Uninstalling DS and all content, starting again...questions
jakiblue
Posts: 7,281
My DS program is installed on my internal C drive. ALL my content is installed straight to my external F drive.
I'm thinking about uninstalling DS and deleting everything off my external drive and starting again - reinstalling everything. I use Smart Content/Connect.
My question is.....is deleting everything off the hard drive enough to NOT get the "generic can't find icons" in smart content? (if you understand what i mean?)
I seem to have a lot of problems with characters distorting and have to do the 'adjust rigging to shape' to fix them. I have problems with an expression package where the expressions are completely fubared for me, but others get the normal expressions.
So, is deleting everything from the hard drive, and then uninstalling then reinstalling DS and then the content, enough? Do I need ot actually unisntall all products via Connect/Smart Content first, THEN delete everything off the hard drive?
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Comments
Err, why delete when you could just move your content, tell Daz Studio and DIM where the content is mapped to, and then re-index? Every once in a while, I see people say thay are going to start from scratch and I never understand why... If everything is mapped correctly, and the product still has issues, how about uninstalling that one product, reinstall it and figure out if the problem is in the product or your mapping. If it is the product, then you can sart a ticket, and fix it for all of us.
It's not "one" product. The expressions yes, and I do have a ticket in, but I have friends who have checked it and they are getting the correct results while I am getting completely wrong results. So I assume the problem lies with ME and my setup/content/computer/whatever.
And it's not one product only with the deforming of characters. I have several that do it, and it doesn't happen to anyone else. So again, i assume I have one product or more than one product that is skewering my content.
I want to do a clean sweep. Reinstall the basics that I need, then see if anything is going wrong. Move my content where? I have one external drive - I'm not going to copy everything over to my internal drive.
May I suggest do an in situ backup or point Daz Studio and DIm to another location and make a temporary new content folder were you can install the basics. Almost certainly, it is likely to be some 3rd party expressions or morphs that share the same names as official ones which should greatly narrow things down. if it were me, i would peek in data/ daz3d/ genesis 3/ morphs and look for non Daz3d morphs, and move them out temporarily and see if your expressions work again before I delete vast amounts of data.
Interesting.
I removed ALL morph folders from data/daz3d/genesis 3/female/morphs EXCEPT the daz3d ones, and the ones belonging to this particular expression pack.
I then opened DS, loaded V7 and tried the expressions. And I get the EXACT same wrong results as before. I am firmly convinced something is going on with this expression pack - it shows up in the log file, and and when I uninstall the product, I NO LONGER get the "duplicate formula" error message whenever I load G3F or any of her characters.
However, no-one else is getting the results I am getting when using hte expressions. It just seems to be me.
It sounds like you might have accidently saved some morphs or adjustments to your base figure(s)? Have you tried uninstalling the figure(s) you're having problems with and reinstalling them? Like if the issue is normally with Genesis 3 Females perhaps first try uninstalling and reinstalling the Genesis 3 Female Starter Essentials.
I've lost track of how many times I've uninstalled Genesis 3 and reinstalled it LOL. The deforming of characters where I've had to use "adjust rigging to shape" happens to different characters, not just the one character. I've had it happen to Saiyaness characters, Second Circle characters, Anagord characters etc. (this is not hte expression product deforming I referred to above).
I also recieve "duplicate formulas" error message, every single time I load G3F or any characters. I'm absolutely convinced it is related to the expression product - if i uninstall the expressions, the error message doesn't happen. If I install it, the error message happens. And 9 of the expressions don't do what they are supposed to, and kinda deform hte face.
I've loaded Genesis 3 Female base and checked the "currently used" in the parameters, and there are no stray morphs there. It is JUST G3F base.
If you go ahead with delete-and-start-again, don't forget that the content database itself isn't counted as part of "everything" — just like your content folder itself, it's stored in a separate folder, and isn't affected by a normal program uninstall/reinstall. You have to use the database controls in the Content Library options menu. I think it's the "Reset Database" function you'll want. When you reinstall everything, the database will be rebuilt and should have all the correct pointers to your actual content files in it.
Do you mean the little dropdown that also has "content DB maintenance" and "content DB editor" in it? I can't locate anything called "reset database" there tho.
"Content DB Maintenance" is the database controls — select that and you get a little dialog with all the options, one of them is the reset.
AH! of course! LOL thanks, can't believe I didn't remember that.
Which expression pack? I've run into that as well.
Attitude Expressions for V7.
Yup, that's the one. Just having it installed causes duplicate file errors. Somehow I never got around to filing a ticket on it.
Well that's interesting! You're the only other person who is having the same trouble as I am! And yes, having it installed means I get a "duplicate formula's in files" error every time I load G3F. The log file also has a crapton of lines stating that it is causing duplicate errors. Can you file a ticket for it? Perhaps if more than one person says the same thing, it may get looked at more seriously.
Do you also get the problems witih some of hte expressions not working as intended? This is one of my major reasons for wanting to do a clean sweep adn reinstall.
I'll have to play with this some more - I'm not getting the issue on my other system - but I don't have as much content installed there.
I don't have that product. However, looking at the included expressions, they are fairly generically named, e.g., 'Happy'.
I already have a Happy expression from another common product.
I've heard a lot about morph issues when 2 morphs exist with the 'same name', but I haven't investigated thoroughly. I'm curious if it means the display name (e.g., Happy) or some internal name (DAZ_1234_HAPPY). Hopefully, it's the latter, otherwise I'm surprised this issue doesn't happen more often. My fear of the issue is one of the things that keeps me from using GenX much, since I've heard of it occurring with morphs transferred from that product...and I don't yet understand how to troubleshoot/find 2 morphs with the same 'name' on a figure.
Ah. So 'reset the database' and then reimport metadata means everything I have downloaded via connect/smart content has been wiped. The only things showing in my Smart Content tab are things I have manually installed and created my own metadata for. Everything is still in data/cloud....but i have to redownload/reinstall all daz-purchased products in connect.
Well, I guess that was kinda what I was aiming for. :sigh:
No, the database controls can only wipe the database. If you want to uninstall any of your content, you have to uninstall the content. Everything is still there (unless you already wiped it) but to see it you have to go into the Content Library tab, which shows the actual files on your system and isn't dependent on the database.
Hmmm. I reset the database, and all my daz purchased content in Smart Content was then showing as greyed-out and not installed. I dbl clicked on the Genesis 3 starter essentials, and it started installing - so it didn't need to be reDOWNLOADED, but had to be reinstalled. Everything did.
However, I just wiped everything off my external drive anyway *grin* I'm starting again. Unfortunately, DIM was acting up and not connecting - I think it must have been when the site died and I didn't realize it, so I uninstalled DIM and was going to redownload it and that's when I realized the site was down. Also, I don't know why...but I uninstalled the CMS thingy.....the valentina postthingy? Gah. So now my DS is completely empty. Which of the postthingy should I be reinstalling?
Ah never mind. I found the postgres thing in my product library. :) Now, just have to wait for servers to work so i can actually log in to DS and start downloading.
Honestly, I don't know if Smart Content really works at all. Last year I looked at the Unfound Content (orphan) feature. I did some digging and it appears the error message is the fault of the content provider! In other words, the items had the wrong info from the start.
I was dead against Smart content when they started amping it up and bringing in Connect. Then I tried it and I really prefer the visual look to it - it's easier for me to see the icon and know that's what I want, rather than go through text names. But boy o boy, there are problems with it. When DAZ gets the metadata/categories wrong, it borks everything.