Problem Description

Older custom steel section databases created by users do not show up within the Section Database for the STAAD.Pro Connect Edition.

Details on how to convert older section database files (mdb) to the newer format (.db3) can be found here

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Steps to Reproduce

1. Copy the older section database file (let’s say “aiscsections_ml_SLS.db3”) into the Sections folder of the installation [C:\ProgramData\Bentley\Engineering\STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition\Sections]
2. Go to Specification > Section Database and the new database does not show up

Workaround

1. Go to the user profile folder “C:\Users\<user profile name>\AppData\Local\Bentley\Engineering\STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition\Default\Sections”
2. Open the “Custom.ini” using Notepad or Worpad
3. Search for ‘[CustomDBFlags]’
4. Under the above section, Set ‘1’ against ‘AISCSections’
5. Next, search for ‘[CustomDBNames]’
6. Under this section, Set ‘aiscsections_ml_SLS’ against ‘AISCSections’
7.  
8. Now, copy the ‘aiscsections_ml_SLS.db3’ database to ‘C:\ProgramData\Bentley\Engineering\STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition\Sections’
9. There are a couple of more copies of the “Custom.ini” file within the following folders.
10. C:\Program Files\Bentley\Engineering\STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition\STAAD\Sections
11. C:\ProgramData\Bentley\Engineering\STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition\Sections
12. In case you do not see the same entries updated in those files, please go ahead and manually change the data as suggested in steps 3 to 6 in these files too.
13. StaadPro should now pick up sections from the above user database.

Note : You may not be able to launch the Section Database Manager from within the Specification ribbon menu after you make the change. However the user sections should be accessible

Solution

The problem has been addressed in the STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition version 21.03.00.146.