Recently I had a crash while searching for new products and the cms stopped working. In the process of fixing it I couldn’t use Adam’s great advice below and lost my category data and had to go back to migrating the old data.
It occured to me that we don’t always think to back up our categories like Adam suggested below.
I’ve run into this issue before. Ultimately it boils down to a database corruption but don’t get too worried. It’s recoverable.
Here’s what I did.Process 1: Data Security aka backup the databases.
Close DAZ Studio.
Stop the DAZ Content Management Service
Backup your databases folder. (Just copy the whole folder to a new location).
Restart the DAZ Content Management Service.Process 2: Exporting User Data
Start DAZ Studio.
On the Content tab go to the context menu at the top corner and select Content DB Maintenance.
Check the next to last checkbox “Export User Data”.
Wait patiently. This process can take a LONG time. (it took my system almost 2 hours) and DAZ Studio can appear as if it is “not responding”. Just leave it alone until it finishes.
Exit DAZ StudioProcess 3: Scary time!
Make sure DAZ Studio isn’t running.
Stop the DAZ Content Management Service
Delete the contents of the databases folder. @_@ Yes, that’s right. Nuke it from orbit. kaput! Delete, gone. ^_^
Start the DAZ Content Management Service. (You’ll note that it recreates several files in the databases folder).
Start DAZ Studio.
It will prompt you to import metadata and you’ll note it will also mention “User Files” in the list. Make sure those are checked.
Let the import process run (it’ll run about as long as it took the export to run, maybe a little longer).
Breathe a sigh of relief as you note that almost everything appears normal.
Scan Known Directories for Files.
Breathe a sigh of frustration as you realize that, yes, some stuff didn’t make it. This is the stuff where the corruption was (for me it was an entire tree of stuff).
Recategorize and go.Process 4:
Make regular backups of your DAZ CMS databases.
I thought it might be worthwhile to have a thread in the new users that details all the little things that can be useful to help maintain our database for DS4
The first being to make a regular backup of DAZ CMS databases
Exporting User Data
Start DAZ Studio.
On the Content tab go to the context menu at the top corner and select Content DB Maintenance.
Check the next to last checkbox “Export User Data”.
Wait patiently. This process can take a LONG time. (it took my system almost 2 hours) and DAZ Studio can appear as if it is “not responding”. Just leave it alone until it finishes.
Exit DAZ Studio
Adamr001
If you think of anything that could be added to this list please post in this thread and I will add it to the original post.
Note: This process of exporting data only took me about 15mins.
Second little gem I found was this one explaining how to get smart content back if you can’t see it but can see categories.
There is more useful info to be found in the thread I got it from found here
I was experiencing the same problem on Mac, until I read this thread and started experiencing.
I solved the problem by navigating to /Library/DAZ 3D/Content Management Service/databases and deleting all the folder content (I noticed they were old — since I installed DAZ Studio 3 one year ago, means never been used by the software).
I then opened the Content DB Maintenance as mentioned above on the thread, and checked Re-import Metadata, let it process and everything was solved since. Now I can see Smart Content populated, finally!
I hope this will help you.
I would only add when you delete the files from the folder save them somewhere just in case…
Also don’t panic when initially the categories go back to default when you import the metadata make sure to tick user data…you did remember to export your user data on a regular basis didn’t you?
Also, thank you to the kind person who stickied this thread!
