So I am constantly getting this message after I make a change to my model and I am forever rolling back my design to try and fix it. My question is, if the problem feature is still there like it was before I removed it's reference geometry and I am able to render it okay, why does it insist on relying on geometry that is no longer there? Can't it just make a new reference to somewhere in 3D space?
That's the thing I can't see any on my screen anywhere. I had a simple 3D plane that I originally made perpendicular to an extruded face. Then I went in an changed the extrusion dimension and all of a sudden the 3D plane had no idea where it was. Solidworks is telling me to deleted the dashed dangling entities but there are none
Go to your "View" menu and turn on "Sketch Relations"
Jacob Murray wrote:
Can't it just make a new reference to somewhere in 3D space?
No, it can't, and I wouldn't want it to.
I assume you haven't been using SW very long? As you work with it more, you'll learn, almost without thinking about it, to look ahead and try to anticipate future edits and use references accordingly. For just one example, when I first started using SW I would constrain both ends of construction lines. If one end was coincident with a model edge that was later changed I'd get sketch errors. I've since learned to not constrain the end of construction lines unless there is a good reason for doing so. That one small thing has greatly reduced the type of error you mentioned. Using sketches and planes that are independent of any model features is another way to minimize the problem.
Rendering is just making a pretty picture, the underlying problem with the feature(s) can be solved by editing the feature or in this case the sketch and re-attaching the lost geometry.
If you extrude a sketch and then attach something to one of the faces of the sketch, you've made a releation to that original feature. IF you edit the first sketch and remove (not just change) a sketch entity, the feature should rebuild but the child of that feature may not because it was attached to another face. These are simple to fix, usually.
You've removed the geometry, but the relations/mates you set up are still there.
It'll keep telling you this until you go in and delete the offending relations (the murky green ones).