Rename Surfaces Measure Creates Severe Error

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All, I am a fan of "Rename Space Surfaces Based on Parent Space and Orientation" measure, and I have been using it without any problem ... until now.

My model generates a severe error:

   ** Severe  ** Duplicate name found. name: "Space 105 - Wall 0:a". Overwriting existing object.

The problem is: there is no duplicate. I have been scratching my head on this, and I thought I post the solution.

The crux of the problem is: EnergyPlus does not like the name "Space 105 - Wall 0:a", for whatever reason.

The measure is supposed to give the surface name based on space name, space type (wall, floor, roof), and orientation (000, 090, 180, 270).

So the name of the surface at the above example is supposed to be "Space 105 - Wall 000:a". But for whatever reason, the three zeros got truncated. This happens in zones with many surfaces on north orientation (000). At random times, the three zeros become one. And that creates the problem in EnergyPlus.

Solution: Manually renaming the surface to something else, like "Space 105 - Wall 000:aa", will solve the problem.

Hope this helps people who uses this measure. Or, is it just me using this measure? :)

Here is an example with the error, though the error is hand made, not the result of the measure. Example