by Dennis Collin
Revit has had the ability to model steel connection details for many years now. These connection components only appear in fine level of detail but enable users to present the generic design intent model to something more of a fabrication level of detail. The tools are not quite the level of Advance Steel, but they are a welcome addition to Revit’s set of commands.
With a normal install of Revit these connection components show as a list when accessing the Steel>Connections tab on the ribbon menu. As shown in the image below.
Fig 1. With a new install of Revit, many steel connection options are available.
However, recently I found that these connection solutions were not available, instead I had a blank dialogue as per figure 2. Uninstalling, rebooting, and reinstalling Revit did not cure the problem! Even worse, all of my Revit installs from version 2021 to 25 exhibited the same problem. A blank steel connections dialog!
Fig 2. Missing Steel connections!
To fix the problem exit Revit
At the Windows Desktop
Open the Command prompt window (press Win key + R and then type CMD) Type each of the commands below and press Enter:
- sqllocaldb stop SteelConnections[REVIT_VERSION]
- sqllocaldb delete SteelConnections[REVIT_VERSION]
- sqllocaldb create SteelConnections[REVIT_VERSION]
- sqllocaldb start SteelConnections[REVIT_VERSION]
Substitute [REVIT_VERSION] with the relevant version number 2024, 2025 etc.
Delete the folder from: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server Local DB\Instances\SteelConnections[REVIT_VERSION]
If Windows report the directory is in use, restart Windows and continue the tasks as listed.
Clean-up the ‘C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Revit Steel Connections [REVIT_VERSION]\en-UK\ ‘folder by removing the following files detailed below. If it is not an UK installation, apply this step for the user`s installation language per language folder.
- All the MDF files
- All the LDF files
- AS_ContentBuildNumber.txt
All these will then be unzipped from the archive.
Once complete start Revit and check out the Steel connections, hopefully now the expected steel connection items will be available.
Repeat this process for other Revit versions if need!
Fig 3. Hurrah, my plates, and bolts are back!