Heavy frustration in multisim regarding refdes

[hygren]

I'm growing very frustrated with the way multisim handles numbering the components. I've been working on a complete design (capture and CAD) for a while now and am using multisim and ultiboard simultaneously. The board is basically finished both in capture and CAD. Someone asks me, "could you also add these pull-up resistors?". When I do add these resistors (64 of them in total in a separate block) multisim decided to renumber all my components so that all my component placement and routing in CAD was completely wasted and has to be done all over again. Is it "Forward Annotate" that messes up all the reference designators when transfering to ultiboard or is it when I add new components??

Very thankful for any help!

[lacy]

I wish I could visually see how this is occurring. I have never heard or seen Multisim arbitrarily renumber components on its own. Funny thing can occur on transfer to Ultiboard though. If you forward annote and the refdes on the components don't match to the Mutisim schematic then it will overwrite any current refdes in favor of the new ones. This could occur only if you renumbered your components in the schematic and didn't do a forward annote at the same time.

This is all I can think of that may have caused this without acutally examining your files. Maybe something in this post may give you as clue as to what may be occurring.

[hygren]

I grew tired of trying to find out why this happened and figured I must have messed with renumbering the components. Since then I redid the entire part placement and trace routing and now when I removed one single Ux-component and added a resistor Rx my entire design automatically got renumbered. And YET AGAIN I'm back to square one. This is insanely frustrating. Why would it ever ever ever ever change any refdes when I haven't touched the renumbering tool? Very thankful for help!

[hygren]

Is the reference designators not stored in the ms10-file? Is it perhaps stored in some log-file or someplace else?

[nestor-sg]

Peter,

Where are you located? (US/Canada, another country?)... you are getting a very strange behaviour and it will need to be reviewed thoroughly with support. Let us know where are you located so we can give you contact info.

[hygren]

I am located in Gothenburg, Sweden. The behaviour seems to occur when replacing entire folders but keeping only the ms10-file. I'd like support contact information but I will investigate it further to know exactly when it occurs before starting a support ticket.

Thank you!

[nestor-sg]

Thank you Peter, here is the contact information for NI Sweden Tech Support, let them know that they may need to escalate this to the EWB group.

[hygren]

I checked that page and it seems that they direct me towards ni.com/ask for technical support. It doesn't matter, I am now able to reproduce the error every time and I do believe this is a problem that the EWB group needs to look at so here it is:

In the attached zip-file there is a folder that contains a couple of files. Extract the folder to someplace on your computer.
Open Overview.ms10 with multisim
Open hierarchical block X2 at the bottom (double click, edit hb/sc)
Note the refdes on the LT1990 IC (should be U49)
Go back to Overview.ms10
Move something just a tad so that the file has been altered.
Now press CTRL+Z to undo the previous action.
Take a look at the reference designator for the LT1990 IC again (it has now changed to U63)

The refdes changes WHENEVER I press CTRL+Z. You can also note that I've tried locking the refdes for all components (in tools=> rename/renumber components) but it still changes whenever 'undo' is pressed.

I can avoid the problem by never undoing anything. But working like that is kind of annoying since I keep pressing the combination without thinking...




Message Edited by Support on 02-25-2008 11:40 AM

[nestor-sg]

Peter,

Thanks for putting the file here, I was suggesting to go via Support to avoid placing your designs in a public forum. I was able to replicate what you are looking at so I will pass this over directly to R&D. I would still encourage you to follow the instruction from NI Sweden as to how to create a support ticket so it can be properly documented and be able to follow-up.

[hygren]

I don't mind it being online for a short while. But could you please remove it now that you have it? Thank you!

Best Regards,
Peter Hygren