Upgrading an Installed Package

Packages
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I searched for similar topics, but did not find any.

I have been updating my monocle packages to the latest version. Here are some thoughts on my experience:

  • Having to do this on each version of Dynamo I have installed is rather tedious. I suppose for some packages (for custom nodes), you would not necessarily want to upgrade to the latest version for all versions of Dynamo, if the latest version only works in the latest Dynamo.
  • The workflow for upgrading a package - at least for monocle - could be better. Maybe I am missing something? It seems I have to try to install the latest version, only to be told that the previous version has to be uninstalled (I get that). So I click the button to uninstall, and I get a dialog similar to the image below (the format is slightly different in different versions, but the message seems to be the same). So I select yes, and then restart Dynamo, but the old version of monocle is still there, and repeating the attempt to install the new version cycles me around to the same set of dialogs. I finally discovered that if I close not only Dynamo, but also the underlying Revit, then and only then does the old monocle get removed, and I can install the new one. I suppose the dialog as is works for sandbox versions of Dynamo, but it would be helpful if the dialog was aware if Dynamo had been launched as an in-process from another application, and tell you you need to shut it all down.
    image
  • For my Revit 2024 installation, I am experimenting with John Pierson’s suggestion to host packages on the Autodesk Construction Cloud. I had monocle up there as well. I swear it all worked the first time I set it up. (It was probably late at night, so I could be wrong about that.) It was not running last night, and no matter how many times I tried to upgrade monocle, it would simply not uninstall the old version - even after closing Revit. I imagine that there may be some sort of permissions thing in that it was trying to delete the files in my local cache, but the cloud master copy was not having it. I ended up manually deleting the old monocle files on ACC, then installed it locally. It all works just fine now.

Perhaps monocle’s nature as an extension, rather than a collection of custom nodes, makes it different enough to require separate handling, and installing it on ACC is not a good idea. One thing is certain - I do not want to work in Dynamo without monocle!

I will note that this was all done on my home computer, running Desktop Connector 15.8.0.1827. I do intend to upgrade to the latest 16.x version soon, now that we are moving to that at work. (We held off on that until the latest version of Ideate Software Sticky was released, as the older version did not play nicely with 16.x.)

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Fastest way around this is delete all packages in the windows folders for dynamo in roaming, install for one version then copy them to each other build.

Agree it could be easier to do it via dynamo though.

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3

Agree on that as well, @GavinCrump
It’s much easier and faster that way instead of using Dynamo install/uninstall.
We also do the same when we deploy the packages to the users using Robocopy script.

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4

Yes agree should work in many cases except for these package there are version specific, archilab, orchid, rhythm etc i guees :wink:

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I just rename the folder when I want to go completely clean. For single packages I drag/drop what I want to remove from the active folder to an archive (allowing me to return them quickly).

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6

Good for testing purpose.

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Thanks to all for the suggestion. That should have occurred to me. I really need to find time to work on things like this earlier in the day, when I still have a semi-functional brain.

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8

This is a common problem.

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