Getting metadata for ancient items not installed with DIM that appear in "Available" tab?
Karibou
Posts: 1,325
Is there any way to get metadata for products that I did not install with the DIM? I have been buying products from you since LONG before the DIM was a thing and I have literally thousands of files that were purchased when my only install option was your manual installer packages. I have hidden these files from the DIM so that I don't have to see them in my "ready to download" tab, but until I download them, it seems I cannot get metadata for these items into Studio. Right now, the smart content for all of my (roughly 4348...) hidden items is grayed out in my "Available" tab. It's driving me crazy. Downloading 4348 ancient items is NOT an option. I've recently begun depending on Smart Content, and I'd like to fix this if possible.
Help?
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Comments
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/packaging/tutorials/adding_metadata/start
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/20018/metadata-tutorial-adding-new-items-to-your-smart-content/p1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-sdHEBNCB4
Lol... You're suggesting I MANUALLY create metadata for all 4,348 ancient items?? Lord, that would take longer than re-downloading them all with the DIM!! I know HOW to make metadata -- but I shouldn't NEED to. The nice people at DAZ did that for a great majority of the content I purchased way back in the day. I just need to GET said metadata from them without having to download and re-install 4,378 items.
Ah, I thought you wanted to apply metadata to stuff that had no metadata... i think you just need to reset the database and reimport metadata... back up your metadata first though!
https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/207530353-Using-the-Content-DB-Maintenance-Dialogue
The backup is mentioned near the bottom of the article...
I was under the impression that your database only retrieves metadata for products you installed with the DIM or Connect. I want to import metadata for products that I installed a million years ago via the installer packages of yore. For example...
Ye Olde Zebra.
I have hidden it in my DIM because I installed him manually in the early 2000s.
I go into Studio and I search Smart Content for "Zebra." Sure enough, he appears -- but he is grayed out. (The "Installed" banner in the lower right corner is of my own design. I added those a year or so ago so that the DRM/Connect-only items that NEEDED to be installed from the Available tab would look different from the ones I'd installed manually and hidden in the DIM.)
I cannot use his smart content until I double-click on him. This does not install just his metadata. It also installs the ENTIRE set of product files.
The zebra is a few hundred kb, so no big deal -- but downloading 4,378 new products is just not going to happen.
Before I risk screwing up my currently working database, I'd like someone to confirm that this will actually fix my problem. Everything I've read so far says that a database reset and re-import will only fix metadata for files that were installed with the DIM or with Connect.
Ah, I see.... I think resetting the metadata just retrieves metadata so that stuff you installed via installers should have the infrastructure to be reset but a quick message to support should clear that up.
The critical files DAZ Studio needs to install the metadata are the ones in Runtime/Support. When you installed your products manually, did you ensure that these files were placed in Runtime/Support as needed?
Also, did you move around any files after you installed them? In particular any user facing files stored under People/Props etc. If you did then the smart content metadata will not be able to find the files even when it is installed.
If all you did when installing manually was to unzip the installation file into you runtime, then in theory all you need to do to reinstall the metadata is to
1) Export you user data (although this may not work if your database is screwed up)
2) Reset the database.
3) Re-import all the metadata.
The older .exe isntallers predate the CMS and won't have any /Runtime/Support files.
If you haven't moved the content from its default locations (and if an update hasn't chnaged those locations) you could just reinstall with DIM - that would also make sure you had any updates or bug fixes issued since the installer was created.
But I thought that most older items don't have metadata and won't unless Daz3D creates it. Or I create it myself. I installed ALL my content (except for plugins and things that weren't available throught connect) using connect and I have a huge chunk that appears under Lost and Found. Or am I wrong?
They do have content directories for the Daz Connect content that appears under Content Library. I use it to find things that don't have metadata
You are correct that most older items have no metadata. I believe metadata was added part way through the genesis 1 cycle, so few things released before that have metadata.
Some older PC+ items have had metadata added, but if you installed these with DIM or connect then updates for these you should have already seen.
I'm not talking about lost and found items. I have 644 items in my "Available" tab (which have metadata -- if I install them through the DIM or Connect, they are no longer grayed out and appear in my Installed tab.) These are files in which someone has added metadata since the installers did their thing -- probably mostly PC and Daz Originals.
Did I mention that I own a LOT of content?
I was afraid you were going to say that. It isn't the disk space that makes me cringe -- it's the amount of time it's going to take to download all of them again. Ugh.