What to do when the floating Edit Group panel goes missing and you are in the middle of editing a group in Autodesk Revit... that is the topic of today's post.
A designer in our office ran into this issue last week... she was in the middle of editing a group and had no apparent way to complete the edit mode, and did not want to lose the work and have to start over.
Related: I wrote a post in the past on what to do when a dialog goes missing (a similar but different issue), you can read about here: Dealing With Off-Screen Dialog Boxes.
Sometimes the floating Edit Group panel is just on another screen and/or behind another application. Closing/minimizing other applications could reveal it.
If it still cannot be found, there is a keyboard shortcut assigned to the Finish Group command. However, it is not easy to find in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog. Searching for "group" does not reveal the Finish Group command!
Searching for "finish" does list what we want but you have to do a little detective work to find it...
The Keyboard Shortcut is FG (for Finish Group).
Docking the panel: an option, when the panel can be seen...
Any panel can be pulled out of the Ribbon. They then have an icon in the upper right corner (only visible when your cursor is hovering over the floating panel) that can return it to its original position.
The Edit Group dialog also has this option, but there is no "original position". It ends up showing up at the end of the current Ribbon tab (it will appear on all of them as you change tabs). Since the panel is not floating, it should always show up. After some testing, it appears this change persists until you change ti back to floating in the future, if desired.
Google AI Overview
Google's AI search feature provided helpful results...
Google search: autodesk revit cannot exit edit group mode
If you're unable to exit edit group mode in Autodesk Revit, it's likely due to the "Finish" or "Cancel" buttons being hidden or off-screen, often caused by multiple monitors with different display scaling settings or conflicts with add-ins. You can resolve this by using keyboard shortcuts, resetting the Revit interface, or adjusting your display settings.
Troubleshooting steps to exit Edit Group mode:
- Press FG to Finish and save the group.
- Press CG to Cancel the group modification.
- You can also create custom keyboard shortcuts for "Finish" or "Cancel" in Revit's keyboard shortcuts settings if the default options are not working.
- Press FG to Finish and save the group.
- The "Group Edit" or "Assembly Edit" panel might have become undocked and floated off-screen.
- Try using Windows Key + D to show the desktop, which can sometimes bring hidden floating dialogs into view.
- If you find the panel, drag it back to the Revit ribbon and dock it.
- Try using Windows Key + D to show the desktop, which can sometimes bring hidden floating dialogs into view.
- If the panel is consistently misplaced or unresponsive, resetting the Revit interface to its default settings can help. You can do this by deleting the
UIState.datfile. - If you use multiple monitors, issues with differing display scaling can cause the Edit Group buttons to go off-screen.
- Navigate to your Windows display settings (right-click on desktop) and set the resolution and display scale of all monitors to the same settings, or as close as possible.
- Alternatively, you can try configuring Revit to run with enhanced system scaling by right-clicking the Revit shortcut, selecting "Properties," then "Compatibility," and finally "Change high DPI settings".
- Navigate to your Windows display settings (right-click on desktop) and set the resolution and display scale of all monitors to the same settings, or as close as possible.
- If all else fails and Revit becomes completely unresponsive, you can force quit the application through Task Manager. Be aware that any unsaved changes made in Edit Group mode will be lost.
Important Notes:
- Avoid using the "Undo" command to re-enter group edit mode when trying to exit, as this can sometimes exacerbate the issue.
- Be cautious about changing program focus while Revit is processing group changes, as this can also contribute to being stuck.
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