Old to New: Upgrading oddities 1 (of more??? )

Have you tried to upgrade a file (or files) to Revit 2009 and found that it or they won't upgrade (yet)? Well, we have and although Autodesk Support is one possibility for a solution, that can take weeks + to get a result and even though I am the person that emails them most every day asking if they are done, it can take a while (understandably...they have a lot of clients!!!).

So what am I talking about? OK, I will tell you:

Yesterday I got a message from a colleague who wants to be referred to herein as Sasquatch (Actually he corrected me, saying: "Quasimodo would have described me a little better! Ha Ha") so, thanks Quasimodo...(AKA John C Raiten).

So anyways, John asked if I had any ideas as to how he could upgrade a 140MB project file to Revit 2009, since I recently had a problem file that needed ADSK's help in upgrading. I got in touch with him this morning to suggest he try a parsing of the file, since there seems to be no other options beyond this or ADSK Support... Well I found that he finally had success (Yaay!!!) and here is the synopsis:

"If at first you don't..."

1) Detached and 'saveas-ed' (lol) a new Central file, so as to not destroy the original file.
...tried to upgrade the entire project file with no luck...

2) Purged Unused, Audited, removed errors. (always a good set of ideas).
...tried to upgrade the entire project file with no luck...

3) Removed all links.
...tried to upgrade the entire project file with no luck...

Now here it gets fun...remember I said parse? well Sasquatch tried that after the obvious ways it "SHOULD" have worked all failed...

4) Grouped logically related bits of geometry (did I mention this project is approximately 5,000,000 sf?) why do I add that? Well, when I say bits I mean a Shit-load: He then saved the groups out as Links.
(Hmmm, perhaps you are beginning to see now?) ...wait for it...

5) He repeated this a handful of times; until only Levels, Grids and Annotations, Views, Sheets realistically everything shy of the actual building, existed in the original file.
...tried to upgrade the now building-less project file with luck... (Yes I said WITH luck, now we are getting somewhere). This point of time is also known as the dénouement...

6) Upgraded each of the linked group files, one-by-one.
...I can sense the end...

7) Linked them all in to the new 2009 main file, Bound them (oooh kinky) and ungrouped them and...

It Fucking worked!!!

-Fade-to-Black-