OK makes more sence now, so I will have to unintall all the products installed through Central? and reinstall by wither method

And back to my original issue, Motorbike ZAZ did not install correclty (out of many products this is the only one I have had a problem with)

Originaly I must have installed it through connect as it was in the cloud folder, and I had extreme difficulty purging it, should I try it through Central? at least that seems to delete files from the HD

to further the experiment, I re-installed this item (Parkside Freight) from Daz Central

In Daz Studio, it lets me select it and add it to a scene with no errors, but the main product icon still shows the circle and triangle!

for a test, I dl the zip file for one of my products that in Daz Central says "open" avalible

In Daz Studio it shows not installed

Found a distinctive file name from the dl

I searched my Library and there it was

I ran uninstall from Daz Central and it erased the files from the Library

I'm not sure how Daz central tracks installs, I assume it's the same as DIM - it has a Manifests folder in the base directory with a .dsf file detailing what it placed where. Regardless of what Daz Central says, are the files actually there? If they are, are you sure DS is pointing to the folder that contains the Data/Runtime folders?

Just to be clear,

It looks like all the products I installed using Daz Central show as still installed when looking at Daz Central, they have the "Open" button avalible, but they show as not installed in Daz Studio, thye are greyed out and have the circled triangle

User data, that is close to what I thought

the next problem I have, Daz Central shows the products I installed through that still installed, with the 'Open' button avalible

If I click the Open button I get an error

do I need to go to each product in DC and uninstall and then reinstall?

The problem is now I have assests in 2 differnt file sturcture it would seem, I don't want to end up duplicating

Back to the cause of this difficulty, I installed Motorbike ZAZ through Daz Connect, it showd the products but they would not work, error on clicking on the

I looked at the files and comparred them to manual dl unziped and many of them were smaller (in data size)

I tried 'everyting' to unistal them and no luck, I was hoping the Database reset would looke at files in the drive and rebuild itselft from that

So I assume Motorbike is out of the data base, should I / how can I add this manualy and have it show up in the 'installed'? I know how to copy the files to the correct 'high level' locations

Thanks for your help!

I don't think they've given up on quality, but there are signs they're overwhelming their QA and other teams. Items in Connect with '2 of 2' as though the name were just copied from one of the DIM files. Bad metadata, missing icons, packages clearly changed just before being posted, and all the other issues you've mentioned.  Working from home is contributing to the issues, but I'm wondering if they need to either slow the pace of releases a little or get a couple more people working on things.

Potato potahto.  There's no question that QC has gone down significantly over the last year, and DAZ has actually ramped up the number of releases.  Whether they've actually given up on quality or they aren't allocating enough time and manpower to QC, the end result is the same.  If there's money being spent on redesigning the website for the umpteenth time, producing unwanted and uneeded mistakes like DAZ Central, and extending the Official Genesis 8 figure line past 200 characters, they should be able to bring in enough warm bodies to remedy the QA problems.

can I tell what installer I used? meaning, I can deduce that a product was installed with Connect is in data/cloud, if through Daz central it would be in the higher level folders?

I there a way to tell from within Daz Studio?

The /data/cloud/ folder is content installed via Daz Connect, that is from within Daz Studio. If you reinstall the same way it should see that the files are already there and not download - however, please be aware that there is currently an issue with the metadata (or related) that is stopping some content from appearing properly.

For content installed through DIM/Daz Central you can use the Reimport Metadata option in the same Content DB Maintenance dialogue, which will also give you the chance to reimport any userdata you may have previously exported.

I am having difficulty installing / uninstalling an item, whatever I do it still showed up in the content library

Following some advice I found here I ran the “content database manager” / “reset database”

Now it shows all of my assets as not installed!

It did not remove them from my Library, there is still 65.5 GB, no smaller

Is there a way to ‘reattach’ the files?

With my new computer, and until today, I installed all the assets either with Daz Central or through the Smart Content panel

Some of the content installed as one would expect, into the first level Date, People etc. but a lot of it installed like the following example:

C:\Daz 3D\Applications\Data\DAZ 3D\My DAZ 3D Library\data\cloud\1_19791\runtime\textures\petipet\motorbike zaz

This path, data\cloud\1_19791 was created by the installer, I looked at the ‘directions’ file that comes with the product and it isn’t like that

Why is that?

