Purge phanton Blocks

Tom Foster

I have 6 phantom Blocks in 2D - how to purge them? They won't delete in Drawiing Explorer>Blocks - 'Nested block cannot be deleted'. Their Insertion point is given but there's nothing visible or selectable there in the drawing. If I Select All, in Properties the no of Blocks detected equals the no of good Blocks - the 6 phantoms aren't detected. Purge says there are no unreferenced Blocks. When I RefEdit the good Blocks, none of them show the phantoms as nested within. If I Copy-Paste All into a new dwg, the phantoms are still there.

MDunn

How about RefEdit the phantom block/s & place a huge geometric shape which will be visible when completed. Did this yrs. ago to find a nested block & it worked, & deleted all copies of that block, & purged; haven't tried it since.

Tom Foster

Trouble is, the phantom blocks have no visible presence on-screen, so can't select them to RefEdit. Not even by a box-select around the xyz point where Drawing Explorer says their origin is.

ScottS

Is it possible to find the phantom blocks using Structure Browser? Or maybe the blocks are hiding in a paperspace layout tab?

Structure Browser has new controls (in v21.2.02) for showing nested blocks, which I haven't fully explored, but I found it was no longer sorting entities in paperspace the way I wanted. In short order, Bricsys support sent me the attached .cst as a workaround until they can fix it in the next release. I think that issue is unrelated, but perhaps this .cst can help find your elusive blocks.

Anthony Apostolaros

@Tom Foster said:
Trouble is, the phantom blocks have no visible presence on-screen, so can't select them to RefEdit. Not even by a box-select around the xyz point where Drawing Explorer says their origin is.

1. Insert the block.
2. Use the Select command, with L for Last, to select it.
3. Use the Refedit command, which will open the pre-selected block insertion.

There's also Zoom OBject, which will zoom to the block insertion if it's pre-selected. But you don't really need that unless you're curious about what it is. Just refedit it and draw something big and bold and then close it.

MDunn

Tom,
In the BCAD Drawing Explorer, under Blocks, you should find a list of all the blocks in the dwg. Figure out which one is the phantom block & Insert it to a known endpoint or 0,0 (which is someplace you can draw a window around & select that block after inserting it). Then select the block w/ a window & RefEdit it to something huge like a Donut w/ a diam. of 100 ft. Then all instances of the phantom block should be easily located & selected for deletion.
Or, the old corrupt ACAD dwg trick: individually select (using multiple small windows so as not to inadvertently select the phantom block) all geometry in the dwg you want to keep, paste each set of geometric selections into a new dwg that you know does not have the phantom block in it. All that should be left in the original dwg is the phantom block. Delete the original dwg that contains the phantom block. Was my go to procedure for a corrupted dwg for many yrs. in ACAD, have had to do that only twice in the last decade, but it works well in saving all your valuable data & does not require a redraw.
Another option, WBlock out sections of the dwg & Insert into another “clean” dwg, checking each time a section of the dwg is Inserted to be sure the phantom block is not also included. Continue w/ WBlock until all geometry is copied to the “clean” dwg.
Hope one of these is helpful.
Mike

Tom Foster

@MDunn said:
In the BCAD Drawing Explorer, under Blocks, you should find a list of all the blocks in the dwg. Figure out which one is the phantom block & Insert it to a known endpoint or 0,0 (which is someplace you can draw a window around & select that block after inserting it). Then select the block w/ a window

Thanks, but as

@Tom Foster said:
Trouble is, the phantom blocks have no visible presence on-screen, so can't select them to RefEdit. Not even by a box-select around the xyz point where Drawing Explorer says their origin is.

.

@MDunn said:
individually select (using multiple small windows so as not to inadvertently select the phantom block) all geometry in the dwg you want to keep, paste each set of geometric selections into a new dwg

Unfortunately the phamtons get copied to the new, even tho my box-selecting went nowhere near 0,0,0 where the phantoms have their origin
I'll try the third method and report back! Thanks a lot.

Tom Foster

See attached. RussAlclad106 head-flat-4, -5, -6, -7 are the culprits - 7 in all. See I edited Insertion point so the're all at origin 0,0,0 - where they can't be found/selected. They are presumably variants of RussAlclad106 head (9 instances), which are legit.

At one point there were numerous more variants of same, with uniqified names like RussAlclad106 head-flat-1-flat-1-flat-1-flat-1-flat-1-flat-1, resulting from numerous attempts to FLATTEN this dwg incl having to open (RefEdit) each Block (incl nested) in the dwg one by one, to FLATTEN - numerous attempts because they wouldn't FLATTEN (all good now, all FLATTEN'd). All these I was able to delete in Drawing Explorer, even tho they couldn't be found/selected on-screen. But RussAlclad106 head-flat-4, -5, -6, -7 won't delete because they're nested.

Patrik Sparrman

Why dont you just make a new drawing with something visible with the same name as the ghost.
Then insert the block from file. I will now be updated with the new file.
Then delete.

Tom Foster

Hey - that's good

MDunn

Doesn't the existing block data remain intact, & it will override the Inserted block w/ the same name? That's how it used to work, haven't seen it work any other way.

Tom Foster

Oh yeah, that's true I think - darn.

RSW

When you import a block with the same name (block name) then it should ask you if you want to redefine the existing block with the one you are inserting. If you answer yes then the existing block will be updated to the version you are importing, if you answer no then it will override the imported block with the definition of the existing block. At least that is how it works for me.

MDunn

RSW, was going to ask you to explain your procedure, until I tried doing it Path/Filename fashion, which I haven't done in yrs. I just drag my blocks into a dwg from my blocks folder, & that way does not allow for redefining the block; the ext'g block geometry trumps the drag insert geometry. But you are correct, in can be redefined if doing the Insert via Command Line Path/Filename, forgot all about that method. Good call.