Inventor 2016 - Missing Content Center Files on Assembly Open

By David Gate

I have 2 situations for you, both with the same cause and solution.

You have just upgraded from an old release of Inventor to a newer release. But now every time you open up your assemblies there are parts missing, content center parts.

Or you are working in a shared environment with your Inventor files on the network but every time you open other peoples assemblies there are parts missing, content center parts.

You will be glad to hear that this has an easy fix.

Here is an example assembly that I created in 2015. Using a simple project file that was left pointing to many of the defaults. I have since then installed Inventor 2016. On firing up the new software I pointed it back to my project file.

From the thumbnail everything looks ok.

But on opening I get a “Resolve Link” dialog saying it cannot find the ISO M8 bolts in my assembly. These are standard out of the box parts so why can Inventor not find them?

If I skip past this my assembly is not complete.

Well the reason behind this is to do with how Inventor works, its default setup and your project file. 

When you install Inventor you will have installed the “Content Center”, this is a database at first, no actual part files exist. On placement of a particular bolt, Inventor will create  that part file automatically and immediately for use.

On saving it will store that created bolt in a particular location defined by your project file/application options. 

The problem that many people come across is they do not change this location. 

Let’s take a look at my project file setup.

I > Manage > Projects.

You can see for my current project file underneath the Folder Options my ‘Content Center Files’ is set to [Default]. This is the location it is going to save those generated bolts etc.

This location in the project file can be set to override the default which is set in the application options.

Now the issue is as you can see by using the default it is set to a location specific to my user and also my release of Inventor 2016.

So it cannot find the old 2015 bolts as they will be in

C:\Users\david.gate\Documents\Inventor\Content Center Files\R2015\

Likewise if you are on a shared project file then you won’t see any other user generated bolts, only your own.

To fix the problem you can do 1 of a number of solutions.

Solution 1:

Move and merge the contents of (you should just need to move the EN-US folder present in the below location).

C:\Users\david.gate\Documents\Inventor\Content Center Files\R2015\

Into

C:\Users\david.gate\Documents\Inventor\Content Center Files\R2016\

Obviously replacing my user name for yours.

Solution 2:

Change the project location so it points back to

C:\Users\david.gate\Documents\Inventor\Content Center Files\R2015\

This only works for a single user and only if you have not yet started to place bolts in 2016. Otherwise Solution 1 is best for you.

Solution 3:

In a shared environment you will want this project file option set so it points to a central location. You will then need to Move and Merge all of the individual user generated files on each of their PCs into the new central location.

Solution 4:

Add the old path - C:\Users\david.gate\Documents\Inventor\Content Center Files\R2015\

As a library path.