This drawing was created with a newer version of Civil 3D...What?!

I have seen this more than handful of times but I have to admit it, long time ago. This morning I got a phone call asking what the reason for this message is. Customer was running the latest release of Civil 3D (2012) and when tried to open one drawing got a message saying:

 "This drawing was created with a newer version of Civil 3D. All entities created by Civil 3D within the drawing are in proxy state. Additionally, all commands, settings, and displays of Civil 3D are disabled for this drawing." It does look prettier in the form of image, doesn't it?

 

Now, what could be newer than Civil 3D 2012 in August of 2011. Nothing really...but see if after the jump.

The message is displayed because program was unable to recognize some objects within troubled drawing. These kinds of objects Civil 3D classifies as orphaned. Any time I mentioned this “orphaned” objects I was being asked “what is that?” In short orphaned objects are corrupt shell objects or objects with no data associated with them.

Objects become orphaned in the situation where one corrupted object associated with another object needed for creation becomes removed. For instance, one must have surface and alignment to be able to create a profile. When one profile becomes corrupted and then the alignment from which profile is created gets removed from drawing leaving corrupted profile without association with the alignment  is the scenario that would create orphaned objects. Another possibility is that some of the objects may originate from third party application unknown to Civil 3D 2012. This part can be very unlikely.

So why is this orphaned object paradigm now important? - Because Civil 3D knows only what it’s told to know. Since Civil 3D does not have any information from the previous database (no record on previous) and does not recognize orphaned objects it “assumes” that they are coming from future version. Then it classifies them as proxies. By the way - let this be mentioned if not clear already- in most cases it is a sign that the drawing is heavily corrupted. 

To resolve this issue such objects must be identified or removed. Here is how:

1. Open drawing and hit OK on dialog box that appears on the screen.
2. Right-click somewhere in the drawing and select Quick Select or type QSELECT,
3. In Quick Select dialog box set Apply to Entire Drawing, Object Type to ACAD_PROXY_ENTITY and set Operator to Select All (this will select all proxy objects)
4. In command line type E for erase, hit enter (this will erase all proxy objects you selected)
5. Save drawing and close it.
6. Open drawing and if the same message appears repeat all steps until the message disappears. 

I hope offending objects wil be gone.