PerttiA said:

malcolmkarpeta_40f9af0b00 said:

PerttiA said:

malcolmkarpeta_40f9af0b00 said:

frank0314 said:

What method or methods are you using to install the products?

I unzip the package and install content folders to My Daz Library, as I have alwats done. However, 1 package asked "You have a newer folder that already exists, do you want to replace it?" Normally I say No but I think I may have mistakemly said yes on one. Tried to stop it but maybe the damage was already done. Don't really know if this caused the issue...

Do you log in to DS, or have you enabled "automatically login using the saved credentials"?

I've enabled automatically log in

That is at least one problem with your setup.

When you are installing content manually or with DIM or DAZ Central, there is no need to log in to DS. 
You only need to Log in to DS, if you intend to install the content with DAZ Connect within DS

I see, OK I'll try logging out install again

Many thanks

malcolmkarpeta_40f9af0b00 said:

PerttiA said:

malcolmkarpeta_40f9af0b00 said:

frank0314 said:

What method or methods are you using to install the products?

I unzip the package and install content folders to My Daz Library, as I have alwats done. However, 1 package asked "You have a newer folder that already exists, do you want to replace it?" Normally I say No but I think I may have mistakemly said yes on one. Tried to stop it but maybe the damage was already done. Don't really know if this caused the issue...

Do you log in to DS, or have you enabled "automatically login using the saved credentials"?

I've enabled automatically log in

That is at least one problem with your setup.

When you are installing content manually or with DIM or DAZ Central, there is no need to log in to DS. 
You only need to Log in to DS, if you intend to install the content with DAZ Connect within DS

Gordig said:

I can't help you with the actual problem, but Monterey is MacOS, not iOS.

yes sorry it's MacOS it's like the first page section of daz central has some bad code, if you click quickly you can get to daz studio to open

but if you do anything like look at other sections it all just freezes, anyhow i have got back most now but not the smoothest of processes :) 

PS i have just re done my imac so its a fresh IOS on SSD 

also why doesn't the content install manager app know i have more than 5 items on my account ??

it should show everything under my account and it doesn't

if i try to click from daz central to install it's impossible as it just keeps freezing up

Each time i open daz central i just get the spinning wheel and i cannot do anything except force it to close

is anyone else having this on the latest daz and monterey IOS ??

Install Manager seems to have been superseded by Daz Central, which is what got installed when I started using this machine. I can find no way in that to opt in to betas and it reckoned that Hexagon was already up to date. I did get a new version of Daz, which looks no different...

If anyone knows how to do betas with that, I'll give it a shot.

Now to attempt bridging with Daz closed.
Edit: the bridge file locations were actually among the first things I looked up when it started going wrong. Confirmed they're correct.

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

barbult said:

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

barbult said:

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

I have tried to get the trees (biome) to show up, and i understand that it doesnt show up in the preview, but im getting nothing in the render either, even when i change the restrict to camera, and ive changed the optimization to memory then auto and speed, but still nothing, checked the visiblity in the parameters, checked the shaders, still can't find anything to make the plant life show up, can get the water though, so the landscapes look a bit rubbish without life.and i did save the terrain to a folder as well, what am i missing?

Ryzen 7 3700x, 32gb ram, rtx3090 oc, daz studio 4.20

How did you install the product? (DIM, manual install, Daz Central, Daz Connect inside Daz Studio)

Does the log file have any info? (Help>Troubleshooting>View Log File then scroll to the end for the most recent info)

Which biome did you select?

When you selected the biome, did you see a window pop us saying it was loading files, like in the attached screenshot?

 I installed via DIM, And i tired several biomes and the window did pop up saying it was loading files, the log file had this and a lot more below it :-

2022-03-20 17:33:30.674 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_UltraSceneryXT water node__Default_1969_9494' uses MDL JIT compilation.

...

Did you specify a Save Location folder in the Terrain Maps section? If not, do that and see if that fixes the problem.

