I've messed up so bad I don't even know what I've done.
WinterMoon
Posts: 1,968
DISCLAIMER: I'm very bad at explaining problems, because when I get stressed my brain confuses itself. If you don't understand what I'm trying to say, that's ok. I don't really understand it myself either!
Basically, I've ended up with two separate installs of Daz Studio. One of them - let's call it Install A - seems to exist entirely on an external harddrive (G:), where Daz Central installed it without my knowledge. I set DC up to put my downloads there, so verything I install goes to Install A. (Including an extra copy of DS itself.) However, A cannot be launced, because apparently DS can't live on an external device or something? If there's a way to actually launch and use A, that would be neat.
The other one - Install B - lives on one of my two desktop drives, (called F:). B is completely empty. My online best friend walked me through how to make Studio recognize external directories. (I'm sorry if I mess up the terminology - I'm talking about the folder hierarchy where items are stored.) We successfully managed to get Install B to pull items from custom folders on G, the external drive. The problem is that I had already uninstalled around half of the Studio content I had in B, via the uninstall function in Daz Central. I needed disc space! So yeah, every single scene and subset is missing a few items.
Now here's the problem. Install A is probably completely useless. Howevz, Daz Central installed a lot of the content missing from B into it, before I discovered there was another whole DS installation in there. I guess I could copy and paste all of that back into B, but I do not want it stored on my F: drive. I need space on there for my other things! I want it in the custom folders associated with B - which also exist on the external device but should be completely separate from Install A. Can I copy it from A into those custom folders, or would that make things just.... worse?
Also, I completely failed at getting things to install properly into my custom folder system, so I need to let DC do the job for me. I have really bad inattentive ADHD, and I mean really bad, I mean actual neuro-divergency level bad, and so I always have to try not to get confused to the level where the mess in my head carries over into other things I need to do during the day. That's why I have to do things certain ways that seem backwards to others. Either I have to let things go to A first and copy them from there, or I need to redirect Central back to the original file hierarchy on F: (which is still intact, just empty) and copy from there. Can I do it this way, without messing things up further?
Am I making any sense here? I've confused people while trying to explain much simpler things. Screenshots can be made, if there's any specific thing you want to get a visual of.
Thanks in advance for reading this and being willing to try helping!
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Comments
I think I can help you with some of this. You explained it well. It doesn't sound like you have made any serious mistakes.
Give me a few minutes to gather my thoughts on what we need to do first.
I'm going to go slow and step by step.
1) First, let's confirm that Daz Studio is really running from the disk you think it is. I'm assuming you are using Windows. If you are using Macintosh, I may not be able to help as much.
Do you launch Daz Studio from a desktop shortcut? If so follow these instructions:
If you launch Daz Studio some other way, let me know how you start it running.
2) I need to see how your Content Directory Manager is configured inside Daz Studio. The Content Directory Manager tells Daz Studio where to look for your content. Follow these instructions:
3) I'd like to know what version of Daz Studio you are running. Don't guess. ;) Follow these instructions to get the exact version number in all its detail:
barbult, DAZ needs to start paying you. :)
If you're not using it, would it be OK if I took "I've messed up so bad I don't even know what I've done" as the title for my autobiography? Thanks.
You're free to have it.
Thank you so, so much barbult, for coming to my aid here! I'm extremely grateful!
Let me try my best to answer your questions.
Welp. I kind of sort of uninstalled DS from my desktop.
The files and stuff are still there, but the executional program isn't, at the moment. You'll only have to take my word for this: There used to be two different icons on the desktop. The icon associated with Install B had the target as being somewhere on the F: drive. I don't remember the exact path, but it was the regular place. It just said F: instead of C: I think.
The single icon that remains has this target: "G:\Applications\64-bit\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\DAZStudio.exe" It appears that I CAN indeed launch DS from that icon, but then it gets mildly mysterious.
Holy crab, I think A and B have had a mutant baby?!
Things originate from all over the place.
I'll add an extra screenshot, just in case it helps. These are the folders located on G:, let me know if you need screens of what's in it. I just never got around to attaching the Genesis 8 and 3 folders, but the 1 and 2 ones are fully functional and I can select items from them.
Apparently it's 4.21.0.5 Pro Edition.
Ha ha ha ha haaaaa, this is such a mess. I'm not crying I'm laughing in reverse dfgdgkdfkghdfjkh.... Please tell me what to do now!?
It's bedtime here. I'll study this over tomorrow and see what sense I can make of it and what else I need to ask. You did a great job providing information. A couple questions come to mind already:
Thank you and thank you!
I'll check back later tonight.
Yes. I connected them to Studio via the Content Directory Manager. My friend told me how to do it, and it worked, so yay? I'm not sure I'm going to need those folders, but more about that later! I've made some interesting discoveries.
No, as far as I can remember I've never used Daz Connect, and I don't even have the Smart Content category because some SQL nonsense. But that's a problem for another day. What I have done is install things manually, by plopping them into folders. Freebies from other sites, and Rendo purchases, etc. But that shouldn't be a problem, right?
I meant to comment earlier that you should feel free to redact any sensitive personal data, so good for you for doing that.
