Circular chain of references?!?!?!

[stl4310]

I have a wall that I need to move and Revit won't let me, saying that "there is a circular chain of references among the highlighted elements."

Ok, great.

I cancel out, and try to delete the element, but then it tells me that another element has the same error. I try to select both elements at the same time and it tells me a third element is now involved...Revit has paralyzed my model, what can I do to fix it??????

[rosskirby]

Does it also give you the option to remove constraints? It's been a while since I've encountered this error, but I think the culprit was either a floor or a ceiling that was created using "Pick Wall". Try going into sketch mode for any floors or ceilings that share a border with the wall you're trying to move, and recreate that particular segment.

[Scott D Davis]

I have a wall that I need to move and Revit won't let me, saying that "there is a circular chain of references

Can you use the Move tool and check the "disjoin" box in the options bar before moving?

[mdradvies]

This in general caused by too many"handmade" constraints. I've never seen this happen in a Pick Wall-situation. There are some things you might try:

Try to cut and paste back (Cut to clipboard, Paste Same Place). Try this for the first, second, third, etc
Try deleting the second, third, etc element.
Try linking in to a new project and binding the model. You will loose all your annotations but sometimes also the constraints (and afterwards you can copy to clipboard and paste alligned in the original document)
Create an extra Phase in which you demolish the element. After this, change all other elements en views to the new phase and delete the old one.

These are all things I found helping in some occasions. Not always and there has been a single time when I just had to hide all effected elements in view and copy the remaining stuff to a new file and start over. This is exactly why I am currently very cautious with using constraints in the project environment.

[Jj Mac]

Hi guys,

Thanks to the OP for getting this rolling. I have the same problem as the OP. The difference is - I have not been directly working on this project, so I have no idea if constraints have been applied or what. I have been trying to go back to the backup files to see when this all started happening, but no luck figuring that out. I have tried cutting and pasting, moving with disjoin, etc., but nothing works.

Is there any other way constraints can be removed?

Any suggestion greatly appreciated. We do have a lot of annotation associated to the elements in question, so you can appreciate the sensitive nature of fixing this with as little disturbance as possible.

Thanks in advance!

[stl4310]

I ended up deleting the 3-4 items that were constrained and recreating them...hope you don't have too many!

[mdradvies]

Hi guys,

Thanks to the OP for getting this rolling. I have the same problem as the OP. The difference is - I have not been directly working on this project, so I have no idea if constraints have been applied or what. I have been trying to go back to the backup files to see when this all started happening, but no luck figuring that out. I have tried cutting and pasting, moving with disjoin, etc., but nothing works.

Is there any other way constraints can be removed?

Any suggestion greatly appreciated. We do have a lot of annotation associated to the elements in question, so you can appreciate the sensitive nature of fixing this with as little disturbance as possible.

Thanks in advance!

First advice: save as, and then start trying.
Second: if you get the error, Expand the dialogue box and look at all other errors too. This usually gives you an idea of which other things are going wrong.
Use the element ID's listed here to search Element by ID (in the manage tab) and try to delete one or two steps up the chain. This might break the circular reference.

[Jj Mac]

Thanks for the help everyone. I solved the issue after carefully reading (again and again) through the all posts.

So, our issue was isolated to two floor slabs. The issue was caught when trying to modify a slab on Level 2 of the model. Revit wouldn't allow me to finish the sketch after making some modifications, and the warning would then reference a slab on Level 6 as the element causing the problem in the chain.

When I went to Level 6, I tried two things. First, modify that slab (by moving with disjoin checked) - no luck; next, tried deleting the slab - no luck; now however, Revit gave me the same circular chain of references warning but now it was referencing a slab on Level 8.

So I went to modify the slab on Level 8, and then the warning went back to the slab on Level 6. Ah ha! There's the chain. So the next thing I did was try to move them both together a set distance with the intention of moving them back the same distance so they would disconnect from whatever constraints were placed on them. That unfortunately did not work – got the same error. So next I tried to just delete both of those slabs at the same time, and boom. Success. I could now edit my slab on Level 2. (and I could also edit everything else that was hung up on this error. I went to a backup file (that for some reason did not have this problem-luckily) and I was able to copy the original slabs I deleted, back in.

Now the question remains, how did this happen? In my de-engineering process I found out the slabs were created using a mass. The mass was created using RAC2009 way before the massing tools were updated. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it or not. The other thing was the sketch lines of the mass (an extrusion) were all pinned in sketch mode. Maybe that contributed. It would be really nice to know for sure, but I don’t know how I could figure that out. For now the work-around will do.

Thanks again for the all the help, I hope this post can help others.

[mdradvies]

Were the sketch lines pinned or locked? that's a difference. If they were locked it might be possible that they were locked to each other by a series of steps. Slab 6 is locked to wall which is locked to another wall which is used to lock slab 8 on. something like that. I've seen people literally try modifying a roof to find a foundation slab start wining...

[DavidBernier]

I had the same problem and it was plaguing my project for weeks. I was actually losing sleep over it! Thanks to your advice, I unjoined all the related geometry, made my changes, then rejoined everything and it's now perfect. Thank you so much.