Products hiding in Lost and Found

Comments

• Richard Haseltine Posts: 108,982

  February 2023

  Lost and Found should be otherwise uncategorised items. Note that a product will appear in every category to which at least one of its files is assigned, the product itself is not categorised. To categorise a file or files, or even a whold folder in the Content Linrary, right-click and select Categorise then check the categories you want assigned - if you need new ones right-click to create.
• wildbillnash Posts: 784

  February 2023

  Thanks, Richard. I tried searching for the categorize option ealier but couldn't find it. I was trying to catergorize the whole folder at once. It don't work that way. I have to do each individual item and hope that are at least close to each other in the Smart Content/Files/Enviroment folder. But it looks is all goes in the a its folder under the Products tab. I haven't tried the Road to Madirac yet, but that's next.
• NorthOf45 Posts: 5,732

  February 2023

  You can right-click on a folder and "Create a Category from" -> "Selected Folder..." or "Selected Folder & Sub-Folders..." All assets in those folders will be in their own category tree using the same folder hierarchy.

  You can select one or more assets in any one folder and right-click on one of them to "Categorize" to add to an existing category or make a new one. It is more granular if you want to separate the assets into different categories, but more time-consuming.
• Richard Haseltine Posts: 108,982

  February 2023

  NorthOf45 said:

  You can right-click on a folder and "Create a Category from" -> "Selected Folder..." or "Selected Folder & Sub-Folders..." All assets in those folders will be in their own category tree using the same folder hierarchy.

  In the Content Library pane, not in Smart Content (since those are not real directories).

  You can select one or more assets in any one folder and right-click on one of them to "Categorize" to add to an existing category or make a new one. It is more granular if you want to separate the assets into different categories, but more time-consuming.
• Ron Knights Posts: 2,339

  February 2023

  It appears these Lost & Found items or problems were created on DAZ's side. DAZ should fix the problems, not paying customers.
• Richard Haseltine Posts: 108,982

  February 2023

  That assumes that Lost and Found is a problem. it is the place for things not otherwise categorised - if you want them in a category you are free to place them there using the method above, but not doing so does not impede the functionality of the product. Yes, I would agree that older items that are not categorised at all should ideally be given fresh meatadata, but its omission is not actually breaking anything in the core application.
• ShelLuser Posts: 749

  February 2023

  Ron Knights said:

  It appears these Lost & Found items or problems were created on DAZ's side. DAZ should fix the problems, not paying customers.

  Correction: the side of the author of whatever products you bought. Daz is merely the store, the artists are the one responsible for setting up a correct package.

  And yes, I agree that it can be annoying but..  it's also really easy to fix yourself.
• Richard Haseltine Posts: 108,982

  February 2023

  ShelLuser said:

  Ron Knights said:

  It appears these Lost & Found items or problems were created on DAZ's side. DAZ should fix the problems, not paying customers.

  Correction: the side of the author of whatever products you bought. Daz is merely the store, the artists are the one responsible for setting up a correct package.

  And yes, I agree that it can be annoying but..  it's also really easy to fix yourself.

  I believe metadta is done by Daz, not the PA - aside from anything else, the PA doesn't know the SKU at the time they upload the product.
• ShelLuser Posts: 749

  February 2023

  Richard Haseltine said:

  ShelLuser said:

  Ron Knights said:

  It appears these Lost & Found items or problems were created on DAZ's side. DAZ should fix the problems, not paying customers.

  Correction: the side of the author of whatever products you bought. Daz is merely the store, the artists are the one responsible for setting up a correct package.

  And yes, I agree that it can be annoying but..  it's also really easy to fix yourself.

  I believe metadta is done by Daz, not the PA - aside from anything else, the PA doesn't know the SKU at the time they upload the product.

