Use a reference line to give the angle, you've made yours vertical, mine is horizontal and works fine

seems simple enough, but it still doesn't work. there is some sort of behavior embedded somewhere that i'm not privy to...

How have you created the north Arrow? Mine is a generic annotation family, which has then been nested into the title block.
It is created with the north going up the screen, and the reference plane of the annotation family runs through the centre of the circle horizontally.

I create a model line in my title block. Insert the annotation North Point family.

I turn it 90 degrees to start, because I can't set a default value of 0 it just wont let me place an arc dimension if I do that....so my default position is rotated 90 degree (ie north is pointing east)

Set my parameter up for north point by drawing the arc FROM my model line to the centreline of my nested in north point.
Then of course go through the motions of making it a parameter.

Now it should work for you.

I put my dimension on the left hand side also, and start on the west side of the model line, go clockwise up to the west side of the north point (which is actually pointing north on the page) - the actual north point, is pointing east...

here is a pic of my default 90 degree position, and the arc parameter so you can see the location as that description gets a bit convoluted.

This is what helped me....

I'm just curious here: why would one create a parametric North arrow with a built in rotation? I use a North arrow on my drawings and when a project starts I plunk my dumb ole pointing up North arrow on a titleblock and rotate it where it should point to. Then I use that titleblock with that North arrow for the duration of the project (6 months to a year) then I repeat the task for the next project. To me parametric function is for stuff that is dynamic. A project North arrow rotation is static for a particular project. I think that you guys are just showing off :hide:

Just streamlining the process. When you have over 100+ sheets in one project and someone says to rotate the true north a bit since it was rotated on the site, I just click the titleblock and make the change and it applies to 100+ sheets. If I only had a few sheets, then yeah, it's probably overkill.

Still wish it would grab the site info automatically though..

If my project North angle changed in the middle of a project, I'd open my titleblock family, rotate the North arrow, then reload it in my project. Takes about 10 seconds. All of my 500 sheets update.

My way takes two....

and, how many times a year do you save 8 seconds? :crazy: