Daz loading new installs into Lost and Found, Why? and How to fix?
jukingeo
Posts: 751
Hello All!
I have Daz Studio 4.24 on a Windows 10 system and as the subject says, I have been noticing that recent downloads / installs have been going into the Lost And Found folder instead of the Smart Content folder. Please see attached.
Now this isn't happening to all items, but every so often one or two items goes there. However, last night I had bought a bunch of new items, mostly clothing items, and I had noticed that half of them were not showing up in Smart Content. After doing a bit of looking around, I found them, and a great many other installs have went to the Lost and Found folder.
Could anyone shed some light on why this is happening instead of putting the newly installed items? Is there an easy way I can fix this so the installed items show up in Smart Content, where they supposed to be.
Thank you,
Geo
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Comments
Do you log in to Daz Studio?
Doing that will trigger a metadata update.
On top of @barbult's explanations, a product will appear in Lost and Founds when one or two of its elements don't have a category set. In such case, the good new is that it's relatively easy to fix it yourself using the UI provided with Daz Studio.
A short video explaining how to create metadata:
It's old, but the basics have not changed since it was published.
Which won't solve the problem with most of if not all the products listed on the screenshot: like @barbult said, when many artists moved their products from other stores to Daz3D.com, they didn't have metadata and Daz didn't create them (to be fair, while for some products, it will only take a couple of minutes to create them, for some, it can easily require an hour to create the metadata).
It also won't solve the problem I spoke about, because the problem, as in the examples from barbult, is that they are simply no metadata available to fix the problem.
Doing so could apparently mess things up, so I would avoid doing so.
That's rich, is it something they are supposed to do?
Isn't there an easier way to just put the "Lost" items into Smart Content? Also, how would I know if a product doesn't have metadata to stop buying it?
It takes an hour to create metadata?!?! Yeah, I don't have that time, especially if it was something that was supposed to have been done by the PA and watched by Daz. As I mentioned in my other reply to Barbult, isn't there an easy way to just assign it to the Smart Content folder so it shows up there?
Also, I have noticed a bigger problem. Not all of the content is showing up in the Lost and Found. In the case of outfits, I can't find the wearable. Please see attached example. As you can see, there is no wearable. If I click on an item, I get an error message, which you see on the screen. Now, what do I do?
Thanks to all for your help!
Geo
Technically, it is something the artist is supposed to do. Daz3d had a sudden influx of new artists leaving another store and was stuck with the choice of absorbing them with their products without metadata or turning down the artist and their products and perhaps everyone losing them forever. It is a useful skill for Daz Studio artists to know how to create metadata; if you Google 'how to create metadata for Daz Studio", you will find endless tutorials. Nonetheless, these artists were brought in in an emergency so there you are.
To create metadata for a product in Daz Studio, load the object into the scene, go to Edit > Scene ID Editor, and then click Compatibility Base to associate it with a suitable base asset, linking it to compatible products and presets. For general assets, you can add descriptive metadata within the product packaging or during the import process to enhance discoverability and categorization.
Adding Compatibility Metadata
This is essential for creating your own products that work with existing Daz Studio figures.
While the "Scene ID Editor" is for creating new Daz products, you can also use metadata to organize your content and enhance its searchability:
What about the items that are missing items, such as the wearables I mentioned above. I looked in Smart Content and it isn't there. It only comes up in the Lost and Found, but it is missing files. Not all of the products are missing files, but a good number of the newer installs are.
I did a quick calculation and I found there is about 385 items in the Lost and Found. Last year, I had updated Windows from 7 to 10 and Daz to 4.24. Last year, I had about 75 to 100 items in lost lost and found. In less than a year this bloomed to 385. Something is seriously wrong with that. Or at least I think so.
Thanks,
Geo
The reason they don't show up in Smart Content is they have no metadata; the metadata tags the product (clothing in this case) as a product and associated with a certain class of characters. If the metadata is absent then the asset is placed into lost and found. There is an alternative way to see the assets which is the Library as opposed to Smart Content. If you want to, you can select each product, and create metadata. Just in case, it might be worth rebuilding the database to make sure that the product is missing metadata rather than having corrupted metadata. It is a mess but other stores and Poser use different systems.
What you bought is a texture add-on. Do you have its Base product ? : https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/products/162668 ;
How to know if a product doesn't have metadata ?
- Install Daz-Deals extension to your internet browser. Then on the product page, you'll see a ReadMe link which directs to product's ReadMe page (screenshot 1). Click it.
- If you see Page Not Found or find no DSX file in runtime/support folder after clicking File List, that usually means the product has no product data.
How to quickly and correctly install a product with no metadata if you are a user who much rely on Smart Content ?
- Don't bother installing them from L&F manually, cumbersome and tedious. Install the products with Content Wizard
- You can install a single product or multiple products by batch. I myself much rely on Content Wizard to install 3rd-parties products as well as the products with no metadata...
