CAD Forum

I've hit my first major stumbling block with 2022 SP4, and it's a good one.

Solidworks shows a couple of restraints in my assembly as suppressed. But when I try and unsuppress them, it only give me the option to suppress them.
Any idea how I've gotten my assembly into this condition, or how to resolve the problem?

Never mind. The mate was referencing a suppressed part.

Been there!

DanPihlaja wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 10:57 am Been there!

So many times........I wish they would give it a different indicator. Need mate icons for Suppressed, Unsuppressed, and Unsuppressed but component suppressed.

lol, yep, done had that happen a few times, I'm usually yelling at the screen and then oh, the component is suppressed you idiot! :-)

I think if you group the mates by status it would have shown that it was missing a reference, not 100% sure though.

AlexLachance wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:06 pm I think if you group the mates by status it would have shown that it was missing a reference, not 100% sure though.

Good call! (I'm going to go edit my new assembly template) I would've swore that in 2020 it gave me some sort of indication, but I guess not.

SPerman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:45 pm I would've swore that in 2020 it gave me some sort of indication, but I guess not.

Maybe you had this option turned on previously?

Thanks. I bet that was it. I decided to do the "build new template" thing, and I've clearly missed a few settings.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:50 pm Maybe you had this option turned on previously?


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Thanks Glenn, I keep forgetting about that darned setting too haha, which reminds me I have to toggle that setting on one of my colleague's workstation so that they show up as errors because he's been leaving mates with missing references everywhere.

Glenn Schroeder wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:50 pm Maybe you had this option turned on previously?
image.png

Yeah, be careful with those settings. You then get users screaming that the software sucks because the new version has mate errors that weren't there before. Not that doesn't happen but this settings makes our mistakes much more visible and the truth hurts.

IIRC, somewhere around 2003-2005 mates wouldn't show any error when a reference was lost. Then they fixed it in a new version and the users were upset. Had to explain that the error was there before, it just didn't tell us. Didn't matter as they now had to fix it and it was more work in their minds. I guess ignorance was bliss. Looks like the complaints resulted in this new option to ignore the errors again.

Question to everyone.....why would you turn this off?

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:57 am Yeah, be careful with those settings. You then get users screaming that the software sucks because the new version has mate errors that weren't there before. Not that doesn't happen but this settings makes our mistakes much more visible and the truth hurts.

IIRC, somewhere around 2003-2005 mates wouldn't show any error when a reference was lost. Then they fixed it in a new version and the users were upset. Had to explain that the error was there before, it just didn't tell us. Didn't matter as they now had to fix it and it was more work in their minds. I guess ignorance was bliss. Looks like the complaints resulted in this new option to ignore the errors again.

Question to everyone.....why would you turn this off?

I tell everyone I work with that there has to be no errors in their tree for the program to work optimally, so I sometimes see some turn that off so that lost mates do not show as errors. Okay sure, they don't show as errors, but the problem still persists that SolidWorks has to calculate that missing reference mate.

It's what's hard to get people to understand. It's not really noticeable until it's exponential. You don't notice it in an assembly with one missing reference mate, but you notice it in a master assembly that has 10+ sub-assemblies with missing reference mates in each of them.

The easiest way I got people to understand it, was to let them toggle it and once their line of products get rather heavy, I go and toggle that back on and then "fix" the mess that has been created and show them the noticeable difference in efficiency.

It's funny, because they then notice that if they had replaced the missing references rather then recreating mates to replace the "missing reference mates", there are times where they could apply the reference to multiple mates just by editing one.

Pay now or pay later. If you keep kicking that can down the road, the amount you pay later is a lot more and your complaints aren't really justified.

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:57 am Yeah, be careful with those settings. You then get users screaming that the software sucks because the new version has mate errors that weren't there before. Not that doesn't happen but this settings makes our mistakes much more visible and the truth hurts.

IIRC, somewhere around 2003-2005 mates wouldn't show any error when a reference was lost. Then they fixed it in a new version and the users were upset. Had to explain that the error was there before, it just didn't tell us. Didn't matter as they now had to fix it and it was more work in their minds. I guess ignorance was bliss. Looks like the complaints resulted in this new option to ignore the errors again.

Question to everyone.....why would you turn this off?

For conceptualizing.....turn it off..

For production......turn it on.

@DanPihlaja I don't know....even for conceptualizing I think it will still bite you in the @$$. If you didn't want the mate errors....you could always delete the mates and fix everything.

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 4:37 pm @DanPihlaja I don't know....even for conceptualizing I think it will still bite you in the @$$. If you didn't want the mate errors....you could always delete the mates and fix everything.

That's true. I have it turned on all the time anyway. I was just spitballing.