Fixtures not mapping correctly and erroneous fixtures showing up in mapping window

i don't know why that attachment ended up in the middle of a paragraph, should be at the bottom with the rest

aha well. I have solved this...and not surprisingly, it is related to the same issue here:

https://community.etcconnect.com/control_consoles/eos-family-consoles/f/eos-family-augment3d/37570/if-a3d-is-reading-vw-s-instr-type-field-why-do-multiple-lights-with-different-type-names-come-in-as-the-same-fixture-type

But my utter confusion only exemplifies the importance of the issue. At some point in the past, I had had those other fixture types in my show and they had since changed, but somehow, the hidden 'Inst Type' field never got fixed. This would've been a long time ago, before A3d. Based on the information in that previous post, I did clean up all my symbols in Lighting Symbol Maintenance but I had no idea there was rogue data in that hidden field in some of my lights with old Instr Types. And when I looked in Lighting Symbol Maintenance, I didn't see any of that rogue data because it wasn't in any of the root symbols, only specific instances on the plot, which were then getting imported into Eos.

It's only because I was the originator of this plot, that I suspected which symbols to select and then run a "replace with..." command to refresh all instances on the plot with the root symbol from the Resource Manager. Had I not been the originator of the plot, such as an assistant or other member of the team, I would have no idea what lights were sending the rogue data. The only solution, I think, would be to select every kind of instrument on the drawing and replace them with the one from the RM in the hopes that it rooted out the bad data. 

It's that very tedious process and confusion that needs to try and be avoided. It seems like VW either needs to allow us to see that field data somewhere for each light instance, or Eos needs to read data from a field we can also see. 

aha well. I have solved this...and not surprisingly, it is related to the same issue here:

https://community.etcconnect.com/control_consoles/eos-family-consoles/f/eos-family-augment3d/37570/if-a3d-is-reading-vw-s-instr-type-field-why-do-multiple-lights-with-different-type-names-come-in-as-the-same-fixture-type

But my utter confusion only exemplifies the importance of the issue. At some point in the past, I had had those other fixture types in my show and they had since changed, but somehow, the hidden 'Inst Type' field never got fixed. This would've been a long time ago, before A3d. Based on the information in that previous post, I did clean up all my symbols in Lighting Symbol Maintenance but I had no idea there was rogue data in that hidden field in some of my lights with old Instr Types. And when I looked in Lighting Symbol Maintenance, I didn't see any of that rogue data because it wasn't in any of the root symbols, only specific instances on the plot, which were then getting imported into Eos.

It's only because I was the originator of this plot, that I suspected which symbols to select and then run a "replace with..." command to refresh all instances on the plot with the root symbol from the Resource Manager. Had I not been the originator of the plot, such as an assistant or other member of the team, I would have no idea what lights were sending the rogue data. The only solution, I think, would be to select every kind of instrument on the drawing and replace them with the one from the RM in the hopes that it rooted out the bad data. 

It's that very tedious process and confusion that needs to try and be avoided. It seems like VW either needs to allow us to see that field data somewhere for each light instance, or Eos needs to read data from a field we can also see. 

There is now a support article to help explain this: Vectorworks: Not All of the Symbols Used in my Plot Appear in the Eos Source File List - Electronic Theatre Controls Inc