 Yes, i made a folder in my daz library specifically for it.

barbult said:

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

barbult said:

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

I have tried to get the trees (biome) to show up, and i understand that it doesnt show up in the preview, but im getting nothing in the render either, even when i change the restrict to camera, and ive changed the optimization to memory then auto and speed, but still nothing, checked the visiblity in the parameters, checked the shaders, still can't find anything to make the plant life show up, can get the water though, so the landscapes look a bit rubbish without life.and i did save the terrain to a folder as well, what am i missing?

Ryzen 7 3700x, 32gb ram, rtx3090 oc, daz studio 4.20

How did you install the product? (DIM, manual install, Daz Central, Daz Connect inside Daz Studio)

Does the log file have any info? (Help>Troubleshooting>View Log File then scroll to the end for the most recent info)

Which biome did you select?

When you selected the biome, did you see a window pop us saying it was loading files, like in the attached screenshot?

 I installed via DIM, And i tired several biomes and the window did pop up saying it was loading files, the log file had this and a lot more below it :-

2022-03-20 17:33:30.674 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_UltraSceneryXT water node__Default_1969_9494' uses MDL JIT compilation.

...

Did you specify a Save Location folder in the Terrain Maps section? If not, do that and see if that fixes the problem.

Yes, i made a folder in my daz library specifically for it. Have just tried a Full render, and the trees are showing up, they just don't show up in the Iray preview render, is that correct, or is that a fault?

Okay guys, I have tried to load several assets, scenes, characters, props etc and they are all causing a problem. The main issues are with my data and runtime/textures folders, too numerous to mention, so I have decided to reinstall DS and all of the assets I have bought via Daz Central and then all of the assets I have bought from such sites as Renderosity, Renderhub etc. It will be time consuming but a lot less complicated than trying to identify which files are missing and then go look for them, many of which I will probably never find.

If anyone can think of an easier way, by all means let me know

Many thanks for all of the advice

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

barbult said:

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

I have tried to get the trees (biome) to show up, and i understand that it doesnt show up in the preview, but im getting nothing in the render either, even when i change the restrict to camera, and ive changed the optimization to memory then auto and speed, but still nothing, checked the visiblity in the parameters, checked the shaders, still can't find anything to make the plant life show up, can get the water though, so the landscapes look a bit rubbish without life.and i did save the terrain to a folder as well, what am i missing?

Ryzen 7 3700x, 32gb ram, rtx3090 oc, daz studio 4.20

How did you install the product? (DIM, manual install, Daz Central, Daz Connect inside Daz Studio)

Does the log file have any info? (Help>Troubleshooting>View Log File then scroll to the end for the most recent info)

Which biome did you select?

When you selected the biome, did you see a window pop us saying it was loading files, like in the attached screenshot?

 I installed via DIM, And i tired several biomes and the window did pop up saying it was loading files, the log file had this and a lot more below it :-

2022-03-20 17:33:30.674 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_UltraSceneryXT water node__Default_1969_9494' uses MDL JIT compilation.

...

Did you specify a Save Location folder in the Terrain Maps section? If not, do that and see if that fixes the problem.

barbult said:

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

I have tried to get the trees (biome) to show up, and i understand that it doesnt show up in the preview, but im getting nothing in the render either, even when i change the restrict to camera, and ive changed the optimization to memory then auto and speed, but still nothing, checked the visiblity in the parameters, checked the shaders, still can't find anything to make the plant life show up, can get the water though, so the landscapes look a bit rubbish without life.and i did save the terrain to a folder as well, what am i missing?

Ryzen 7 3700x, 32gb ram, rtx3090 oc, daz studio 4.20

How did you install the product? (DIM, manual install, Daz Central, Daz Connect inside Daz Studio)

Does the log file have any info? (Help>Troubleshooting>View Log File then scroll to the end for the most recent info)

Which biome did you select?

When you selected the biome, did you see a window pop us saying it was loading files, like in the attached screenshot?

