AD18 - Don't understand behavior of "Parts" in default settings.

[SVFeingold]

Hey all,

I'm having an annoying problem that I don't recall ever having in AD17. Normally I go to place to part and when it's placed the designator shows R? or whatever as was specified in the library. In AD18, however, every part I'd place had an S? designator. Weird. I had imported my AD17 settings, so I went into Settings -> Schematic -> Defaults -> Part. Whenever I open this dialog, the part "Defaults" just show the parameters of whatever part I had selected last.

Which...ok...that doesn't really make sense? So, OK, I clear the fields that were filled in with manufacturer information. The annoying part is the designator. I have no idea what to put in this field to make Altium just STOP replacing the designator specified in the library with whatever is in this default part field. How do I do that? I've tried leaving it blank, replacing it * or ?, and it doesn't matter. That just makes any part I place from a library have its designator replaced with exactly what's in that field. I.e. a blank results in a blank designator when I place parts.

What am I missing here? Why is there even a default part setting to begin with, when this stuff comes from the library?

Thanks for the help!

[ajb]

That's weird.  What sort of library are you using?

Maybe try resetting your preferences?  Just be warned I've had issues with Altium not loading saved settings correctly lately, so hopefully you haven't done a lot of customization there.

[thm_w]

I've tried leaving it blank, replacing it * or ?, and it doesn't matter.

Just to confirm, you have tried 'R?' and not just '?' alone right?

[SVFeingold]

Just to confirm, you have tried 'R?' and not just '?' alone right?

Just tried, that replaces all of the designators with "R." So confused here. This has to be a bug or something, I have no idea why anyone would want to set a universal default designator...

[SVFeingold]

Could someone on AD18 post a screenshot of their default part dialog? Really curious if there is some specific thing I'm supposed to put in there.

Looks like I'm not the only one: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/373986/altium-18-override-library-primitive-option-missing

[SVFeingold]

Alright, found it, I was looking in the wrong section. Had to go into "Designator" and uncheck "Override Library Primitive." Hooray!