Debugging "Some external references are missing"

tgunr

After changing a sketch I got a bunch of errors. In one, I got rid of all the red constraints and everything looked fine but still the sketch is still reporting someone MIA. How do you track these down?

philip_thomas

@tgunr - its tricky in any constraint based system.

A single 'square' for instance, has 11 constraints.
A complex sketch could easily have hundreds.



If any 2 conflict, the solver has no idea which 2 are the root cause and there are (usually) multiple solutions.

Tips

• Undo the thing that just caused the problem.
• Roll back to an earlier microversion where it was good
• Check that you didn't automatically create a constraint you didn't want (h and v are the two usual guilty parties)
• Use the shift key when dragging entities (prevents new constraints from being added
• Delete suspect constraints (you can always put them back).

Good luck!

brucebartlett

Have you tried turning the sketch constraints on with the checkbox on the sketch dialogue, this helps to see all the constraints?

Has it lost the sketch plane? 

Share a link and we can take a look. 

philip_thomas

@tgunr - its tricky in any constraint based system.

A single 'square' for instance, has 11 constraints.
A complex sketch could easily have hundreds.



If any 2 conflict, the solver has no idea which 2 are the root cause and there are (usually) multiple solutions.

Tips

• Undo the thing that just caused the problem.
• Roll back to an earlier microversion where it was good
• Check that you didn't automatically create a constraint you didn't want (h and v are the two usual guilty parties)
• Use the shift key when dragging entities (prevents new constraints from being added
• Delete suspect constraints (you can always put them back).

Good luck!

philip_thomas

ps - the message 'Some external references are missing' usually means that an edge was converted into a sketch or a dimension attached to an edge that is no longer in the model. (most common case).

MBartlett21

tgunr said:

After changing a sketch I got a bunch of errors. In one, I got rid of all the red constraints and everything looked fine but still the sketch is still reporting someone MIA. How do you track these down?

Is there a red dimension

billy2

@tgunr

don't forget to check the plane you created the sketch on. If it's no longer there, you'll get an error and will have to re-route the reference to another plane.

corvus_engineer

Another check to help is to zoom out to see all entities of the sketch. Sometimes editing a previous feature can throw a reference far away from the desired sketch.