xrefs driving me mad! Can't detach

[Vigilante]

I get files sometimes from other people, and their documents had xrefs attached which they didn't give me.
No big deal, I open their file, make my changes and so on. But it won't let me detach the missing xrefs!

When I try to detach, it says "Unable to detach. Multiple references detected".


Yes yes yes, I know if an xref gets embeded a couple documents thick, it'll say this. But that is not the case here. I simple don't have the documents that were originally referenced. So why won't it let me detach them? I can't change the path of the xref, or unload it, or anything! The status of the xref can be "not found" or "unload" or "unloaded", doesn't matter, just says unable to detach.
It's driving me crazy!

aCAD 2002.

Thanks for helping. Searching google for this error message turns up nearly no help at all.

[StykFacE]

i don't know if this will help or not.... but try to PURGE everything you can from each file, then try to detach the xref. i'm no whiz at XREF's but it's a start....

i've gotten some XREF's that were binded into the file, so you can actually explode them like blocks, then delete them. try that as well.... hope it helps some.

[Vigilante]

Well, in a way that works. I went and deleted all the custom layouts (tabs on the bottom), and just deleted EVERYTHING. Like ctrl-a -> del. And then purged, and then they were able to detach.

So that leads to this question, how can I select just the data that is within an xref? Like I can use QSELECT to select everything in a layer. How do I do something like that to select everything in an xref?

Also note, the selection "should" be empty, as the xref is missing, it should not have any drawing right?

[StykFacE]

did you PURGE after you detatched the XREF? try that, after ANYTHING you delete, remember to Purge.

i don't know how it works in 2002, but i use 2005 and i can REFEDIT the Xref within the drawing if i need. try and see if it'll work for you too.

[Vigilante]

Well I can't purge "after" I detach the XREF, because it won't let me detach it!

I tried an expirement using refedit, but when you type the command, they ask you to then select the reference. But the problem is, because the reference is missing, it's not there to select in the first place.

On this particular document, I needed the floor plan, and I was able to delete the references AFTER removing all the layouts except "model" which had the floor plan. Once I deleted the 5 other layouts, I was able to detach.

But I'd still like to know why this is giving me so much trouble. If all the xrefs are missing, why won't acad just let you get rid of them? It's so frustracting.

[Cad64]

This will happen whether the xrefs are present in the drawing or missing. Whenever you have multiple instances of an xref, as in the case of a title block inserted on several layouts, you will not be able to detach the xref until you delete all of the multiple instances. It doesn't make any difference that the xref is actually missing from the drawing, because the layouts hold a link to the xref regardless of whether it's present in the drawing or not. Once you delete the layouts that hold the link, as you found out, you can easily detach the reference.

[StykFacE]

This will happen whether the xrefs are present in the drawing or missing. Whenever you have multiple instances of an xref, as in the case of a title block inserted on several layouts, you will not be able to detach the xref until you delete all of the multiple instances. It doesn't make any difference that the xref is actually missing from the drawing, because the layouts hold a link to the xref regardless of whether it's present in the drawing or not. Once you delete the layouts that hold the link, as you found out, you can easily detach the reference.

voila...

[Vigilante]

Ok, sure, that makes sense.

And that leads me back to my previous question.
Because the xref is missing, it does not show up in the document. I can't see it, or select it, or find out where it is. So then, if there are 6 layouts in a document, how can I find out which one has it? Or how can I find out where the data is for the missing xref so I can delete it?

In other words, I got lucky because the reference was in a layout I didn't need, but what if there is only one layout, I can't just delete the whole thing, so then how would I delete the xref data that I can't see, to remove the reference?

[StykFacE]

you can't see the Xref data, because the Xref literally isn't there. an Xref (usually) is an entire DWG drawing that's imported (better known as attached), and they didn't send you that drawing. sometimes you can see the path of the Xref, but sometimes the text gets so small you can't see where it is in model space. worst case scenerio, you can Select All, Copy with Basepoint 0,0 and Paste into a new drawing @ 0,0 and the Xref won't copy over.

[BITDRAUGHTY]

as above you could w block everything out to a new location and allow exploding that would work and the xref wont travel.

I have just had this same problem and manged to pick it up with quick select.Make sure that you check paper space with q select also as it may be there ?worth a try.then purge adios xref!