Studio and DIM reinstall weirdness [Solved, sort of]

vwrangler

Currently using: Windows 11
Previously using: Windows 10

So I had to reinstall Studio and DIM on a new computer recently, and now they're both behaving oddly.

Studio: has apparently somehow lost every workspace but City Limits. Which I hate, because I'm really not a fan of low-contrast interfaces. Is there a specific directory or place where Studio keeps its workspaces so that maybe I can copy it off from the old computer? (I actually did copy the entire Studio directory and all database files, and copied them over to the new computer first, as well as the configuration files in APPDATA. I've done installs of Studio to new computers before -- this is the fifth computer I've installed Studio on, and this is the first time I've run into this issue.) Weirdly, all my menu customizations came through intact and in place, but they're all now variations of City Limits, when they should be variations of Hollywood Blvd.

DIM: has lost track of anything I had previously installed, and so doesn't know about any updates. I know for a fact that there are updates that I haven't installed, because I was waiting to get this computer up and running. I have  vague nebulous memory that the DSX and other files DIM might need are in a different place than the rest of the database -- is that right?

Any help or information will be much appreciated.

Joe2018

Look at: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4

There you find: layout.dse and layout.dsx

I also copy to a new installation: actions.dsx, menus.dsx, toolbars.dsx = with that most on a new Installation is nearly as the old.

Hope this helps you.

namffuak

Fire up DIM on the old system and work offline. Select advanced settings and the installation tab.

Manifest Archive is the directory where DIM records the products you have installed; you need to copy its content to the new system.

vwrangler

namffuak said:

Fire up DIM on the old system and work offline. Select advanced settings and the installation tab.

Manifest Archive is the directory where DIM records the products you have installed; you need to copy its content to the new system.

That worked perfectly, thanks! It would never have occurred to me that any part of Studio or DIM had installed anything at all under "Users/Public Documents" -- I guess that's the default path, and I just never changed it.

 

Joe2018 said:

Look at: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4

There you find: layout.dse and layout.dsx

I also copy to a new installation: actions.dsx, menus.dsx, toolbars.dsx = with that most on a new Installation is nearly as the old.

Hope this helps you.

Unfortunately, this didn't work so well. Something inside Studio itself seems to be corrupted; it can't find its default layouts other than City Limits. It may be that there's something else installed in some weird place that's controlling this, though you'd think it would be in that directory with the layout files, or part of Studio itself. But it's clearly referencing something outside the Studio EXE; otherwise, reinstalling an older version would have fixed it.

Another weirdness, though this doesn't seem to be having too much of an effect: DIM is insisting on installing what I think are duplicate files of some things in
/users/public documents/My Daz3D Library
for absolutely no reason that I can figure out. I've never installed anything to My Daz3D Library; I have a completely custom install path. And even if I had, that would be off on my content disk, not on C, where I don't install anything but the program files. Turns out it was also doing this on the old computer; there's a LOT of stuff in that computer's /users/public documents directory. No idea if it's safe to delete all that stuff or if it would make something break, but it's not supposed to be there at all.

Richard Haseltine

vwrangler said:

namffuak said:

Fire up DIM on the old system and work offline. Select advanced settings and the installation tab.

Manifest Archive is the directory where DIM records the products you have installed; you need to copy its content to the new system.

That worked perfectly, thanks! It would never have occurred to me that any part of Studio or DIM had installed anything at all under "Users/Public Documents" -- I guess that's the default path, and I just never changed it.

 

Joe2018 said:

Look at: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4

There you find: layout.dse and layout.dsx

I also copy to a new installation: actions.dsx, menus.dsx, toolbars.dsx = with that most on a new Installation is nearly as the old.

Hope this helps you.

Unfortunately, this didn't work so well. Something inside Studio itself seems to be corrupted; it can't find its default layouts other than City Limits. It may be that there's something else installed in some weird place that's controlling this, though you'd think it would be in that directory with the layout files, or part of Studio itself. But it's clearly referencing something outside the Studio EXE; otherwise, reinstalling an older version would have fixed it.

Another weirdness, though this doesn't seem to be having too much of an effect: DIM is insisting on installing what I think are duplicate files of some things in
/users/public documents/My Daz3D Library
for absolutely no reason that I can figure out. I've never installed anything to My Daz3D Library; I have a completely custom install path. And even if I had, that would be off on my content disk, not on C, where I don't install anything but the program files. Turns out it was also doing this on the old computer; there's a LOT of stuff in that computer's /users/public documents directory. No idea if it's safe to delete all that stuff or if it would make something break, but it's not supposed to be there at all.

DIM will install to that (which is the default path) onl;y if it is seelcted as the isntall directory,. so check that.

Richard Haseltine

vwrangler said:

Currently using: Windows 11
Previously using: Windows 10

So I had to reinstall Studio and DIM on a new computer recently, and now they're both behaving oddly.

Studio: has apparently somehow lost every workspace but City Limits. Which I hate, because I'm really not a fan of low-contrast interfaces. Is there a specific directory or place where Studio keeps its workspaces so that maybe I can copy it off from the old computer? (I actually did copy the entire Studio directory and all database files, and copied them over to the new computer first, as well as the configuration files in APPDATA. I've done installs of Studio to new computers before -- this is the fifth computer I've installed Studio on, and this is the first time I've run into this issue.) Weirdly, all my menu customizations came through intact and in place, but they're all now variations of City Limits, when they should be variations of Hollywood Blvd.

You seem to be confusing layout and style - it is the latter that determines UI elemnts design and colour. It is still odd that you don't get the full set to choose from.

DIM: has lost track of anything I had previously installed, and so doesn't know about any updates. I know for a fact that there are updates that I haven't installed, because I was waiting to get this computer up and running. I have  vague nebulous memory that the DSX and other files DIM might need are in a different place than the rest of the database -- is that right?

Any help or information will be much appreciated.

vwrangler

Richard Haseltine said:

You seem to be confusing layout and style - it is the latter that determines UI elemnts design and colour. It is still odd that you don't get the full set to choose from.

Richard, would you know if is there someplace that Studio keeps its style files? Is there a specific file format that I should be looking for or copying somewhere?

This is workable, but frustrating.

vwrangler

Richard Haseltine said:

DIM will install to that (which is the default path) onl;y if it is seelcted as the isntall directory,. so check that.

 Checked both Studio and its dzinstall.ini file, and the advanced settings in DIM. Neither of them even know that directory exists; I have no idea how that stuff is getting there.

Weird thing is that probably 95% of what I buy is actually going to the correct content directory. It's just this random stuff that's in the wrong place. Of course, since it appears to have been happening for a while, that builds up. I suspect this is also the explanation for an issue that I seem to have had for a while, where it looks like DIM has completely failed to install one thing or another. When I redownload them, they wind up installing to the correct path, so I don't expect that I'm missing much. Still, I probably need to copy over that directory from the old computer and reinstall.

vwrangler

Problem is fixed, more or less, kind of.

Installed Studio 4.24 to see if it would fix the mess 4.23 had made of the workspace Style. And ... it did. No idea why or how.