When trying to insert a symbol into a project page, one of the following error messages is displayed and/or the symbol is not inserted:
The physical file "" does not exist in the catalog directory.
InformationThe symbol "MySymbol" does not exist in the catalog, do you want to insert a 3DBOX instead?
Also, the preview image may not appear for the symbol in Catalog Manager or Insert Symbol By Name.
This error generally means that the symbol's name exists in the catalog's database, but the actual graphical drawing file is not found or not compatible. This can be caused by having a catalog of an incompatible format in the setup paths. For example, an AutoCAD format catalog would contain DWG format files, but if the user was running Promis.e Standalone, the software would be looking for a DGN format file, resulting in the error.
Make sure you only have catalog files of the correct format in your system paths. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the Symbols subfolder of the problem catalog's folder. The path to the catalog's folder can be seen on Setup > Catalog Paths. Examine the contents of the "Symbols" folder using Windows Explorer.
Right-clicking the name of the catalog in Catalog Manager and selecting Rebuild will clean up the catalog index and stop the names of items with no physical files from appearing in dialogs such as Insert Symbol By Name.
If the problem occurs with every new or modified symbol, be sure the user creating/modifying the symbols are able to create files in the catalog folder. The problem could be caused by insufficient folder permissions.
In one case, replacing the seed file(s) used with symbol creation resolved the problem. The seed files available in Create Symbol are stored in the \Templates\Page\ subfolder of the Promise Data folder or Substation Data folder as the case may be. Good copies of the seed files can be retrieved from the Data folder archive.
keywords: missing symbols, empty, blank, thumbnail, nothing happensP/S: 85755, 500000097939