 I installed via DIM, And i tired several biomes and the window did pop up saying it was loading files, the log file had this and a lot more below it :-

2022-03-20 17:33:30.674 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_UltraSceneryXT water node__Default_1969_9494' uses MDL JIT compilation.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.675 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_Oak Trees 1a prop[1] color[1]__Foliage_1993_9518' uses MDL JIT compilation.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.675 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_Oak Trees 1a prop[1] color[2]__Foliage_19ae_9544' uses MDL JIT compilation.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.675 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_Oak Trees 1a prop[1] color[3]__Foliage_19c9_9570' uses MDL JIT compilation.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.676 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : Material instance 'DS_Oak Trees 1a prop[1] color[4]__Foliage_19e4_9596' uses MDL JIT compilation.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.676 Iray [INFO] - MATCNV:RENDER ::   1.0   MATCNV rend info : found 48 textures, 41 lambdas (37 unique)

2022-03-20 17:33:30.677 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Updating volumes.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.678 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Updating lights.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.678 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Updating object flags.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.678 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Updating caustic portals.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.678 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Updating decals.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.679 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Allocating 1-layer frame buffer

2022-03-20 17:33:30.681 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Using interactive scheduling, caustic sampler disabled

2022-03-20 17:33:30.689 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Initializing OptiX for CUDA device 0

2022-03-20 17:33:30.793 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Rendering with 1 device(s):

2022-03-20 17:33:30.793 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090)

2022-03-20 17:33:30.793 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Rendering...

2022-03-20 17:33:30.793 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.5   IRAY   rend progr: CUDA device 0 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090): Processing scene...

2022-03-20 17:33:30.817 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.14  IRAY   rend info : Importing lights for motion time 0

2022-03-20 17:33:30.817 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.14  IRAY   rend info : Initializing light hierarchy.

2022-03-20 17:33:30.817 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.14  IRAY   rend info : Light hierarchy initialization took 0.000 s

2022-03-20 17:33:31.373 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.14  IRAY   rend info : JIT-linking wavefront kernel in 0.306 s

2022-03-20 17:33:31.373 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.5   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090): Scene processed in 0.580s

2022-03-20 17:33:31.374 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.14  IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090): Allocated 16.162 MiB for frame buffer

2022-03-20 17:33:31.374 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.5   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090): Allocated 1.906 GiB of work space (2048k active samples in 0.000s)

2022-03-20 17:33:31.374 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.5   IRAY   rend info : CUDA device 0 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090): Optimizing for cooperative usage (performance could be sacrificed)

2022-03-20 17:33:31.443 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend progr: Received update to 00001 iterations after 0.646s.

2022-03-20 17:33:31.445 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Rendering...

2022-03-20 17:33:31.449 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Updating geometry.

2022-03-20 17:33:31.452 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Updating motion transforms.

2022-03-20 17:33:31.452 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Importing scene graph.

2022-03-20 17:33:31.452 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Auto instancing compression ratio 1.00 (Full instancing compression ratio 1.00)

grendel1 said:

namffuak said:

grendel1 said:

I gather this is possible, although I'm having trouble finding the forum post I read where some one outlined how they do it.

I think I basically just need to use a separate machine with DIM installed on it to download the files, then transfer them to the offline machine. Then the DIM on the offline machine will find them once they are in the downloads folder and can install them.

Manually installed content is probably not a problem?

Does daz studio itself ever need to access the internet to run? Are there any gotchas I'm missing here?

I have a few reasons I want to be offline, the most important being I don't want Windows updates breaking the software after I have it setup. Basically I don't really trust Windows.

I've been doing it for years.

I  download with DIM to an external USB drive, then move the drive to the off-line system and run DIM in off-line mode to install. Keep the downloads on the USB drive so the online system DIM knows what you have, will notify you about updates, and won't keep trying to download the same products over and over.

Thanks, good info about preventing future unnecessary downloads. This is the kind of workflow I was thinking of as well.

I see there are "offline installers" and "DIM" installers for some content on the shop. I assume a similar workflow for offline or manual install could work as well. Daz Connect sounded like it might be more complicated but from reading daz connect isn't really required, interferes with DIM sometimes and some people feel it's buggy and unreliable.

DIM is incredibly flexible; Central is a stripped down DIM that just doesn't have much flexibility - and Connect doesn't do software, handles plugins badly (if it does them at all - I don't remember) and breaks most scripted products. You could do manual install, but most (all?) plugins need to be installed by DIM or Central - they're not available as stand-alone installers. 