Any one have difficluties installing the Motorbike ZAZ?

I have tried many things, unistalling, installing with Daz Central, Daz Content Manager, Manualy, deleting the folder that It was installed in by Daz central  (C:\Daz 3D\Applications\Data\DAZ 3D\My DAZ 3D Library\data\cloud\1_19791\runtime\textures\petipet\motorbike zaz)

Rebuliding the data base etc.

I have a follow up question on database folder etc. see next post

Recently bought a new computer, and I've been (ever-so-slowly) downloading my smart content into the new computer.  Two days ago, I had iRadiance - Light Probe HDR Lighting for Iray - Expansion 1 & iRadiance - Light Probe HDR Lighting for Iray - Expansion 2 in my computer and they were working fine.  Rendered some characters with it, etc.  Yesterday morning...gone.

I know the most common problems are unchecking the "Filter by Context" and making sure nothing is written in the search bar.  Filter is unchecked and nothing is in the search bar.  It's showing up in my DAZ Central Assets and my purchase list.

So...ideas?  Suggestions?

Thank you Daz!!  The new layout of the product download page is awesome!!

 

You are joking I assume

Possibly not showing up for you yet, but for me all the info and touch extra is there

As Novica said, We are still missing information.
Plus at one time we could jump to whatever Product Library page we needed.
When I was redownloading my purchases (when they changed from .exe to .zip archives)
This was very useful because it took me a few sessions to get the lot done.

Having seen it go from that much functionality to a page dumbed down to the level of a bag of hammers, I'd really like it returned to it's former glory.

But it's the same thing they did with Daz Central.  Maybe they believe that it's more important to make a UI pretty to help reel in newbs than it is for it to provide functionality.  It all seems really short-sighted and desperate.

Alternatively reeling in newbs with pretty uis and bright colors is the more finantially stable option and rational choice- If the rate of new users coming in exceeds the people getting fed up an leaving then, financially speaking, that is the correct choice.

 

 

... I'm not saying that's a good thing, for the record, just potentially rational

If newbs are put off by a functional store interface I cannot see them sticking with the DAZ|Studio UI.
Seriously.

Thank you Daz!!  The new layout of the product download page is awesome!!

 

You are joking I assume

Possibly not showing up for you yet, but for me all the info and touch extra is there

As Novica said, We are still missing information.
Plus at one time we could jump to whatever Product Library page we needed.
When I was redownloading my purchases (when they changed from .exe to .zip archives)
This was very useful because it took me a few sessions to get the lot done.

Having seen it go from that much functionality to a page dumbed down to the level of a bag of hammers, I'd really like it returned to it's former glory.

But it's the same thing they did with Daz Central.  Maybe they believe that it's more important to make a UI pretty to help reel in newbs than it is for it to provide functionality.  It all seems really short-sighted and desperate.

Alternatively reeling in newbs with pretty uis and bright colors is the more finantially stable option and rational choice- If the rate of new users coming in exceeds the people getting fed up an leaving then, financially speaking, that is the correct choice.

 

 

... I'm not saying that's a good thing, for the record, just potentially rational

i wonder... will newbs, especially those who respond to things like a pretty UI, actually have the financial power and the steadiness (i.e. stay with daz for a longer time) of more seasoned users that have showeled cash in here for years?

3ds Bridge is not showing [in Daz Central] here, how to install this, please help.

As an exercise in futility, I've opened a ticket. I expect exactly nothing to come of it.

Now I just gotta figure out how to move and consildate and start using DIM again, because I am not using Central and Connect is clearly a thing of the past.  Went the way of that data librarian I'm thinking.

Report it to support! That's a good one.  I have had a ticket open for a year. They just got back to me and said they were going to escalate it. Then they closed it.

If I didn't have so much money, time and emotion invested in this hobby, I'd be ready to chuck it all at this point.

Connect is utterly FUBAR. Is this because of Central, which is abysmal beyond belief?

Why is Connect FUBAR? I would like some answers.

Thank you Daz!!  The new layout of the product download page is awesome!!

