Autodesk Revit 2021 – Units of Measure Database Modifications

Within Autodesk Revit 2021 there are have modifications to the database identifiers, also understood as data types for Revit parameters. These changes provide an unfortunate causation for families (*.rfa) that include type catalogs. Type Catalog (*.txt) files are generated such that the columns after the first are structured to include the parameter name as well as the data type. As a result of these database identifier updates, Type Catalogs with the previous year data types will express an error when loading into Autodesk Revit 2021.

See an example of the succession of errors in the images below.

Initial prompt when trying to load family into a Revit 2021 project.

Follow-up prompt when loading family into a Revit 2021 project.

Per the Autodesk Revit 2021 Developer Documentation it is noted that:

“Revit 2021 introduces corrections and formatting changes to these database identifiers. Content generated in earlier versions of Revit may need to be updated for compatibility with Revit 2021 if it includes references to certain identifiers. The changes are listed below.”

Please see Appendix 1: Database Identifiers (below) for a complete listing of data types that have been affected between versions.

From a development perspective these changes are welcomed as it will assist the querying and injection of data from 3^rd party applications and Dynamo. ENGworks understands that these errors are not ideal and are actively working with all of our affected manufacturer clients to provide an expeditious update to any Revit Families and subsequent Type Catalogs that are impacted.

For users of the conent the current work around that exists for these issues are to utilize a template or new project (*.rvt) from a previous version of Autodesk Revit (2019-2020) to load the affect family and types. It will then be necessary to manually save the needed family out of the Families section of the project browser. This family with its associated types are then able to be inserted into Autodesk Revit 2021 without error. It should be noted, if there is an additional type need in Autodesk Revit 2021 reloading the family will present the same error as noted above. In this case it may be necessary to completely reload the family that is saved from a previous versioned project. Please use caution when doing this as it may remove any placed instances that exist in the Revit 2021 project.

For additional assistance with any ENGworks Global created families please reach out to support@engworksglobal.com.

Appendix 1: Database Identifiers

Autodesk Revit 2021 Help Documentation: http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2021/ENU/?guid=Revit_API_Revit_API_Developers_Guide_Introduction_Application_and_Document_Units_html