Error: Revit cannot run external application "Librarian"....

 

There is nothing more frustrating than having a trusty tool you have been using all along suddenly stop working and throwing an obscure error. Fortunately, there is an easy fix.

Cause: Corruption of the Library database stored in the windows user profile. Changes in the windows security environment, updates, or installation of a new software may trigger this issue. The causes are not entirely clear.

Solution: The solution is to force the Librarian to create a brand new database library or delete the old database (*.db) files and restore them from a backup.

The database (*.db) files are located in the Roaming user profile %appdata%\Librarian\<YYYY>\_libdb\ folder. One can simply delete the folder or rename it so that the Librarian can re-create the folder when Revit is restarted again.

Privacy Policy for Autodesk App Store Users

We at Spicetools Technologies, take our customer's right to privacy seriously. Below are the terms of our Privacy policy: 

1. Our apps do not have any mechanism to transmit user data outside the user's environment back to us. Data collected by Autodesk or components supplied by Autodesk are unavailable to us.
2. By downloading our Apps, we are notified of the email address associated with the user's Autodesk account. We do not share this data with any one outside our organization.
3. We reserve the right to collect user-data for app performance and/or licensing in the future. Users   will have the right to refuse data collection by reviewing the details of the collected data and notifying us.

Error: Cannot Run External Application "Librarian"

Several users have complained about a persistent error when launching the Librarian. The most common reason for this error is the inability of the App to write into the Windows user profile folder.

Reason for the Error:

Microsoft Ransomware Protection through the 'Protected Folders'  is enabled. This prevents the App from accessing the user profile to Cache Library Data.

Solution(s):

Two possible solutions exist:

1. Disable Controlled Folder Access Control or

2. Create Exceptions (can be tedious) to allow access to the following location:

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Librarian

Below are screenshots of the Windows Security User Interface leading to the Controlled Access folder:

Activating Autodesk App Store Licensing

This is post is intended for first-time users of the App Store. If one of the following situations apply to you, please read further:

1. You have never downloaded and installed any plugin (paid or otherwise) from the Autodesk App Store.
2. You have purchased an App in Bulk and your license was assigned by the software vendor.
3. You just created a new Autodesk Account in order to activate a license for an App (or download an App)

If you are trying to run a paid App and you are unable to authenticate the license, Autodesk recommends the following procedure to activate your account:

1. Download and install a free app such as the Family Size Reporter
2. Run the App at least once after logging into Revit with your Autodesk ID.
3. Now run the paid App that you are given an entitlement for and you should be able to authenticate your licence without a problem.