 

You are joking I assume

Possibly not showing up for you yet, but for me all the info and touch extra is there

As Novica said, We are still missing information.
Plus at one time we could jump to whatever Product Library page we needed.
When I was redownloading my purchases (when they changed from .exe to .zip archives)
This was very useful because it took me a few sessions to get the lot done.

Having seen it go from that much functionality to a page dumbed down to the level of a bag of hammers, I'd really like it returned to it's former glory.

But it's the same thing they did with Daz Central.  Maybe they believe that it's more important to make a UI pretty to help reel in newbs than it is for it to provide functionality.  It all seems really short-sighted and desperate.

Alternatively reeling in newbs with pretty uis and bright colors is the more finantially stable option and rational choice- If the rate of new users coming in exceeds the people getting fed up an leaving then, financially speaking, that is the correct choice.

... I'm not saying that's a good thing, for the record, just potentially rational

For those of us who use Daz to generate images for comics and such, exporting to Blender and then fiddling with the materials just takes too long.

You're just using it the wrong way.

The thing with blender is once you import your content you can do whatever you want. Especially with effects and simulations that are great in blender. But also for sculpting and character customizations. Plus there's eevee that's great to render fast and that's good for comics as well as for animations. This is worth fiddling a bit. A viable comics workflow will be to first export the assets, then use them in blender and work in blender to pose the characters and setup the scene and lights. Sticking to work in daz studio then exporting every single scene just to render it in eevee or cycles does not make much sense.

But in another discussion I asked about creating a library of figures, props, environments, etc., in Blender and I understood the response to say that there is no such concept as a content library in Blender. I don't get how to compile scenes within Blender without access to the DAZ Studio library.

The Blender devs have recognized that asset management is an area that needs work, and as I understand it improvements are coming.  Not sure what it will look like.  Meanwhile, the old school method of organizing your content in folders and within library .blend files for different types of content still works.

Keep in mind Blender is not designed primarily as part of a marketing strategy for content from one particular online store.  It has to encompass content from any source, including self-made.  So a content library very like Daz Studio's isn't possible: I don't think you will ever have a BIM and Blender Central to work alongside a Blender content library.

Dont see why a Blender Central/BIM equivalent is a necessary component for a library system.

In Daz, we can create our own assets, presets, etc in a library system; we can do this with assets from any external website that we import into Daz.  So Blender should have this too and having marketplaces dictate its design is not a relevant point of discussion really.

 

A BIM/Blender Central isn't necessary for a generic asset library system, but it is if you want content management in Blender to work as it does in Daz Studio.  That appeared to me to be what Marble would like.  

The only content management features Daz Studio has that Blender (without addons) does not is Smart Content/CMS.  You need DIM/Daz Central to load the metadata for Smart Content for products from the Daz store.  So if you want content management like that in Blender, you need something to load the metadata for the assets into a database, i.e. a DIM/Daz Central equivalent. You also need creators to provide metadata.  Everything else (Content Library) is just files in folders.

A manual install places metadata files that can be imported into the database using the Content Database Management dialogue.

Any asset manager for Blender would have to handle content from any source, in various formats (not just DUF files), which is a much wider and more complicated remit.  When Blender has an asset manager included, a specification for metadata may be published with a means to load it, so asset creators can provide the metadata if they so wish.  Or it may not.

We are agreed that Blender will benefit from improved asset management.  I am not at all convinced that Blender needs to be more like Daz Studio in this area, or many other areas.  

Thank you Daz!!  The new layout of the product download page is awesome!!

 

You are joking I assume

Possibly not showing up for you yet, but for me all the info and touch extra is there

As Novica said, We are still missing information.
Plus at one time we could jump to whatever Product Library page we needed.
When I was redownloading my purchases (when they changed from .exe to .zip archives)
This was very useful because it took me a few sessions to get the lot done.

Having seen it go from that much functionality to a page dumbed down to the level of a bag of hammers, I'd really like it returned to it's former glory.

But it's the same thing they did with Daz Central.  Maybe they believe that it's more important to make a UI pretty to help reel in newbs than it is for it to provide functionality.  It all seems really short-sighted and desperate.