After renaming a virtual model that is a dependency of many other models, the following error sometimes occurs:

Unresolved reference "file:/<file_path_to_base_model>/<name_of_old_base_model>"

Seems may have something to do with model object proxies and loading of models. If all the models are open in an editor, the error will not occur. However, if no editors are open, the error may occur.

The error is generated from the ResourceInScopeValidationRule class when an EMF resource cannot be found.

See forum post for more details.