Altium auto-modifying a project on opening

[julianhigginson]

So, I am working with another (remote, but same city) engineer on a large-ish 6 board project, and we have been handing AD projects back and forth at different times.

I've just noticed that I have 3 AD projects that he last worked on, and for 2 of the projects, when I open them to look at, Altium automatically makes a change to the project file, and the file turns red to indicate it's changed and needs saving.

But the third project doesn't. Which really weirds me out. They are all from the same guy over a couple of days, so having them behave differently is even worse than all behaving the same way I don't like.

I'm sure I've seen projects being modified on open every now and then over the years, and scratched my head and kept on working... but now I'd like to try and understand what and why and how to stop it.

Ideally I don't want AD auto touching project files when I'm just design reviewing. I can always "git reset --hard HEAD" if I accidentally save when prompted during close, but it shouldn't be happening in the first place, so...

Has anyone else seen this kind of behaviour before and know what it might be? bonus points for a configuration fix so it doesn't happen any more! :-)

[tszaboo]

I think it modifies it, if the project file comes from an earlier version of AD.

[julianhigginson]

That's what I suspected till now when a project would turn red in opening, but if that's the case (and the only way it can happen) it would be weird, as it's all from the same guy, and I'd expect, the same altium install on the same PC...

I guess he could have updated his AD to latest in the middle of doing things... So the newest project is the same as mine but earlier ones weren't?

[dfnr2]

It could be as simple as using different paths for working directories.

I alternate between my desktop (Mac Pro) and laptop (Macbook Pro), using version control to sync the working directories.  Altium runs under Parallels, but I keep all the files in my mac home directory--I don't keep any data in the Parallels disk.  The drive/directory aliases are slightly different on the two machines, and the project gets modified to reflect the location of the constituent files on the current machine--as if it has moved.  If I open a file on the laptop to view, then try to close, I'll get a prompt to save.  If I say "yes", then I'll get a prompt to save when I move back to the desktop.

[julianhigginson]

Hmmm. But something fundamental like this will effect all 3 projects, surely?

And the projects need to be the same relative distance away from our shared excel file "parts db" and library folders... Otherwise the db links and library objects they reference will break..

[AlfBaz]

Here's something worth  trying.
Open it, at this point it changes the project. then save it and compare the text contents of the *.PrjPCB file to the original  to see what's changed. The *.PrjPCB file is a text file

[julianhigginson]

Good idea! I honestly thought there might be a standard thing someone more knowledgeable than me fully understands, and they would write up a proper consistent explanation of why AD would decide to modify its project file on opening... I guess not.

So I had a look... and for my particular instance of this issue today:

1) it seems like it is silently deleting a reference to an output file.
item [GeneratedDocument1] gets deleted, which is  a DRC output in html format -  no dialog warning.

2) Also, it's adding what looks to be outjob setting setting options related to the extensions I have installed (even though the settings are empty - I don't actually use SIMetrix/SIMPLIS)  so it's  adding entries under  [OutputGroup1], and [OutputGroup2] items

So if you are working on an AD project with someone else, there's a reason to keep your configuration of the program exactly the same as theirs - to remove lots of unnecessary file changes in the project file every time to both save and commit....

[AlfBaz]

I'm curious, are you using the "Project Packager" or simply zipping the projects folder contents?

[julianhigginson]

We're using GIT repos for each AD project.  (which is why I can always git reset --hard HEAD to fix auto changes that were accidentally saved)

But because CM systems lets you track and watch file state changes, I'd prefer not to have the project file change state unless one of us has actually made project settings changes, and was wondering if there was some obscure project setting or program config I wasn't aware of, that might disable random project file changes.

Otherwise we're pingponging irrelevant project settings back and forth and creating what amounts to noise in the file change log. Yeah I can ignore it (like I have for ages) but this time I was wondering if I even had to ignore it. Guess so.