Where did these parts go?

[Nikola Kovacs]

I've downloaded an l3b file (a model of the Lego 8070 Supercar) from a forum, and when I try to open it, it comes up with a bunch of missing parts. Some of them I was able to find, but I'm still missing a few, and I can't find them, for example, when I search for 58124s03.dat, I get a google result for http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cg...124s03.dat, but that page says the part wasn't found. But the page did exist, I found it on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/2010120509483...124s03.dat

Why has this part been deleted? Why can't I find it anywhere?

Here are all the parts that the model needs and I can't find:
U9112.DAT
U9113.DAT
58124s03.dat
x882.dat

[Michael Heidemann]

I fear that this will be a difficult task to find out because nowhere there is a tracker for parts renaming as long as the parts are not official.
I would try to identify the missing parts by substituting those numbers by another existing part, so you can see the location in the model. With a look into the building instructions and the inventory (http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/8070-1) it should be possible to find out which parts you are searching.

Just an idea to solve your problem.

[Nikola Kovacs]

One of the missing parts is a Technic Shock Absorber 6.5L, Spring. I finally found it using LeoCAD's pieces library manager, it's now 22977 ~Spring for Technic Shock Absorber 6.5L Extra Stiff. But why don't the tilde parts show up in either MLCad or SR 3D or LeoCAD in the parts browser? How do I add them to a model?
I did manage to replace the x882 with the 22977 using the modify option in MLCad's right click menu. I'll try to hunt down the other ones.
Why does this have to be so complicated? Wouldn't it just be easier to not delete renamed/obsoleted/whatever parts and add a comment that you should use part xxxxx now instead of this one?

[Magnus Forsberg]

I think it is like this:
u9112.dat is renamed to 59143.dat
u9113.dat is renamed to 59142.dat
s\58124s03.dat is a file present in the official library.
All three are included in part 58120.dat, "Electric Power Functions Medium Motor"

x882.dat is renamed to 70038.dat. It's included in shock absorber 73129.dat

[Nikola Kovacs]

Thanks, I renamed them all, and SR 3d now opens the model, but MLCad still complains about 58124s03.dat? Why?

[Magnus Forsberg]

It's a subfile. Add "s\" to to your file. Like this: s\58124s03.dat

[Philippe Hurbain]

This again (and again!) shows how useful an history of parts renames during unofficial stage would have been, and would still be. Something as rudimentary as a plain text log file would save a lot of disappointment and frustration.

[Chris Dee]

The log file exists and is used to populate the activity log. I'll check how easy it would be to provide a search capability.

[Chris Dee]

There is an un-documented feature of the activity log script, without a user interface to access it - the f= paramter, when supplied with the LDraw path to a part shows all the Parts Tracker history for that part.

e.g. http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/tracker/act...s/x882.dat

However, this does not currently show where a part has been renamed too, only where it came from, which is not very helpful in answering the current question.
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/tracker/act.../70038.dat

Let me see how easy it would be to fix.

[Philippe Hurbain]

That would be a great improvement if this data was accessible! Thanks in advance

[Chris Dee]

I have enhanced the search, so http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/tracker/act...s/x882.dat now finds the rename to 70038.dat.

A user interface to access this extra option will have to wait for a couple of weeks due to holidays.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Excellent, thanks, Chris!
There's nonetheless some slightly weird results, such as http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/tracker/act...ts/120.dat where the new part number appears, but later certifications refer to original part number. No big deal anyway!

[Michael Heidemann]

Wouldn't it just be easier to not delete renamed/obsoleted/whatever parts and add a comment that you should use part xxxxx now instead of this one?

What you discribe is the current way we work for official parts. The problem only rises if people use unofficial parts and do not combine them in the mpd file.
Maybe my new program MPDCenter help those people to pack all together in the mpd for future use.

[Michael Heidemann]

That are great news, indeed.
If you are able to implement also a function that only returns the new name, this function would helpful for automatic processing such update to the files.
I would like to see such function, that I like to integrate into MPDCenter.