DS3 and Categories: I broke it.
thinmick_3ecd3939f1
Posts: 0
Ok, so I've been having this persistent problem -- as in, this is the fourth time this year. I finally get all my content categorised, and I add something else. Then I do a search for new content. Then the program says it's scanned 2 files, and found 0 new ones, and crashes with no error message. Every time it pulls this stunt, those numbers are exactly the same.
The only way I've managed to fix it is to clear the content database and start over. Removing the most recently installed item does not fix it. Restoring an earlier version of the database does not fix it. Doing both of those things in that order doesn't fix it. Once it has started doing that, it will do the exact same thing, even if there is no new content, when the scan is run.
Installing whatever it was that it glitched on and then resetting the content database and doing a new scan? Works fine. It finds everything. Unfortunately, I still have to re-sort all my damn content again. And that takes months, every time. I've started re-arranging the install paths so stuff is easier to recognise, so that when this happens, it's mostly drag and drop to get all the parts together and into the right directory, in the content tab.
I'm using, as far as I know, the last version of DS3. I have no intention of upgrading to 4 or 4.5, since experiments with that have ended in a complete inability to render a scene without the program closing with no error. And before someone asks, this has all been happening with a brand new install of Windows 7. DS is like top of the list in the install order, right after Firefox and my virus scanner. It's installed on a drive that's dedicated to pretty much just DS and a handful of utilities that I use with it, mostly to keep these things in a safe place in case my boot drive explodes again.
Does anyone know of a way to fix this problem other than starting from scratch every three months?
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Comments
Yeah, stop using the crappy CM and organize your content on your drive instead.
All I can say is if you are not running the LAST version of 3 your going to get that over and over .32 is very stable. I've used it fine from day one.
I'm using .32. Went looking for it in an effort to make the crash-on-save bug stop... which didn't work, but hey, I've got the very last version, now. Sadly, it's this version that started giving me this problem.
OUCH! Sorry to hear that. I'm no help now, never lost my database like that. And a restore always fixes mine when I get a Ghost folder, Empty copy of a folder. That does happen on some installs.
Sorry to hear you're having such trouble. I've had DS3 crash when categorizing from time to time, but it has always had the last thing I did when restarting and works fine after restarting. All I can suggest is what I used to do back in the early days of DS2, when the Content Manager was new and very buggy -- do my organizing on disk, and then create categories from the folder structure. Even though I never finished categorizing everything that way, at least if the database became unusable and backups didn't help, I could recreate most of my categorizing from the folders and just do the rest manually.
Just backup your categories database from time to time. I've never had what you describe happen, but having a solid backup is a must. I wrote a script for DS3 to do so. You can find it here: http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=98977
Adam's Backup script is great, I use it all the time (I still use DS3 to categorize my non-Genesis installs)
Glad you find it useful Rogue7.
I've had that beauty installed from the first post. Love it.