I do have a separate install directory for third-party products (sharecg, rendo- and render- and the like) that  I do all manual installs to; DIM doesn't need to know about this one). Right now my dim-download directory is using 1.9 TB on my USB drive (16,400 items). You really only need to configure the Downloads tab on the online system DIM; the offline system should have a matching Downloads configuration (with the appropriate drive letter for the archive directories) and the full configuration of the Installation tab.

I've been using this since about two days after DIM came out.

shedofjoy_a0bca15db4 said:

I have tried to get the trees (biome) to show up, and i understand that it doesnt show up in the preview, but im getting nothing in the render either, even when i change the restrict to camera, and ive changed the optimization to memory then auto and speed, but still nothing, checked the visiblity in the parameters, checked the shaders, still can't find anything to make the plant life show up, can get the water though, so the landscapes look a bit rubbish without life.and i did save the terrain to a folder as well, what am i missing?

Ryzen 7 3700x, 32gb ram, rtx3090 oc, daz studio 4.20

How did you install the product? (DIM, manual install, Daz Central, Daz Connect inside Daz Studio)

Does the log file have any info? (Help>Troubleshooting>View Log File then scroll to the end for the most recent info)

Which biome did you select?

When you selected the biome, did you see a window pop us saying it was loading files, like in the attached screenshot?

shaunjubilee said:

Hey guys am not very technical but i also had the same problem of being stuck at that install button, So i ended up going to task manager and ending the daz central that i was running..and when i re-opened it again i realised that the install button had disappeared, I went on my desktop and i saw that its already been installed...hope this helps and sorry i cant write proper english..if it makes sense then yah god bless haha ! 

Strangely enough, it worked. Though I haven't started using the studio and only when I do, I will come to know if the installation was complete. I expect some errors related to missing files or libraries, but yes, the studio seems to be installed at the moment. Thanks for the tip! Cheers!

Catherine3678ab said:

We need to keep the installers we've downloaded and use them to reinstall older editions of D/S.

This might help with the changes to Lighting that were made.

I use Daz central(the way Daz wanted their new customer to manage content) to download the launch client, so there's no older installer for me unfortunately.  If I knew 4.20 would be this broken, i'd never updated in the first place.  

Now I ask Daz staff why didn't they keep all their older, known working version in place like all software company do in case some catastrophic issues appears in their new version.  

I have this issue and it is driving me crazy. The script menu does not appear. I have used Download manager, Daz central and also tried the Github manual install. None of these work. No script menu. The anoying thing is that I had it working fine but needed to re-install windows. so I know that it should work for me. It has installed fine on Blender. When I start Daz Studio for a split second the menu bar flashes with the script menu there then it disappears. Any help would be most appreciated.

Ryuu@AMcCF said:

Whiskeyjack said:

I've noticed that my Smart Content tab seems to have an awful lot of duplicates of products, but these duplicates have no thumnail and have the letters "Ps" at the end of their filenames.

If I understand it correctly, these are Poser files, and sometimes are needed for the product to work properly in Daz. But they really only seem to contain the same stuff as what's coantined in the Daz equilivents, and as I can access everything I need through the product that actually has a thumbnail, there doesn't seem to be much reason for both files to be showing at all. Some of these "Ps" products don't even appear to contain any content at all, oddly enough.

I've tried uninstalling the "Ps" files through DIM, but they still appear in the Smart Content even after uninstalling them. I'm wondering is there some way to filter these "Ps" files out of my Smart content, because they're really just a bit on an eyesore now, especially as there seems to be so many of them.

Any help would be appreciated!

Hi Whiskenjack,

 

I'm seeing something similar to your complaint.

I recently needed to purge and reload everything & I was advised to do everything through DIM and NOT use DAZ Central or allow D|S to log in and download any products. The reason is that D|S is installing the files in an encrypted state, while DIM installs them in an unencrypted state. Because of this, they can interfere with one another and result in you not being able to access various product fuctions.

No, Daz Central will install them compressed rather than as plain ASCII, which may or may not be the case with the other methods, but they are not encrypted - they can be uncompressed through the Batch Convert pane or with an archive tool such as 7Zip. Daz Central installs the same files from the same zip as Install Manager - the differences are that it doesn't have the option to retain the zips, it places everything in sub-folders of a user-specified folder rather than having multiple user-specified folders, and it cannot install some content types (e.g. betas). If you install both through Daz Studio itself and through one of the other emthods then the Daz Studio files wil be the ones used. Some products, mainly scripts or files called by scripts, will not work through Connect due to the way the scripts were written.

