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"External Surface File Not Found" after deleting the associated Surface in Civil 3D

Technical Support

Issue:

When opening a drawing that used to contain a large TIN Surface (surface containing more than 2 million surface points), and the surface has since been deleted from the drawing. The following message continues to display when opening the subject drawing:


External Surface File Not Found

"External Surface File Not Found: File <path>\<name>.mms, which contains the geometry for surface <name> was not found.
If you can find file <path>\<name>.mms, move it to <path>\<name>.mms, then close this drawing and reopen it.
Otherwise, try rebuilding surface <name>."

 External Surface File Not Found 

Causes:

Object reference resides in the drawing as a Proxy Entity.

Solution:

Try either of the suggestions below.

Option 1

  1. On the command line type "QSELECT" and hit enter.
  2. Expand the "Object Type" drop-down.
  3. Find and select "ACAD_PROXY_ENTITY" in that list.
  4. Change the "Operator" value to read "Select All".
  5. Click "OK" to find and select the object.
  6. Once selected, use the Delete key or ERASE command to remove the object.
  7. Save the drawing.
Quick Select


Note: Option 1 may be faster, but some have reported crashing when deleting the proxy object.


Option 2 

If you can find the mentioned MMS file:

  1. Place the mentioned MMS file in the same folder as the associated DWG.
  2. Open the drawing in Civil 3D.
  3. Delete the surface from the Civil 3D Toolspace palette > Prospector tab.
  4. Run an AUDIT and PURGE > All, see Optimizing drawing files in AutoCAD with Purge, Audit & Recover.
  5. Open the drawing and observe the name of the MMS file in the message.
  6. Noted down the name of the MMS file.
  7. Close the drawing and try to find the associated MMS file.
  8. Copy it to the same folder as the main drawing.
  9. If not able to find the associated MMS file in Step 3,

If you cannot find the mentioned MMS file:

  1. Copy any MMS file and rename it to the mentioned MMS file name.
  2. Place the copy in the same folder as the associated DWG.
  3. Open the drawing in Civil 3D again. You may receive warnings in Panorama.
  4. Delete the surface from the Civil 3D Prospector.
  5. Run an AUDIT and PURGE > All, see Optimizing drawing files in AutoCAD with Purge, Audit & Recover.

Products:

Civil 3D;

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