Symbol has every family assigned to it

Question

I have a strange issue where I've noticed a couple of symbols (manually created ones), appear to have every family associated to them. 
 Looking through the family, there is no mention of the said symbol. 
 Does anyone know what would cause this?

Matt_P · Answer

Ok, I can reproduce this issue with this workflow (credit: Tani_S for sparking this idea): 
 
 Create a family ABC that specifies symbol XYZ. 
 Place symbol XYZ on a page and assign family ABC. 
 Close the page. 
 Modify the family to replace symbol XYZ with ZZZ or otherwise remove symbol XYZ from the family. 
 Open a page in a different project. 
 Insert symbol XYZ and browse for a family. All families will be listed. 
 
 If I then open the project used in step 2 and use Update Family to update the definition of family ABC (I have to remove the family from Device Properties for symbol XYZ first before I can do this), the problem does not occur in the in project from step 5. So it would seem there is a defect here, but one with a workaround. The trick is to find which projects have an obsolete record of a family that specifies the HMI symbol, assuming that is the case. devSymName.zip linked below contains a report template that will list families and the projects they are used in. It is already set to filter the devSymName field for the HMI symbol, so it will return only instances of families containing the HMI symbol and the projects those records are associated with. Note that with no filter the report will list all the families used in the project database. devSymName.zip 
 
 Extract the devSymName.rpt file to your Templates\Reports\ folder. 
 Open Run Reports . 
 Expand the CUSTOM category and select the devSymName report. 
 Preview the report. 
 
 If the report identifies a test project or other project that is safe to delete, use Project Manager to Delete that project. Otherwise, open a page in the project and use Review/Revise > Find > Search > Device ID to filter for the family identified on the report for this project. Double-click the result to navigate to the symbol. Right-click the symbol, select Device ID , and remove the family from the symbol. Use Update Family or Replace Family to replace the family with itself. Or delete the symbol from the page. Repeat until previewing the report returns no results. You can then click the Filters button on Run Reports and change the Value of the filter to the next problem symbol, with the format %MySymbolName%, and work that until it returns no results. 
 I've submitted this issue as defect TFS 778218.

Matt_P · Answer

The report identifies the Siemens_TP700 family as containing the HMI symbol, but there seems to be no device that uses the Siemens_TP700 family in the project. I believe you are seeing a device tag (not symbol name) of HMI in Data Manager which actually belongs to a small square symbol named NULL on page E4114. This symbol has no family assigned to it and is not the culprit. 
 I hoped placing an HMI symbol, assigning the Siemens_TP700 family, then deleting the symbol from the page would remove the record of the family from the project, but it did not. Nor did any of the Maintenance tools nor Remove Unplaced Devices . Since it is not not used, the record could be deleted using SQL Server Management Studio, but I'd like to provide a safer method that is more accessible to you. In addition to the method for reproducing the behavior where an old family definition exists in a project and the new family definition no longer uses the symbol, the problem also occurs if the family definition containing the symbol exists in a project but no family containing the symbol exists in the catalogs. This your case with respect to the HMI symbol / Siemens_TP700 family. So one option to resolve the behavior is to add the Siemens_TP700 family back to the catalog. This would result in only the Siemens_TP700 family appearing as available to assign to the HMI symbol instead of all the families. Here is a .zip file containing a catalog that contains the Siemens_TP700 family: 
 Siemens_TP700.zip 
 You can import the catalog file using Catalog Manager. 
 If you do not even want the Siemens_TP700 family to appear for the HMI symbol, then you could modify the Siemens_TP700 family after importing the above catalog and specify a different symbol in it, one that is used in other families so we don't simply move the problem to a different symbol. I used R1. You would then use Replace Family to replace the Siemens_TP700 family with itself in the project identified by the report.