topic Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette in Libraries & objects

Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

waydowntown — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 15:33:16 GMT

Hi everyone

Shortly after starting any project with our standard office template, a couple hundred new surfaces always appear in the Surfaces palette. If we delete them using the attribute manager, it's just a matter of (short) time before they reappear in the palette. Now I'm pretty sure these are embedded in a library object (or family of objects) located within our own office library (let me know if you think I'm wrong on that). Is there any way of pinpointing which objects in our library are linked with these surfaces so that we can remove them?

Incidentally the surfaces are all named Kling RAL. Does anyone know where this might originate from?

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Aaron Bourgoin — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 15:57:04 GMT

You've been bitten by the KLING virus. There is a macro inside the Kling Library that creates these. Stop using the part immediately and delete any KlING related objects from your libraries.

Worse still, the surface will keep returning when you copy paster anything from one file to another. (this nasty part can show up even if al you copy/pasted was a line). You will have to keep checking your Embedded libraries because it will keep coming back. If you share arched files with other firms, they will be infected too.

Graphisoft this this is a feature. See related threads about copy/pasting bugs. We need to have the underlying functionality behind this disabled.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

waydowntown — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:47:33 GMT

Hmm, I wonder how this could have happened? 😉

But seriously, we have nothing Kling -related in our library. So it should be a copy/paste function from a previously infected file. But I can't seem to reproduce this intentionally when copying several stories form one file to the next. Is there any other way that this might be passed on? And is there something specific that I should look for in the Embedded Libraries that will confirm this? Or any way to locate the Kling macro?

Thanks!

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Aaron Bourgoin — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 17:55:43 GMT

look in the embedded library of your infected file first. then search your company library (libraries).

If it came from outside (do you receive archicad files from anyone?), then it will likely have infected your file(s) when you copy/pasted. They will be in a folder that bears the name of where they originally resided.

the macro uses the term Kling. I don't have an infected file open at the moment, but if you see it remove the enclosing folder.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Patrick M — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 20:02:14 GMT

as others have said, check your embedded library. look for any object called master_gdl.gsm

these are "storage dumps" for attributes or sub-routines. They are generally usefull, for the out of the box library. But some manufacturers attach them to their parts to conveniently give you all their furnitrue/appliance/fixture finish options. The biggest issue is that this pollutant is contageous. If you copy/paste from a file with these master_gdl.gsm parts into a clean file, even just copying over some lines, fills, or texts, the embedded library part comes with it, and it generates all the surfaces in all the files.

eventually, you will find every project in your office will be contaminated, and you'll have to clean them all out regularly. I have a client that I scrub all their files about 2-3x per year, and have even gone through their archives to weed it out. But theres always that one project form 10 years ago that we need a detail from, and the design staff doesnt think to look for the pollution before copying it into their file. By the time it's caught, it's in 75%+ of the current projects again.

THIS is one of the biggest PITA's of my Archicad work

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Aaron Bourgoin — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 20:20:53 GMT

it's not just that file or file type.

The ones that relate specifically to the Kling bug are these:

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Patrick M — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 21:29:38 GMT

yes, thats exactly what I was referring to. The master_gdl parts are dragging surface attributes everywhere. and they pollute every file you copy/paste into

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

dsfahsdfhn — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 22:26:32 GMT

How is there no fix for this yet? I'm at the point where I too, have to clean out every file in my office periodically...

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Aaron Bourgoin — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 22:51:16 GMT

We have 40 active projects in the office, most of which involve more than one single model file. Despite our in-house NO COPY/PASTE rule, the re-infection happens every week to 2/3 of the files.

It is a virus: not a feature.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

scottjm — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:26:30 GMT

@JaredBanks video about the Master_GDL virus is very informative and well worth a watch to better understand this virus.

https://shoegnome.com/2023/08/03/archicad-tutorial-92-copy-and-paste-embedded-libraries-and-master_gdl-viruses/

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Patrick M — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 18:22:13 GMT

yes, I have seen it infect files, even when teams swear they never copy/paste. The best I can figure is it makes its way into local data and infects from there, or people just truly don't understand how infectious this issue is.
I've caught people claiming they didn't copy/paste, then see that there is text/details/etc... "but it's only 2d" or "I just needed that one detail".

I've insisted people self audit for this issue before/after any copy/paste (because lets face, they're going to do that), at the end of every week, before saving out .mod (since it get buried in modules and is impossible to remove at that point without purging all infected modules).

