sake - since my problem somehow involves this - I've also created a tag to automatically pull the panel and circuit number of whatever device I select, using the property set definition formula:

RESULT="[PanelName]-[CircuitNumber]".

The problem I run into is that, for whatever reason, the display theme does not work unless I have already used my custom tag to tag a device. The tag doesn't have to persist in the drawing; I just need to tag it once, and then the display theme will work on it whether the tag persists or has been erased from the drawing. REGEN and REGENALL don't seem to fix it, which I thought might be the issue here, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

This doesn't make any sense to me. In my drawing - which has approximately 40ish devices - only 10 of them have the display theme altering their color; the rest are the standard electrical device layer color that MEP uses. I've confirmed that the majority of the devices that have not updated their color do, indeed, have circuits, and thus the display theme should change their color to blue - but, even if a device hasn't been circuited, it should be red. Why would the devices only update once I've tagged them? It somewhat defeats the purpose of, at a glance, knowing which devices have and have not been circuited. Is there a way to force the display theme to affect these objects with one command, instead of manually selecting each and every object myself? Does the [CircuitNumber] property not exist entirely until the tag calls for it, even though the properties menu lists it just fine? I've no idea why this is doing this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So I'm going to start this out and say that I have essentially no experience with what you're doing, but it sounds like a similar problem to something I encountered that had a very simple solution, and hey, if it doesn't work no harm done right? other then possibly I'm going to lose some internet points... but is it possible that the drawing simply isn't being regenerated? Try just using the regen command. Hopefully that was useful and if not, well hopefully someone smarter can help you out

Argh - I forgot to post that I tried that already. Thanks anyway, though - I certainly appreciate the willingness to help.

The problem I run into is that, for whatever reason, the display theme does not work unless I have already used my custom tag to tag a device. The tag doesn't have to persist in the drawing; I just need to tag it once, and then the display theme will work on it whether the tag persists or has been erased from the drawing.

Your devices do not automatically have the property set you created attached to them when they were placed into the drawing. Objects/devices never do. For that reason the display theme will not work on them until you attach the property set to them.

You created a tag that attached the property set to the device when it was tagged. The tag only reports the property it was set to report. If you erase the tag, the property set is still attached to the device/object. If you want to remove the property set, you need to do that from the properties pallet. Click on the device and go to the extended properties tab of the tool pallet. on the bottom left there is an icon with an x in it. click on it and remove whatever property set is in the list. You can also add a property set with the other icon to the bottom left. If you don't have a property set that "applies to" the object selected then the icon will be grayed out. You added the property set by tagging the device which is how it is normally done.

If you had the property set attached to a device, and then used that device to add more devices using the "add selected" feature, then all the devices would have the property set attached.

You have probably seen this already but, after you tag an object you are prompted to tag another object, If you type "M" you can tag all the objects in the drawing in one shot. The tag will be placed in the same spot away from the origin as the first object. If you use window selection to grab every object in the drawing, only the objects that the property set "applies to" will be selected.

I've confirmed that the majority of the devices that have not updated their color do, indeed, have circuits,

Does the [CircuitNumber] property not exist entirely until the tag calls for it, even though the properties menu lists it just fine?

They may have circuits but if they don't have the property set attached the display theme will not work. I am assuming you are checking that it has circuits assigned by checking the design tab of the properties pallet, and not the extended tab and the property that is reporting. They are two different things.

You are going about this in a very inventive way. In the past I just tag the devices with the circuit number. from that I can see if a device has been circuited. The panel and circuit number I would put on the home run.

Once the devices are tagged you can create an AEC Schedule. from that you can also see if a device is missing a circuit. If you right click the schedule and choose

Enjoy.