By default, D|S will normally install the product files in a path like [your harddrive]:\users\[your account]\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Daz Connect Library\data\cloud\[1_ProductID#s\]. Also by default, DIM will normally install them in a path like [your harddrive]:\users\[your account]\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Support\. Of course, all of that can vary depending on what you set up, but troubleshooting gets to be a royal pain if you change them too drastically. DIM is also supposed to allow for proper installations into Poser, Carrara, and other programs--but from my experience, that expectation is a bit overly optimistic. There are tons of other locations, but the paths listed above are where DAZ and DIM will store the files that direct their product installers to scatter the complete database throughout your system--and if you move any of those files, you can totally FUBAR your entire database. When you run into problems, these are the locations you need to start from for troubleshooting your issues.

The database stors only relative paths - the locations within the content directory. As long as those don't chnage the location and name of the content directory can be freely modified. Daz Central and Isntall Manager dos tore the absolute location for files they install.

FYI: the stuff in red are variable locations. By default, the Harddrive would be you C:\ drive, but the C:\ drive should be reserved to your OS and should NOT be the repository for programs or data files--best practices and industry standards are that you should use a dedicated Program&Date harddive separated from where your OS resides. your account under users\ is whichever account you're using for DAZ & DIM--they advise using Public\ if you're trusting your Public user account to exist. Finally, ProductID#s are the SKU numbers from the DAZ Store, but the folder format takes the form of "1_####..." (for example: it would create a folder "1_85029\" in the Cloud\ for the ECK Amma for Genesis 8.1 Female).

Unfortunately, since I have to abandon the D|S install route, I can't tell you much about how the Daz Connect Library works other than it DOES NOT like you putting any new files (like modified textures) in the Data\Cloud\ folders! For that, I needed to create a mirrored setup of that path for any of my personal modifications. Other than that, I generally liked the layout as it made finding the files associated with the products SO much easier--all you needed was the product's SKU#!

For the DIM, it's putting your initial product files in the Runtime\Support\ folder. You will see a slew of .dsx files--you may also have some .dsa or some other extensions along with them, but the .dsx are the ones you need to pay attention to--those are the ones that are getting listed out in your SmartContent with the nice pretty pictures (or even the ones that don't have pretty pictures). For each one that does have a pretty picture, there's a corresponding picture file with the EXACT-SAME-FILENAME as the .dsx file-- they can be .jpg, .png, or someover format. So, for the ones without pretty pictures, like your _Ps, you may also see files with _PoserCF, _Legacy, and/or _StudioCF. As you know, Ps, PoserCF, and Legacy files all have something to do with using them in Poser and/or interacting with Poser. "CF" stands for Companion Files, but I have no idea what's up with that, nor do I understand the purpose of the StudioCF. All I know is, if you want the pretty pictures instead of the ugly ⚠, then you need to make a copy of the product's picture and rename the file EXACTLY as it appears in the .dsx file--note: characters such as quotes, colons, prarentheses, spaces, or any other nonnumeric/nonalfabetic characters will appear as extra underscores in the filenames.

The /Runtime/Support/ folder does contain a copy of the metadata in .dsx format, but that is not used in regular operation - it is read only when reimportting metadata, and modified only when saving new or modified metadata

In my case, after getting everything done through DIM [~16,000+ items], I chased down the missing pictures for all those .dsx files in my E:\users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Support folder--the Ps, the PoserCF, the StudioCF, the Legacy--and there were even a handful of evidently corrupt or misnamed product pictures I had to creatively rename to get the pictures to appear, too! (After about a month of agressive searching, I have about 100 or so of those left to chase down, but I think that's doing pretty good out of a database the size of mine--the urgency is starting to wind down a bit)

The new urgency is now coming from those files showing up in the "Installed" tab, and like your issue, when I go to any of those those Poser & CF products, there are no files available to load into a scene.

