Big problems with DIM
Wonderland
Posts: 6,740
Lately I've been having several big problems with DIM.
1. All newly purchased items show up without their thumbnails and I have to select the entire group each time and click to download missing thumbnails.
2. It says "Not responding' so long when trying to download or instal (not just start up) and I keep restarting it but only a few things download or sometimes nothing and stays stuck at Not Responding. There's an option to "restore program" which gets it going again but then everything downloads without metadata and I have to uninstall and reinstall several times until it shows the metadata is installed but... (see 3)
3. The majority of my products are greyed out in Smart Content although they were downloaded through DIM. I have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling items. Even when the metadata icon is dark (formerly checked off) most items still show as greyed out when I open DS. Random products from various generations will be in color and usable and others are not.
Anybody know a so,union for this?
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Comments
Greyed out products sounds like maybe you have accidentally logged in via Daz Studio and thus Daz Connect has taken over.
I was originally logged out but that was even worse. It kept saying I need to download DAZ default items which I had downloaded with DIM but it wouldn't acknowledge they existed!
Thumbnails have never auto-downlaoded as far as I can recall, certainly it has required a uer action for a very long time.
DIM or Daz Studio? Downloading has been a bit iffy recently, though it doesn't cause DIM to hang for me. However, "downloading without metadata" doesn't make sense in DIM - unless you mean installing.
This sounds like a pathing issue, and does suggest you are meaning install rather than download.
Yeah, that would happen if you have Daz Connect configuration lingering around. Maybe there is a secret to using both but I could never figure it out and so would suggest NEVER signing into your account in Daz Studio if you install products via DIM.
The easiest way to fix that is to first log out within Daz Studio and then uninstall all products that have Daz Connect data. I have purged this all from my machines so cannot check exactly but I think if you look in the Daz Connect base folder it should have sub folders for all the products it has installed itself and uninstalling them should remove those folders. Once you have purged all that and restarted Daz Studio you should be able to re-install those products via DIM and they then should behave as expected.
The possible reason for your thumbnails missing is also because when Dan Connect is active it goes off and looks for updated thumbnails and updates the database to point the thumbnail path at the place where Daz connect stores things (the path with /cloud/ in there). Therefore, when you have purged the Daz Connect data you may have to use the "Re-import metadata" function from either DIM or Daz Studio Content DB Maintenance to put the DIM path (/Runtime/Support/) back into the database (Smart Content).
strange though..I do not log on with DAZ studio. Offline only, and overall I have thumbnails when the prodcuts are installed by DIM/
@Wonderland, I have one computer that occasionally likes to jar the external hard drive connection to the system slightly loose and when I bring up DIM, it thinks my products are not installed. After my initial panic, I calm down, close DIM and the computer, make sure to seat that external hard drive firmly into the system, and the boot up the computer and everything is golden.
On new products, I click on them and request thumbnails before download now.
Thumbnails used to show up and download automatically in DIM. All the little icons next to products are grey symbols now until I ask it to download thumbnails.
DIM hangs often in the middle of downloading or installing. When I click the X to close it, it sometimes gives me the option to restore program. Then everything will download and install but without metadata. That little grey thing that looks like a stack of CDs is either dark grey or light grey. It used to be a checkmark. The light grey ones are installing without metadata (usually old Poser products or V4 and earlier.) But often new products will install light grey showing they don't have metadata installed and I have to uninstall them, close DIM and restart, then reinstall them. But even many of the items that look like they have metadata, won't show up in Smart Content and are greyed out.
What AV are you using?
No, it has been confirmed that this is the way it has always been.
I don't recall ever seeing a restore otpion on a hanging application - this does sound as if soem kind of add-on system tool may be present, and thenmay be a factor in what you are seeing. Given the metadata issue it is possible that something, such as security software as frank suggests, is interfering with the communication between DIM and PostgreSQL. Are the products available under Daz Studio Formats (or Poser Formatsfor Poser cotnent) in the Content Library even when the product data is missing?
The restore thing is part of regular Windows 10. When a program hangs for too long and you click the X to close it, there's an option to restore if possible. For DIM it lets me restore to download the items but then if I install those items, no metadata installs with it so I have to uninstall them and reinstall or just download them then close DIM, restart and install the downloaded items to get the metadata to work.
Some items are greyed out thumbnails with product images and others are just grey with a triangle on it. The only way I've been able to fix anything, a little at a time, is to screenshot some of the grey ones, uninstall and reinstall in DIM. Some of the items that worked before like the Christmas Sleigh stuff are now greyed out and I'm uninstalling and reinstalling. It seems that some items randomly get greyed out later and others install already grey. With the many thousands of products I have, it's a real pain having to constantly uninstall and reinstall products.
Also, the way it was before, DIM WAS downloading all the icons and thumbnails. Now they show up with no image whatsoever, just grey little circles or something. I never had to download the icons each time, they were somehow automated.
I wouldn't trust a feature like that, which I still don't recall seeing - just wait or close now. It sounds very much as if it is losing PostgrSQL in whatever it does.
The triangle (in a broken circle) indicates can be installed through DS - it will appear, where the CMS knows you own the product and that it installable through DS, on anything - grey thumbnail (not installed according to the CMS) or coloured. A coloured product icon without the symbol was installed through DS itself. I'm not at all sure how you could get a plain grey thumbnail.
Both my memory and the developer say this not so, though.
I suspect there may be some crossed wires here - please post some screenshots so we can be sure we are talking about the same things.