Metadata is created by Daz, not by the artist. Please don't blame the artist for the lack of metadata in their products, or for metadata errors in their products. All the blame for metadata issues should go to Daz. Daz just chose not to make metadata for the imported products, because there were so many and it would take a lot of resources to make it. It was a choice Daz made, and so we suffer from that choice they made.
Well sort of... If you have ever had a product with bad metadata or other problems from a third party in the store, you have had to wait until the creator is contacted by Daz3d and they reply since the third party does the metadata and packaging. If it is a Daz product like the core figures then, yes, Daz3d does the packaging. I believe Sickleyield goes into detail about this in her DeviantArt page.
More formally:
Metadata for Daz Studio is primarily created and provided by the third-party sellers and creators who develop and sell the assets (models, figures, environments, etc.) that are used within the Daz Studio software. These creators include Daz 3D themselves, as well as many other independent vendors. Users can also update and maintain the metadata using Daz Studio's built-in Content DB Maintenance tool, which processes the metadata queue and reimports metadata for the installed assets.
Who provides the metadata:
Third-party creators and vendors:
When you purchase an asset (like a character, clothing, or prop) from a vendor other than Daz 3D, they are responsible for creating the metadata that describes the asset and integrates it into your Daz Studio library.
Daz 3D:
For products sold directly by Daz 3D, the company itself is the provider of the metadata.
How metadata is processed:
Daz Studio's Content DB Maintenance:
This feature within Daz Studio allows users to manage and update the metadata for their installed assets.
Process:
You can right-click on the Content Library or Smart Content tab and select "Content DB maintenance" to access a pop-up window. From there, you can "Process the metadata queue" and "Reimport metadata" to update your library.
In essence, Daz Studio itself provides the tools to manage and update metadata, but the original metadata is created by the individual content creators and sellers.
So, Daz3d does create the metadata for its own products as Barbuilt says.
Yep, the PA's I communicate with create their own metadata. This comes up occasionally when two PA's create assets with the same name and create a conflict or when a PA creates a strange new folder for their products such as "Praps" rather than Props. Customers complain and it must be explained that Daz3d didn't name the character or decide where products go and what the folders are called. So Daz3d has to go to the artist and ask them to change it.
PAs create their folder structure and content filenames, morph names, etc. File and folder names and morph names are not metadata, though.
Metadata is database information, like asset type, category, compatibility base, compatibility, etc.
Two PAs have already responded to my question, and have confirmed that Daz (QA) creates the metadata for their products. That is consistent with what I have been told in the past.
Edit: Third PA chimed in and confirmed that he has never created metadata for his products himself. Daz does it.
These info. are confusing me. Are there any so-called "third-party creators and vendors" in this Daz3D store ?
As far as I understand and exp., we purchase products from Vendors, aka PAs from this store. Products from "Daz 3D", or if you mean products from Daz Originals... were also made by PAs rather than Daz themselves. They just bought the products from PAs then marked them as Daz Originals.
And I got the very same info. from my PA friends as what @barbult just did : PAs who sell products in this store create no metadata but just asset files as well as content folders. Daz is responsible for creating metadata of the products and creating IM packages accordingly.
Besides, I personally don't think they create metadata by using Content DB Editor... which turns out to be cumbersome. There might be a tool or script, like RiverSoftArt's Content Wizard that can scan / analyze the product package and auto-generate metadata ~~
Yes, for example, Sickleyield has products in various 3d stores and isn't a Daz3d employee but sells a portion of her products through the store as opposed to whoever created Victoria 9 which either was made completely in house or a PA was commisioned by DAZ3d to create the product specifically for the DAZ3d and cannot ever show up at Renderhub or Renderosity. The category has gotten blurry but the "core" characters always have Daz3d as the creator. Some vendors have multiple generations of the same character but they are considered the "artist name" Trixie 3.0 for example rather a core character like Michael or Victoria.
Oh.... but actually I meant : Are there any so-called "third-party creators and vendors" in this Daz3D store. The vendors selling products in this store should be all registered Published Artists, so to me they're native. Usually we call those who sell products in other stores as "3rd-party vendors". Make sense ?
Oh, yes. The daz store is partly a brokerage so that Sickleyield, for example is a 3rd-party creator and sells other products in FlippedNormal, 3dshards, and other stores. Pretty much all the software like Filterforge which you can buy in this store is made by software manufactors who would amused and puzzled if described as part of Daz3d or "native". Filterforge is sold in a lot of places. Daz3d is a creator in its own right with products such as Daz Studio, those core characters such as Victoria 9, assets commisioned by Daz3d such as the the matching products that go into a core character's bundle. Thus if you made a pirate core character with a bundle, you might commission pirate themed products like hair, clothes, and weapons, along with textures, and maybe a special edition character for the Premier members. In general, the PA's here are sort of free agents i.e. 3rd party vendors who sell their specific wares here exclusively for a period but can leave if they want to and remove their products. They aren't "native" or more specifically not traditional Daz3d employees who might have their own lockers at the headquarters. This whole metadat crunch happened because a bunch of vendors of another store who you might perceive as being "native" left at the same time and came here to become "native" i.e. and expected 3rd party vendor or PA but they never needed metadata because the store was geared more towards Poser users and there was no time to make metadata for the new products.
