Real Short Hair for Genesis 2 Male has disappeared
evilded777
Posts: 2,440
I use this product simply all the time. Today, I open a saved character and the hair is gone.
Its no longer in my Product Library (Smart Content), though I still own it, its in Install Manager... but the product page no longer has a Connect option.
What the hell? I don't recall ever agreeing to let DAZ uninstall products from my computer at their whim. This is unacceptable.
Post edited by evilded777 on
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Not sure, but maybe they have revoked the support for Connect for that product for some reason, just guessing here, in that case you can just install it using DIM instead.
I shouldn't have to "just" do anything. Until someone shows me somewhere in the Connect agreement that they have the right to uninstall something from my computer without my permission, I'm going to be pretty upset. And even then, I'm going to be pretty upset. Smart Content is supposed to make it easy to find and load your content, not take it away and make me wonder where the hell something I use all the time has gone to.
I think something must of got hosed in your DAZ product CMS database, probably during one of the DAZ Studio crashes or force quits if you've had to do any. Real Short Hair for Genesis 2 Male(s) is listed in my 'DAZ Connect' under Hair in Smart Content and while I use DIM to install, I am able to install and am installing that product now via DAZ Connect.
Have you checked your hard drive to see if the files are still there?
I really, really doubt DS uninstalled anything on its own, however it downloads metadata updates automatically when you're connected.
So my guess would be there was a problem with metadata update for that product, so it's still there but simply doesn't appear in Smart Content.
Hasn't crashed and everything is fine. But the Connect option is no longer listed on the product page under my account. I don't think its me.
Without having the product installed, I have no idea where the path SHOULD be. I'd have to check the SKU and go hunting for it. What I would like is some response from Support to the ticket I opened.
Pretty wierd. Have you checked if in the browser in the DAZ Store it's still listed as purchased in your product library tab with search? I think you already said it still is listed in installed products in DIM. What if you install and delete the product in DIM? Does a DIM refresh show the product as available from DAZ for download? Did maybe Windows do a reboot while DAZ was running?
That's all I can think of that wouldn't be a bug in DAZ Studio or a mistake by store staff (maybe somebody else made a return & yours got deleted in their store purchase list instead).
I still own it.
It was no installed via DIM, but I had downloaded it.
The store page says it is available via Connect. The product page in my account does not list a Connect option, only DIM and Manual.
It's not just you, in terms of the option not being available. I have it, and checked the product page in my Product Library in my account, and there's no Connect option available; at this point in time, however, Connect is NOW listed as an option on the store product page itself.
The item should be located at c:\users\YOURuserNAME\documents\daz 3d\studio\my daz connect library\Data\Cloud\1_20819 -- assuming you're using Windows. I really don't think they uninstalled it; I just think they broke Studio's ability to find it. You may or may not be able to find it in the Content Library under that newer Connect thing that's pretending to be a directory, but if they broke the metadata, probably not.
The readme isn't showing any update, but that's meaningless; updates to the readme can take a very long time, especially if it's a metadata-only update. I'm guessing that they updated the metadata, broke something in the product on both their backend and in the metadata that got pushed out, and have to figure out how to fix it.
They just pushed out an epic number of updates to things across generations. I'm pretty sure that Real Short Hair wasn't included in what I downloaded, but I'm not certain. I wonder if maybe they just broke Connect access to a lot of things.
Also, I would note that the support ticket email that they're sending out now says that it can take up to ten working days to respond to a ticket, so it may be a while before you hear from them.
Hmmm, I just installed mine via Connect. Maybe because I am a PC+ member? It makes no sense.
So... I looked on my Surface, where I just keep a few things for testing, etc... same situation. But with @vwrangler help I browsed to the physical location the file structure is there, but all the folders are now empty.
Its been uninstalled.
10 days is not acceptable. That's ridiculous.
I can't confirm the removal of the files, but I do see the disagreement between product page and product library/Connect. I've flagged both up for Daz.
The files are still on my hard drive. The product is still listed in my Content Library in DS, but the files do not show up in the Content Library or Smart Content. Thanks for flagging the issue to Daz, Richard.
The error has been found and corrected, so the product should reappear in Connect within a few minutes (though i suspect you may need to log out and back in to see it).
evilded777 are you sure you hadn't updated the product? With no files associated that might have caused DS to remove the ones that were there - though that's currently a speculative suggestion.
Richard, I can't remember when there was last an update to this product. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't. This is still an alarming development. I have championed Connect when lots of people have not. Should I now regret that support? What's going to disappear next and will I have a backup copy of it?
And I haven't even opened Studio on my Surface in who knows how long. So I'm going to say it removed itself when I opened it today.
I'm told the error was there from some time in December.
Were any other products affected by that error?
Not as far as I am aware, it was a question of the wrong flag being set.
The devs confirm that updating and unisntalling have to be done explicitly, by the user using the UI command or running a script, so it sounds as if it may have been caught in an update session sometime after the issue developed in December. Daz can't trigger a deletion remotely.
Um... check my gallery. anything with Topher in it uses this product. I've done a dozen or more renders using it this year alone. It was fine until this morning.
And it also doesn't explain how when I opened Studio on my tablet, which i haven't touched since V3Digitimes Skin Manager scripts came out, it was gone there as well, leaving behind the folder structure but no files.
Something doesn't add up here.
Wow, really wierd. After my render finishes I will have to check if my install of that product today via DAZ Connect on my computer actually contains the product or was I looking at the old DIM install files earlier.
This is my Surface. Empty. I've done nothing with it today except open it. I don't use it other to peak at stuff and test stuff because it's not built to render, so I certainly havent updated anything recently.
If I return a product, it gets uninstalled (removed) without any action on my part in Daz Studio, I believe. Isn't that true?
EDITED:
No! This is not correct! I've been educated otherwise in this thread.
It may be true with Connect (though if they have not explicitly told people that will happen, then that's deeply problematic); it's not true with DIM or Manual downloads. When I've returned items, I'm explicitly told that they expect me to delete the files, which I have done. They've never said, "If you can't/don't delete the files, we'll delete them for you."
To my knowledge this is not correct. It has always been my responsibility to remove the items, and I have returned a handful since Connect was introduced.
I usually uninstall before returning, on the occasions when I do, so no idea - but as I am told DS will not change or remove content files without being told to by the user.
Uh oh! That is what I should have been doing!!!! I looked on my hard drive cloud folder. Sure enough, files for a product I returned at the beginning of March are still there. I misinterpreted the disappearance of the product from my Content Library and Smart Content as the product having been deleted from my system. Now I realize that it just removed it from my Product Library, I guess, so metadata update didn't show it anymore. I've been cheating without even knowing it. Now, how on earth will I figure out what Daz Connect cloud folders I should be deleting from my hard drive for previously returned products?
The folder name is the SKU, if you know that.
I know, but I don't remember what products I have returned over the last couple years since I started using Daz Connect. There are probably less than half a dozen things. I was lucky to remember the most recent one, because that product just came up in discussion in another thread recently. That one I can delete, now that you have opened my eyes to the problem.
Edit: maybe I can search for "return" in my help request activities. That is probably the best bet for me to get "legal".
Edit again: Is it OK to just delete the SKU folder, the SKU JPG, and the SKU JSON files? Will my database be messed up because I didn't actually uninstall the product?
If you're not using it, deleted product library entry or not, it's as good as intended since you aren't using the product.