Also, there are a ton of items in the "Available" tab. DIM says the products [shown in my picture below] are installed--D|S says they're not. When I try to access them through D|S, D|S wants me to log in and download them through DAZ Connect--which I was advised NOT to do! 
 

So, my big questions are-- How do I recover these 2500+ items in the "Available" tab if DIM can't properly install them? What's up with those items that have the little icon of a notebook labled "U"? And how do I find the missing files currently residing by the thousands in the "Installed" tab under the Ps, CF, and Legacy products?
 

I hope someone can help us.

 

Thanks,

Ryuu

 

Hi guys, thanks for the help.

@Spacious They're just showing up in Smart Content like any other product. And yes, they're showing the exclamation mark inside the triangle to idiciate the thumnail is missing/misplaced. They're not just greyed out, which I understand means they're just not installed.

I've installed everything through DIM, and I'm positive that I haven't "double installed" anything because I recently built a new computer and reinstalled all of my Daz content through DIM; I never even bothered to download Daz Central. The only products that I didn't download through DIM were a few odd ones that I had to download in Daz istelf because they weren't showing up as installed in Smart content (even though they were installed in DIM and showing up as installed in DIM, but that's a question for another day), However, none of those products were among the ones I'm having this issue with (the ones with "Ps" at the end of their name).

@Ryuu@AMcCF, I haven't manually moved any files or folders whatsoever. I make sure not to, because I did that once on my old computer and everything went ass-ways on me and I eventually had to completely remove and reinstall Daz to fix it.

Strangely, if I go into one of these "Ps" products, right-click on any of the assets within click on "Browse to File location...", it takes me to the exact same place that the normal Daz product is located. And I click on "Show in Content Library", it takes me to the content library, and I can see two folders; one for the Daz product, with all the assets inside, and another folder with all the same assets again (but with a smaller version of that icon indicating a missing thumbnaill, and a small red square next to it).
It's as though these "Ps" products are just duplicates of the original Daz product, but put into a second folder for some reason.
Here's some screenshots to show what I mean.

Whiskeyjack said:

I've noticed that my Smart Content tab seems to have an awful lot of duplicates of products, but these duplicates have no thumnail and have the letters "Ps" at the end of their filenames.

If I understand it correctly, these are Poser files, and sometimes are needed for the product to work properly in Daz. But they really only seem to contain the same stuff as what's coantined in the Daz equilivents, and as I can access everything I need through the product that actually has a thumbnail, there doesn't seem to be much reason for both files to be showing at all. Some of these "Ps" products don't even appear to contain any content at all, oddly enough.

I've tried uninstalling the "Ps" files through DIM, but they still appear in the Smart Content even after uninstalling them. I'm wondering is there some way to filter these "Ps" files out of my Smart content, because they're really just a bit on an eyesore now, especially as there seems to be so many of them.

Any help would be appreciated!

Hi Whiskenjack,

I'm seeing something similar to your complaint.

I recently needed to purge and reload everything & I was advised to do everything through DIM and NOT use DAZ Central or allow D|S to log in and download any products. The reason is that D|S is installing the files in an encrypted state, while DIM installs them in an unencrypted state. Because of this, they can interfere with one another and result in you not being able to access various product fuctions.

By default, D|S will normally install the product files in a path like [your harddrive]:\users\[your account]\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Daz Connect Library\data\cloud\[1_ProductID#s\]. Also by default, DIM will normally install them in a path like [your harddrive]:\users\[your account]\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Support\. Of course, all of that can vary depending on what you set up, but troubleshooting gets to be a royal pain if you change them too drastically. DIM is also supposed to allow for proper installations into Poser, Carrara, and other programs--but from my experience, that expectation is a bit overly optimistic. There are tons of other locations, but the paths listed above are where DAZ and DIM will store the files that direct their product installers to scatter the complete database throughout your system--and if you move any of those files, you can totally FUBAR your entire database. When you run into problems, these are the locations you need to start from for troubleshooting your issues.