People talking about "sudden influx" and "new products" as if this is a recent issue and not a problem that's existed for a long time. Items constantly end up in the Lost and Found. Metadata is constantly missing (including it disappearing from items that used to have it, thus moving stuff into Lost and Found that had previously been correctly tagged). Daz is responsible for making sure the things they sell work correctly and are managed properly. If one PA mislabels an item or does something wrong, then there's possibly an argument for shifitng the blame to them. When it's a widespread issue that has been constant for years, then it's no longer reasonable to think it's a PA issue and not a Daz issue.
Yes, this is correct.
The main topic is the large tranches of content brought over from Renderosity - in some cases there were hundreds of items and Daz simply wasn't able to process all of those to generate metadata. Gicwn that it is starting from scratch there is nothing to stop members from generating product data and posting it themselves - I have already done a few of Lully's products that I purchased from Renderosity, they would just need the store ID and SKU updating to reflect the current Daz store status - if/when I get around to that I start a thread.
While (generally much) older products may lack metadata, and some others may too, it is not common - if this is happening a lot I would suspect it is an instalaltion issue (for example, if you close DS and start DIM immediately it is possible for PostgreSQL to shut down on DS exit and not restart on DIM start, meaning that the metadata won't be added to the database).
Sounds like I'm one of the few that use the drag and drop method?
One can simply drag stuff from the "Dumb" content library to the "smart" content and drop it in the appropriate category.
for example if I have a shirt for G8M that doesn't have metadata. I select him in the scene then drag the shirt from the dumb library to the smart library and drop it under "Default>Wardrobe>Shirts". Then export user data followed by re-import userdata to save the changes and apply them.
After that the shirt I added will show up every time I select a g8M in a scene under shirts.
For things like scenes and props it's much easier because you don't need to have a character selected first.
Just drag and drop it to the appropriate category in smart content.
I've been using the drag and drop method for years. I thought everyone was because it's so much easier than mucking about trying to edit things by hand.
No, this won't fix inaccurate metadata in store products that come with metadata. I ran into this recently myself. For those products I had to edit the files in notepad, not hard, just a nuisance.
I also find the lack of metadata extremely annoying. Smart Content is the main reason why I shop almost exclusively at the Daz Store. Since the introduction of all the new PAs, it's basically a gamble whether your purchases are smart or not. It's inexplicable why the products aren't at least labeled. It can't be that difficult to write a script that checks whether each product on the store has metadata and flags it if it doesn't. Then you could at least label them in the store.
But it's not just the new RR items; even products that are already installed suddenly lose their metadata out of the blue. My lost and found also includes about 150 products.
I think with Daz, you just have to accept that from time to time, some products will simply “get lost.” If you make a purchase without metadata, I would generally recommend requesting a refund. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to do that and end up installing the products manually with the Content Wizard. If, as with RR purchases, you at least knew that there was no metadata included... But you only find out after the DIM installation, that parts of the purchase once again has no metadata, super annoying. Then you have to uninstall it, collect the product photo, PA, SKU, etc. from the shop, and start the Content Wizard. Product photos are usually in WebP format or have dimensions that are not compatible with the wizard, so you need to convert them first too. It's really tedious. And by the time you're done, all the excitement of trying out the product has usually already worn off.
You can see on the product page whether it is an original Daz product or an imported. If you look at the imported products, it is just text, while for original Daz products the text is organized.
Yes, sometimes you can guess, but you can never be sure. That's so unnecessary, and I think it's close to deceiving customers. Why not just write that down in the description?
BTW, I just installed https://www.daz3d.com/bell-for-genesis-81-female from the current Quick Grab, and the lady is even worse. It installs outside the “standard” library(see screenshot). And although I uninstalled the model and Smart Content is now displaying normally again: When I manually assign categories, I still have the categories added by Bell outside of my library to choose from. How can I remove these completely, please?
That lady is not imported.
Your screenshot doesn't show much, as she will be in any of the subcategories too, as Daz Studio aggregates to higher levels.
I don't understand what you mean by "I still have the categories added by Bell outside of my library to choose from".
Yeah, I know she's not imported, but her metadata is completly wrong. The marked "Default" Lib on my Screenshot holds all standart DS categories, thats the actual smart content library. But DIM installs her outside of it by creating categories outside the normal categories. So I uninstalled her again and the smart content pane shows mny content like before. But if I right clickj any prop and manually assign categories to it, I still see Bells categories outside the default categories. I have 2 Figures categories now i.e., even tho I uninstalled her.
I overlooked that she is not in default.
You can just rightclick and select Categorize and then place her where she should be. And also the same for the rest of the product.
You can also make a technical ticket and describe that she is wrongly categorized.