Basic Troubleshooting

The following topics may help you to resolve errors you encounter and help with troubleshooting the problem.

Topics in this Section

• Handling Unhealthy Environments
• Autodesk Identity Manager not Installed
• What if my Home Screen is Blank?
• Duplicate Connector Drives
• Undesired Folders Under This PC
• Leading and Trailing Spaces
• References
• Locked files
• Moving Files and Folders between Projects
• File and Folder Naming
• File Size Attribute
• Moving Files/Folders between projects

Handling Unhealthy Environments

Desktop Connector can result in cleaning up drives that are created during different workflows. This can cause discrepancies between the database and the workspace. To resolve this issue refer to the Handling Unhealthy Environments help page.

Autodesk Identity Manager not Installed

If the Autodesk Identity Manager is not correctly installed for desktop versions 2024 and beyond, you will receive the following error message on startup.

Select and follow one of the two options to install the Autodesk Identity Manager.

Option 1: Use the installer from the Autodesk Access app.

• Open the Autodesk Access app (recommended).

• Find the notification for an update with the title "Autodesk Identity Manager Component".

• Click Update and wait until the process finishes.

Option 2: Use the installer in the following article.

• Download and unzip Windows_IDSDK_Installer_v1.10.4.zip.

• Double-click the AdskIdentityManager-Installer.exe file to start the installation.

• Follow the Installation dialog screen until the process is complete.

• The sign in process for Autodesk 2024 and 2025 products has changed. You may have to sign in twice depending on the version of the software you are using with Desktop Connector version. Refer to the Sign in Sign Out help page for additional information.

What if my Home Screen is Blank?

The Home Screen displays your Desktop Connector Activities, and menu options previously accessed from the tray icon.

• If your home screen is blank as shown, it could be due to a couple of reasons. This result happens when the user has one or both of the following:

  1. No entitlements (check with your admin that you have entitlements)

  2. No permissions to any projects (check with your admin that you have been added to a project)

     

Duplicate Connector Drives

Desktop Connector may exit abnormally (for example, a crash) and when it restarts, duplicate connector drives display. For example there are two Autodesk Docs connectors showing in File Explorer but only one of them is working. To remove the duplicate drives follow these steps:

1. Exit Desktop Connector.

2. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).

3. Navigate to the key.

   Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace

4. For each key under the Namespace key in the left pane, do the following:

   1. Select the key.
   2. Check the value in the right pane.
   3. If the value is one of (Autodesk Docs, Fusion, Drive), Right-click on that key in the left pane and choose Delete.

5. Restart Desktop Connector. Once started, the duplicate drives should be gone.

Undesired Folders Under This PC

Undesired folders (For example, Autodesk Docs.ShellFolder class) are sometimes visible to the user in the Devices and Drives location under This PC. This issue can happen after the product crashes and is restarted.  Desktop Connector now includes a utility to clean up those undesired artifacts.  The utility is found in the Desktop Connector installation folder (default location is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Desktop Connector\ShellCleanup.exe). To use the utility:

1. Exit Desktop Connector

2. Open a Command prompt (type CMD from the start bar) at the Desktop Connector install location

3. Execute the ShellCleanup.exe from the Command prompt (output shows what is cleaned up)

4. Open Task Manager

   • From Details tab select End Task on Explorer.exe
   • Then restart Explorer using File > Run > New Task, and enter Explorer

5. Run Desktop Connector

Leading and Trailing Spaces

A leading space is defined as a blank space that is created before the name of a file or folder. A trailing space is defined as a space created after the file or folder has been created. The following behaviors are known conflicts when leading and trailing spaces have been encountered.

• If a folder with a trailing space is created in the ACC Docs website, it will not sync properly.

• Attempting to add files to a folder with a trailing space creates a sibling folder without a trailing space, and files added will appear there locally.

• With a leading or trailing space neither folder will sync with the server.

• These folders cannot be deleted from Windows Explorer. To delete a folder with the space use the command: rd folder \. The backward slash must be included.

See Leading and Trailing Spaces for additional information.

References

• Drag and drop of files from outside a Desktop Connector workspace which have references to files in a Desktop Connector workspace is not recommended. Workspace references with a Status of Stale will also be uploaded as a new version which may not be desired. The work-around is to download the stale references before dragging the parent file into the workspace.

Locked files

• Using the restore option from the Recycle Bin results in an error. You can use drag and drop or cut and paste workflows to move the file locally before moving the file back to the Desktop Connector workspace.

• Certain products place a lock on an opened file and do not release the lock until the software is closed. Some operations in Desktop Connector may fail (For example, resolving references during Open) or (Move and Rename) while a file is in a locked state. However, the same operation may be possible using other software products.

• Desktop Connector may fail to locate a file on open if an instance of the opening software already has the file locked and the file was renamed or moved using software other than Desktop Connector. Close all instances of the opening software and then retry opening the file, then references will resolve.

Moving Files and Folders between Projects

• Moving files and folders between projects is unsupported. If you try to move a file or folder you will receive the following error indicating that you cannot perform a move between projects.

  1. Moving a folder

  2. Moving a file

     

File and Folder Naming

• When two or more items in one folder have the same name, only one item will appear and it will have a warning icon. Desktop Connector functionality on these items will be limited. One of the files should be renamed to resolve the conflict.

• In the latest version of Docs connector, if there are folders with spaces in the name in the cloud data source, placeholder files will NOT be created in the Autodesk Docs connector. To resolve this:

  1. Go to the file or folder in the cloud data source
  2. Rename and remove the spaces from the name
  3. Choose Select projects from the home screen menu.
  4. Remove the project
  5. Add the project again

• When names contain unsupported Windows characters Desktop Connector will display those items with a warning icon. Desktop Connector functionality on these items will be limited until the item is renamed with valid characters.

• Leading and trailing spaces in a file or folder is not allowed. In this scenario Placeholder files cannot be created on the local machine even though they may be visible through the web interface.

File Size Attribute

• In Desktop Connector, the File Size property will only show the value of the file on the server. If the file only exists locally, then no value is shown.

Moving Files/Folders between projects

• Starting in 16.1 Desktop Connector will not allow files/folders to be moved from one project to another. When a move across projects is attempted a dialog will be seen that states "An unexpected error is keeping you from copying the file.". However as an alternate solution files/folders can be copied between projects.

Related Concepts:

• Desktop Connector is Not Running.
• "Autodesk Desktop Connector isn't running" when accessing the Start Tab in Civil 3D