LDD ghost groups

[drugwash]

Apologies if this has been answered, I looked on search bar and couldn't find anything about this. I use LDD (Version 4.3.10 Brick Version 2248.1) and have problem where handful of models have an enormous number of groups, all empty, which cannot be deleted. I call them ghost groups because they don't go away, or if I delete them, sometimes a new group with empty subgroups appears in its place out of nowhere, sometimes the subgroups extend beyond the scrolling capability of the sidebar.

It all started couple of months ago I was importing models, to compare to each other, and I noticed these ghost groups appeared. They don't really affect the model at all, they're just annoying becuase they can't be deleted. I counted once I deleted over 200 of them and they're still there in large numbers. Except for two models which have all the ghost groups and they have trouble loading where it takes up to 5 minutes to open the file. A couple other models had these ghost groups but in far fewer number and I was able to delete them. Every time I import one of the models with ghost groups, they spread to the other model.

I saw about examining the files in a hex editor, would I be able to delete all the groups that way? I think it's some kind of glitch in LDD, and I looked in Roaming folder and found this DCLTrace.txt which said, "Elapsed(9497) File does not contain brick set version, no hot fixes possible." It used to say something different and then got overwritten so I don't think it's related to the ghost groups. I think it's some kind of polymorphic virus hiding in these files. I've deleted as many files with the ghost groups as I can and would hate to lose these models and have to rebuild them as it would take too long.

How do I get rid of these empty groups? Please help!

 

[SylvainLS]

When you delete a group in LDD, its place in the list of groups is taken by the last group in the list.  When a group contains groups, you need to delete the super group, then the children… grand childeren… and it appears endless.  But if you don’t move your mouse from the X, you can validate the dialog with the keyboard: click-return-click-return….

Anyway, an LXF file is just a ZIP file that you can decompress.  Inside is an LXFML file which is XML (so text) that you can edit with a text editor, like Notepad++ (not Wordpad or Word!).  Once edited, you can recreate an LXF file (reZIP IMAGE100.LXFML & IMAGE100.PNG together into a .zip and rename as .lxf), or simply load the LXFML in LDD.  Make backups before playing around….

 

Now, if you insist on continuing using LDD, you may at least consider going to version 4.3.11 / 2670… (many new parts, well, ‘new’ 4+ years ago) and even maybe install the custom parts from this thread (need 4.3.11): 

 

[drugwash]

Thanks for the help. Yes, I insist on using LDD. I tried Stud.io and couldn't even figure out how to zoom in and out. Though I still don't understand how all these groups were created? I didn't make them! Was it somehow from importing models? Maybe I was holding the wrong key?

 

On 6/11/2022 at 1:04 AM, SylvainLS said:

Once edited, you can recreate an LXF file (reZIP IMAGE100.LXFML & IMAGE100.PNG together into a .zip and rename as .lxf), or simply load the LXFML in LDD. 

I deleted all the groups rezipped the two files. There were over 2000 groups all the same, some with subgroups, that were

 <Group transformation="1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0" pivot="0,0,0" partRefs=""/>

I must have messed something up because after rezipping it says, "Unable to load file Unable to open file" in LDD. I couldn't open the .lxfml with LDD either. It says, "Untitled" in the window bar and there is nothing there. Must be my LDD version is too old and outdated.

 

[SylvainLS]

51 minutes ago, drugwash said:

I tried Stud.io and couldn't even figure out how to zoom in and out.

It’s Studio, no dot, now.  Zooming in/out is done with the mousewheel.

 

51 minutes ago, drugwash said:

I must have messed something up because after rezipping it says, "Unable to load file Unable to open file" in LDD. I couldn't open the .lxfml with LDD either. It says, "Untitled" in the window bar and there is nothing there. Must be my LDD version is too old and outdated.

The only newer version of LDD is 4.3.11 and it didn’t change much to 4.3.10 in terms of feature.

Forget the rezipping, it just adds more possibilities of screwing up.  I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

Now, the modified .lxfml should load… unless you have deleted things that shouldn’t have been deleted, or left things that should have been deleted.  The only solution is to be sure of what you do when you edit the XML.  Some smart editor (Notepad++) could help you there.

Well, one simple solution is to remove all the groups: leave only

  <GroupSystems>
    <GroupSystem>
    </GroupSystem>
  </GroupSystems>

and delete everything else about groups.

[drugwash]

Oh yeah, that worked. I didn't look and LDD was trying to open a .lxfml.xml file, forgot to delete the .xml part at the end. Thanks again!

 

If any more of these groups show up I can easily delete them now. Hopefully they don't come back...