Hi,

I've been using multi-body part modeling for several years now and see clear advantages over top down assembly modeling.  There is one (big) downside, though, that I have never been able to get around.  Occasionally the "child" parts created using the Save Bodies command from the multi-body parent part file become unlinked from the multi-body parent file, and any changes I make in the parent no longer propagate to the child parts.  One recommendation I read says to do the following:

1) In assembly, Identify part who lost its host
2) Close assembly
3) move lost-part file to a temp folder
4) open source part file (which has 'save bodies' command)
5) click "no" to "cant find; do you want to find..." request
6) re-check the part name of the lost part within the list
7) click ok to close feature edit and resave bodies
8) save source part and close
9) use the part you saved in the temp folder to overwrite the newly created part
10) open that part, force a rebuild ( [control-Q] red alert should disappear) then save

When you open the assembly back up, the parts should be relinked correctly and your previous mades and explode steps should still be in tact

I've tried this an unfortunately it has not worked for me.  After completing the steps above, I open the child part and it does not have the new features I added to the parent file.  In fact, I have noticed that (not consistently, but more than just once) when I go back into the parent file, the new features as well as the save body command have been suppressed (not by me, automatically by the software somehow) and the software will not let me unsupress them.  If I flip back and forth a few times, they usually get unsupressed, but the new features still do not propagate into the child parts.

As a last resort, I performed steps 1-4 above, then deleted the save bodies feature, and recreated it.  I then performed steps 7-10 above.  Now when I open the child parts, not only do the new features in the parent file not propagate, but there is no geometry whatsoever in the child part, and there are red errors in the feature tree ("Split body is not valid" is what the errors say in all the parts). 

One other thing I've noticed is that after running through the steps above (or even before running through these steps), when I edit my Save Bodies feature in the parent file, the "Create Assembly" field (where you specify the name and file path for the assembly you automatically create via the Save Bodies command) is blank, even though I specified a name and file path when previously editing the feature. 

I have several detailed drawings associated with my child parts, and a few "native" features in some of the child parts, as well, so starting over with a completely new set of "saved bodies" will be a big loss.  Does anyone know how I can get these files linked back to the parent file?