How do I filter for dead mates?

[Dwight]

I did look for a better way to put it, but I found nothing in a few searches, so I'm calling them "dead mates" until I hear something better. I mean a mate where both parties are deceased, leaving only a pair of grayed out component references in their will. They may be creepy, but I create them by the score and often spend time trying to clean them out of my assemblies.

Some questions:

What are they really called?

Is there a way to filter for them?

Do they affect performance? (I think they must, demanding that Solidworks search for the lost components.)

Thanks

Dwight

[bnemec]

I think I've heard of a macro for these. They're usually a "renal failure yellow" color in the tree? Equally concerning are mates that were left suppressed and are now dead.

[SPerman]

Right Click on the "mates" label in the history tree. Select "Group Mates", then "By Status." This may not get you all of the way there, but it will get you close.

https://help.solidworks.com/2019/englis ... _mates.htm

[Dwight]

Right Click on the "mates" label in the history tree. Select "Group Mates", then "By Status."

I see that's new for 2019. Something to look forward to. I knew I heard about something like that, probably in an Alin video.

Thanks

Dwight

[SPerman]

I learned about it here on the forum, but I can't remember when or where.

[bnemec]

I learned about it here on the forum, but I can't remember when or where.

@matt note this cadforum.net milestone?

[zxys001]

@matt note this cadforum.net milestone?

I was hoping this would turn into a pirate pun thread.

[jcapriotti]

I was hoping this would turn into a pirate pun thread.

[zxys001]

image.png

[Dwight]

I am still curious how much these dead mates affect performance. When I open someone else's assembly and find 30 or 40 of these gray corpses in the mates folder, I'd like to tell the owner how much they slow down performance of the top level assembly. But do they?

Is Alin reading this? Ever checked this out?

Dwight

[bnemec]

I am still curious how much these dead mates affect performance. When I open someone else's assembly and find 30 or 40 of these gray corpses in the mates folder, I'd like to tell the owner how much they slow down performance of the top level assembly. But do they?

Is Alin reading this? Ever checked this out?

Dwight

If the Dead Mates are buried in sub assemblies and those sub assemblies are not flexible then there should be little to no effect on the upper level assemblies.

I'm not 100% but if they are grayed out they are suppressed and solver ignores them, so again should be little to no affect. If they are Yellow then they are referencing missing geometry, I believe that may cause problems.

[gupta9665]

I think you can make a macro to delete the suppressed mates but not sure if this would be a good idea.

[berg_lauritz]

I am still curious how much these dead mates affect performance. When I open someone else's assembly and find 30 or 40 of these gray corpses in the mates folder, I'd like to tell the owner how much they slow down performance of the top level assembly. But do they?

Is Alin reading this? Ever checked this out?

Dwight

I was bold and activated the checkmark Treat missing mate references as errors once and it made everything go slow, red and boom.
Don't try this at home.
So maybe they actually do have an effect. They count as suppressed mates as sub-assemblies though... But if you add a new mate in that assembly this might have an effect?