This really is something that GS needs to fix. There is no reason we should have to continually check files and go through the effort to remove the thousands of polluted surfaces on a daily basis like we currently do.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Patrick M — Thu, 09 May 2024 17:42:00 GMT

bump this thread too; just had a client report that the pollution has made it's way into their template, despite our best efforts to keep it clean. Gotta get this under control.
this is a nuisance, an embarrassment, a time suck, and a hinderance to proper file management and maintenance.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Olivia19 — Thu, 09 May 2024 17:49:46 GMT

The same thing happens in our office all the time! Graphisoft needs to fix the underlying issues so this doesn't keep happening.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Patrick M — Thu, 09 May 2024 20:15:43 GMT

still just getting crickets on this... anyone from GS care to chime in? hoping it just goes away (like the rest of us)? Any plans to get this resolved in (or before) AC28?

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Aaron Bourgoin — Thu, 09 May 2024 21:47:30 GMT

why do we have to keep saying, ad nauseam, that this is NOT a "feature". It's a BUG.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Patrick M — Thu, 23 May 2024 15:08:25 GMT

Let me give this one another bump, with another story. I just opened a clients pln, then got a screen shot from them asking why I added these surfaces... and if I can't keep my surfaces out of their drop box files, that they'll just have to do the work themselves.
So this 'feature' is now losing me work...

I'll also add, I did not add anything to this project. Did not copy/paste anything in. Did not load any new objects to the library manger or even drag/drop anything into the file. Just opening the file riddled it with these master_gdl.gsm surfaces.

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

ksjhawk — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:37:36 GMT

Still no reply huh? Still having the problem.

Sigh...

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Aaron Bourgoin — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:14:40 GMT

There are threads on this forum that relate to this problem including ones that have responses from Graphisoft about their plans to resolve this.

for example:

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Open-discussions/Extreme-Pain-Point-GDL-Virus/m-p/400058#M58

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

AllanP — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 01:14:19 GMT

If only you could write an API that ran when you open any file

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Project event handler function
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
static GSErrCode __ACENV_CALL    NotificationHandler (API_NotifyEventID notifID, Int32 param)
{
    char    msgStr[256];
    switch (notifID) {
        case APINotify_Open:               CHCopyC ("APINotify_Open", msgStr);            break;
    }
    ACAPI_WriteReport (msgStr, false);
    return NoError;
}   // NotificationHandler

that would then find the offending "Master GDL KLING" files in the embedded library...(we had the "Master_GDL_Materials" creating the "JH ***" surfaces)

(The "ACAPI_LibPart_Get" function is used to get the data of the requested Library Part defined by the index field. The other fields of the structure are returned by ARCHICAD. You cannot use names here; first you have to find the library part with ACAPI_LibPart_Search function.)

    GSErrCode  ACAPI_LibPart_Search (
        API_LibPart*     ancestor,
        bool             createIfMissing,
        bool             onlyPlaceable = false
    );

    GSErrCode  ACAPI_LibPart_Get (
        API_LibPart*     libPart
    );

    typedef struct {
        API_LibTypeID      typeID;
        Int32              index;
        GS::uchar_t        docu_UName [API_UniLongNameLen];
        GS::uchar_t        file_UName [API_UniLongNameLen];
        bool               missingDef;
        bool               filler_1;
        bool               isTemplate;
        bool               isPlaceable;
        GSType             ownerID;
        short              version;
        unsigned short     platformSign;
        Int32              filler_2[7];
        IO::Location       *location;
        Int32              filler_3;
        char               ownUnID [128];
        char               parentUnID [128];
    } API_LibPart;

and then deleted them from the embedded library,

    GSErrCode ACAPI_Environment (
        APIEnv_DeleteEmbeddedLibItemID,
        const IO::Location*   location,
        bool                  keepGSMFile = false,
        bool                  silentMode = false
    );

then find all the attributes created by those "Master GDL KLING" files

    GSErrCode  ACAPI_Attribute_Search (
        API_Attr_Head*     attrHead
    );

then delete them

    GSErrCode  ACAPI_Attribute_Delete (
        const API_Attr_Head*     attrHead
    );

and then the problem would be solved....

But you need to learn to write an API and install it on all your users computers.

you could name the api "KANG attribute antivius"

Re: Hundreds of unwanted Surfaces reappearing in Surface Palette

Ernest Atanasiu — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:08:55 GMT

Care to elaborate on this? Can I search for all MasterGDL related attributes that exist in my file ? Do I need to learn programming ? I will learn if it solves this pain.