FYI: the stuff in red are variable locations. By default, the Harddrive would be you C:\ drive, but the C:\ drive should be reserved to your OS and should NOT be the repository for programs or data files--best practices and industry standards are that you should use a dedicated Program&Date harddive separated from where your OS resides. your account under users\ is whichever account you're using for DAZ & DIM--they advise using Public\ if you're trusting your Public user account to exist. Finally, ProductID#s are the SKU numbers from the DAZ Store, but the folder format takes the form of "1_####..." (for example: it would create a folder "1_85029\" in the Cloud\ for the ECK Amma for Genesis 8.1 Female).

Unfortunately, since I have to abandon the D|S install route, I can't tell you much about how the Daz Connect Library works other than it DOES NOT like you putting any new files (like modified textures) in the Data\Cloud\ folders! For that, I needed to create a mirrored setup of that path for any of my personal modifications. Other than that, I generally liked the layout as it made finding the files associated with the products SO much easier--all you needed was the product's SKU#!

For the DIM, it's putting your initial product files in the Runtime\Support\ folder. You will see a slew of .dsx files--you may also have some .dsa or some other extensions along with them, but the .dsx are the ones you need to pay attention to--those are the ones that are getting listed out in your SmartContent with the nice pretty pictures (or even the ones that don't have pretty pictures). For each one that does have a pretty picture, there's a corresponding picture file with the EXACT-SAME-FILENAME as the .dsx file-- they can be .jpg, .png, or someover format. So, for the ones without pretty pictures, like your _Ps, you may also see files with _PoserCF, _Legacy, and/or _StudioCF. As you know, Ps, PoserCF, and Legacy files all have something to do with using them in Poser and/or interacting with Poser. "CF" stands for Companion Files, but I have no idea what's up with that, nor do I understand the purpose of the StudioCF. All I know is, if you want the pretty pictures instead of the ugly ⚠, then you need to make a copy of the product's picture and rename the file EXACTLY as it appears in the .dsx file--note: characters such as quotes, colons, prarentheses, spaces, or any other nonnumeric/nonalfabetic characters will appear as extra underscores in the filenames.

In my case, after getting everything done through DIM [~16,000+ items], I chased down the missing pictures for all those .dsx files in my E:\users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Support folder--the Ps, the PoserCF, the StudioCF, the Legacy--and there were even a handful of evidently corrupt or misnamed product pictures I had to creatively rename to get the pictures to appear, too! (After about a month of agressive searching, I have about 100 or so of those left to chase down, but I think that's doing pretty good out of a database the size of mine--the urgency is starting to wind down a bit)

The new urgency is now coming from those files showing up in the "Installed" tab, and like your issue, when I go to any of those those Poser & CF products, there are no files available to load into a scene.

Also, there are a ton of items in the "Available" tab. DIM says the products [shown in my picture below] are installed--D|S says they're not. When I try to access them through D|S, D|S wants me to log in and download them through DAZ Connect--which I was advised NOT to do! 
 

So, my big questions are-- How do I recover these 2500+ items in the "Available" tab if DIM can't properly install them? What's up with those items that have the little icon of a notebook labled "U"? And how do I find the missing files currently residing by the thousands in the "Installed" tab under the Ps, CF, and Legacy products?
 

I hope someone can help us.

Thanks,

Ryuu

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

romboutv said:

@TheMysteryIsThePoint Many thanks for all the work you've put into this!

EDIT

Ive put the file in '''C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DazCentral\plugins''' but it doesnt seem to work from there. Ill check if i can find other folder. I basically dropped it in the default folder

This is why i kinda hate Windows, why 2 folders? Probably due to the other folder being the Central app for downloading. 
just found this folder '''C:\Daz 3D\Applications\64-bit\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4'''

It still doesnt show up in studio 4.15 on Windows?

 

EDIT2

Okay got it, its under the edit menu, i was looking under export > options dropdwon

You are very welcome. We do what we can.

Sorry about the Edit menu... for some reason there's a DzEditAction class, but no DzFileAction class, and I'm just lazy. I think you can still put it wherever you want by clicking on Windows|Workspace|Customize.

Let me know how it works out for you.

I'm not very tech savvy, but i still can't find it under either the Edit tab or the Export tab. I put the dll file in both the directories mentioned. Exactly where can the plugin be find within Daz?
Edit: Ah, found it!