  Well, I base this opinion on the fact that if you save something as an actual Daz Studio support asset (File -> Save As.. -> Support Asset) then this will involve quite a bit of meta data, including things like vendor name, item name as well as its compatibility base and category.
• nwleee_a52bfead84 Posts: 108

  February 2023

  An unhelpful, yet slightly amusing comment:
  Up until right now, when I read this thread, I had thought my "Lost and Found" folder was a customized folder that I created myself.
  Because a couple of years ago, I had a chapter in my comic story called "Lost and Found", and I thought those were the files I used for it.
  I'm glad now that I didn't delete it, thinking it was files I didn't need anymore.  
• jjoyner Posts: 766

  February 3

  I bought a desktop computer last summer to advance my rendering capabilities beyond what my laptop computer allowed.  The desktop has Windows 11 Home, Core i9 14900KF CPU, 32 GB (expanded to 64 GB) of RAM, an RTX 4070 Super (by choice instead of a 500o series GPU) with 16 GB VRAM, an SSD boot drive (1 TB) and an HDD (4 TB).

  I deliberated on whether I should try to copy my Daz Studio, Poser and other content from the external HDD that I use with my laptop or install fresh with DIM.  After deciding that the copy option came with too many potential issues/headaches, I used DIM to install from my Product Library.  However, I now have more than 1300 products that have some files categorized in Lost and Found.  Some of the issue is likely due to some content being quite old but even some recent store content (such as M3D Kalen HD for Genesis 9, https://www.daz3d.com/m3d-kalen-hd-for-genesis-9) installed with some (not all) of its files categorized as Lost and Found.  I don't have this issue on my loder laptop running Daz Studio 4.21 and 4.24 Beta.

  Does anyone have any idea why so many items – especially new content – install with Lost and Found files?  I’m using Daz Studio 4.24.0.3.

  Thanks in advance.
• NorthOf45 Posts: 5,732

  February 4

  Lost and Found catches anything that is not categorized in some way (default or otherwise). That usually means the asset is missing metadata (if there is a metadata file).

  Anyway, this particular product has no metadata for the hair colors, no assigned categories, ergo, Lost and Found. There is also no Content Type, nor compatibilities.

  Pure omission on the part of Daz, since they are responsible for the metadata, not the PA. Although, I must admit, it can be a tedious job making metadata.
• jjoyner Posts: 766

  February 4

  NorthOf45 said:

  Lost and Found catches anything that is not categorized in some way (default or otherwise). That usually means the asset is missing metadata (if there is a metadata file).

  Anyway, this particular product has no metadata for the hair colors, no assigned categories, ergo, Lost and Found. There is also no Content Type, nor compatibilities.

  Pure omission on the part of Daz, since they are responsible for the metadata, not the PA. Although, I must admit, it can be a tedious job making metadata.

  Thanks for your reply.  As I installed content on my laptop over the past 6 years, I cleared Lost and Found items by manually categorizing them.  Over the years, that number of products may very well have been 1300 or so but I only had to address them in small batches as I installed content.  Now, I have them on my desktop all at once.  And I still haven't brought over my Poser content that did not come via the DAZ3D store. 

  When I manually a product content from other sites, principally, Renderosity, but also older content from sites some of which no longer exist such as Runtime DNA, Content Paradise, Dreamlight, Smith Micro and others, I create a Product from the files so that it appears as an item in Smart Content and then add minimal metadata (just content type and category).

  Life happens …
• NorthOf45 Posts: 5,732

  February 4

  If you still have the old computer, you can export the user data and re-import it on the new one, either all at once, It only adds or replaces any metadata you created yourself. Of course, all at once will put all of the metadata it has, maybe for products you have chosen not to install. You could export user data per product, if you know which products you you updated, then import those. Tedious in every way...
• jjoyner Posts: 766

  February 4 edited February 4

  NorthOf45 said:

  If you still have the old computer, you can export the user data and re-import it on the new one, either all at once, It only adds or replaces any metadata you created yourself. Of course, all at once will put all of the metadata it has, maybe for products you have chosen not to install. You could export user data per product, if you know which products you you updated, then import those. Tedious in every way...

  I back up critical Daz Studio and Poser data weekly.  This includes my entire Studio/My Library/Runtime/Support folder which contains the UserData file.  The date of the current file is January 1, 2923 even though the latest file in the Support folder was last modified on February 1, 2026.  I’ll explore this avenue further.

  Update:  Because little is easy to find regarding Daz Studio documentation, I did a web browser search for exporting user data and got a detailed list (AI generated) on how to do it.  I’ve done so and now have a current UserData file that is twice the size of the old one.  That’s a good start.

  Post edited by jjoyner on February 4