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DAZ 4.9 - Smart Content Icons - Why do not all DIM installed products show in color?

Rod Wise DriggoRod Wise Driggo Posts: 2,311
edited May 2016 in The Commons

Hi, just migrated from 4.8 to 4.9 as I got tired with all that legacy iray texture handling.

So far the migration went quite well, I have to say. Even installed some of the connect freebies/bargains like Dragon Queen to finally try them out.

Had to change the connect download directory to an external drive and redownload metadata but that seems to work now and the discovery might work even better as with 4.8 or older versions.

What I do not get though is the mechanic of the smart content pane. It is supposed to show purchased stuff in color versus non-purchased stuff in black and white, right? I do not plan to fully embrace connect as I don't want encrypted content like many others. So I plan to still download all content via DIM (with only very little exceptions like the mentioned freebies/bargains only available encrypted).

Now some of the content I purchased is shown in color. I have the option to download via connect which I don't want to use as the content is already in my library via DIM. For that content I can jump from the smart pane to the library and choose the parts I want to use.

But that does only work for some content. Other content I purchased and installed via DIM is only shown black and white. If I use the context menu to go over to the library, it only shows an install icon but not the already installed content.

Example: I've purchased the V7 Pro Bundle with the Austrani Outfit and also purchased the additional Textures. Once I search in the smart content pane for Austrani, it shows both the outfit and the texture product. But only the Outfit icon is displayed in color and allows to jump to the library and use the product whereas the texture products icon is in black and white and shows only an install icon in the library. Once I don't use the Products tree in the library (which is the target tree coming from the smart content tab) but the DAZ studio formats tree, everyhing is fine and I can access the textures.

So big questions is: How does studio/connect detect which product one should have access to or which product is already installed by DIM. It works for some but unfortunately not all. Is there any way to update or align the libaries?

 

Post edited by Rod Wise Driggo on

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,072

    Anything which DS knows is installed should be colour, items that you own but don't - as far as DS is concerned - have installed will be in greyscale, items that you don't own will not appear at all. So, the question is did you install both the Austrani Outfit and its textures at the same time, in the same way?

  • Rod Wise DriggoRod Wise Driggo Posts: 2,311

    OK, so the Smart Content shows only content I purchased from DAZ. That's fine.

    I've installed everything I purchased from DAZ with DIM. DIM is setup to delete the ZIPs after install, but that should not make any difference. So yes, I've installed both the Austrani outfit as well as the textures with DIM. They appear in the library tree but with smart content, the textures show as not installed. I can install the textures via connect but then I would have them installed twice. Also I don't want the encrypted version if I don't have to.

    So in my case basically everything in the Smart Content pane should appear in color as I've installed roughly 90% of the content I bought from DAZ at the moment. Only stuff which is not installed are the Poser versions/helper files and some old V4/M4 content I'm currently not using.

    But the smart content pane does not reflect that. It seems that roughly 30% of my content is properly shown as installed whereas some 70% is only shown with a black and white icon whereas it is present in the directory tree and was definitely installed the same way with DIM.

    Any idea? I've updated metadata several times but that does not change anything.

     

     

     

  • Peter WadePeter Wade Posts: 1,666

    This sounds like a problem that I've had ever since I upgraded to 4.9. I use my own categories to organise my content but I've got some things that will not appear in a category no matter what I do even though they are installed and they are there in the library. The ones I've looked for in Products or Smart Content are shown in grey.

    I've had a support ticket open on this for months. Support have suggested a database reset and re-import user data which did not fix it, and sent me a script that made things worse. So far I have no solution to this problem. I have only had this problem with content bough from Daz, non-Daz content which has no metadata and which Daz Connect doesn't know about categorizes OK.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,072
    edited May 2016

    If some items are showing correctly but not others then it's possible that DIM was not "talking" to the CMS when you isntalled the missing items - that could happen, for example, if you closed DS and then started DIM before the PostgreSQL had completed its shut-down with DS (it's generally better not to close one and immediately start the other, you can run DIM and DS at the same time these days - except when installing a DS update or plug-in).

    As an aside, only items specifically marked as encrypted on their product pages (a handful of items, released either as conditional freebies or special promotional items) are encrupted - the other items in the Connect folder are compressed but can be unzipped (using an external tool or the Ds Batch Convert pane) if you want access to their contents (but I believe that they will then be seen as different from the files on the server, prompting an unneeded update alert).

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • Rod Wise DriggoRod Wise Driggo Posts: 2,311

    Thanks Richard. I usually startup DIM before DAZ doing any installations that are pending. But I have both programs open most of the time. Might sound strange but I use DIM for searching content sometimes as it is fast and gives me the path where the content has been installed to.

    So it might be the case that DIM was not always talking to the CMS. But as mentioned this affects easily more than 50% of my content. So we're talking about hundreds of products actually (my dear, seems that I have to cut down on purchasing). Is there any way to make the CMS aware of the missing DIM installations? As I said I have DIM set to delete the archives after installing but there always remains a XML file for each archive in the downloads folder.

    Doing additional installations via connect of non-encrypted content is not an option for me. This would lead to double installations as everything is already installed with DIM. Also DIM is my tool for checking on any product updates. By the way, how does DAZ signal available updates for encrypted connect content or is this downloaded automatically. I've got those handful of products and freebies which are encrypted I suppost.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,072

    Updates are, I think, spotted by comparing the MD5 checksum of the isntalled files with that of the files on the server - which works regardless of encryption (and involves a fairly minimal amount of data being received from the daz servers).

    There were things in the 4.9.0.x releases that could elad to issues with the CMS, customer service has a script that can fix those. You might also try reimporting metadata, which should be there (in \Runtime\Support) even if the files were not added to the actual database - but if that fails I think you need the script from support and I would be inclined to suggest opening a ticket first.

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