From your comments above, I believe your Daz Studio installation on drive G is the one launched from your desktop icon, and it is working. It is the installation that was done by Daz Central. Drive G is the one you want to use. So all that is very good news. Correct me if I got any of this wrong.
1) Are you confident that your external drive always mounts as drive G? Does it ever mount with any other drive letter? Some people have problems with using an external drive for Daz Studio, because the drive letter would change from time to time. The content Directory Manager is being told to look at G. If your same external drive mounts to a different drive letter in Windows, Daz Studio won't be able to find your content. Since your desktop icon for Daz Studio also points to drive G, if the drive letter changes, that could explain why sometimes you can't launch Daz Studio from that desktop icon. A drive letter issue could be the root of some of your mysterious intermittent problems. I believe there is a way to ensure that it always mounts as drive G, but I need to research that.
2) Your Content Directory Manager is telling Daz Studio to look for content on drive F and drive G. You want all of your content on G because you need F for other things. So we need to correct the Content Directory Manager paths. I like to be conservative and as safe as possible, so first we will create a backup content set that we can just restore if necessary. This does not back up your content files! It only backs up the list of places where Daz Studio looks for content.
3) In your first message, you mentioned that install B on the F drive was completely empty. If that is accurate, then those Content Directory Manager entries for paths on the F drive aren't contributing anything useful, and we can remove them from "Current Directories". We probably need to be a little careful about the Daz Connect Data path. If you ever logged in to Daz Studio, I would expect to find files in the F drive folder listed for the Daz Connect Data. Even if you never installed anything inside Daz Studio, if you are logged in, Daz Studio automatically downloads metadata files. They are small. but they are configured to go on your F drive right now. If you use Daz Central for content installation, there is no need to log in to your Daz account from inside Daz Studio. If you are set up to automatically log in, we should change that to avoid other troubles.
No, I think you're absolutely right! It really looks like the entirely external Install A is funtional! That's exactly how I want it, if I can keep it like this.
Yes, I'm about 99% sure I've never seen any external device connected to this computer show up as anything but G. Then again, every single external device I have takes the G: slot, but since I only ever connect one at the time that's probably fine?
Back when I had the second icon, and an .exe in B that connected to it, I could not see the content installed in the A system when I launched it. Maybe I just didn't looks closely enough, but it looked like it only had access to the "custom" folders I'd connected to it. A has access to both its own content (that DC installed) and the folders that used to belong to B. But, since A seems to be functioning on its own, I really don't need to keep anything on the F: drive at all, do I? Can't I just move what's left in those folders into the corresponding folders in the A installation?
That's fine. I have a whole second external drive full of back-up files already.
Got it!
I was going to ask if I couldn't do that.
I don't have automatic log-in. OK, the Daz Connect Data can stay. So now I just toss out all the paths to old F: that's not the DCD?
I did an oops, but I think I already fixed it. Never mind!
I don't understand what you mean by "I actually do want the documents part still located on F". Removing entries in the Content Directory Manager will not delete anything on your hard drive. It only changes where Daz Studio looks for content. It will not delete your Documents folder from your F drive.
If you want to restore the Content Directory Manager to the state it was in before you deleted entries, click the dot by "Current Directories Copy" at the bottom of the Content Set list. When that dot it highlighted, click Accept. Now "Current Directories" should be set back to what it was originally. You'll have to do the deletes again, avoiding the one you want to keep. But, I think you might be confused about what deleting those entries does.
No, I just meant "My Library" and the stuff which is located in "Documents" under Users/Anne. I want the folders for "My Library" still in that location, rather than moving them to G.
I'm confused. I understood you to say that the installation on F was empty. Did you just mean that the Daz Studio program installation was empty, not that the content folders were empty? I thought you didn't want any Daz Studio content on F, because you needed the space for other things. If Daz Central is installing to G, how will you update content or uninstall unwanted content from F? How will you avoid duplicate copies of data on F and G?
See, this is what I meant when I said I've got problems phrasing things, and that I confuse myself. The My Daz 3D Library on F is empty. There's still some other things there, like the Render Library and the My Library section. I used the word "content" to only refer to items I've bought, like characters, clothes, props and shaders. You know, what Daz sells. Why I didn't think of scenes and renders as content I don't know. My brain just didn't.
Daz Central did not make a My Library folder on G that I've seen. I had duplicates of My Daz 3D Library in the menu in studio - from both F and G - but there was nothing in the version from F because I had moved everything over to the custom folders on G. (I won't be using the custom folder system, since they were part of the B install, and A works and is the one I'll be using. But that's a different discussion.) I've found only one My Library, the directory that holds scenes and subsets, and it's on F. Maybe there's a copy on G, but I don't know where. I'll have to look again.
So, to edit the Content Directory Manager, it sounds like you should remove the F:/Users/Public/Documents/My DAZ 3D Library from both the DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats sections. And remove the G:/Shader Presets, G:/Genesis 1 and G:/Genesis 2 custom folders that you aren't going to use any more. Don't delete the folders from your hard drive yet, though.
It also looks strange to me that your G://Applications/Data/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library has G:// instead of just G:/ but maybe that is something Daz Central does, so leave it alone, at least for now.
After editing the Content Directory Manager, close Daz Studio and reopen it. Go to the Content Library pane. Expand the DAZ Studio Format section and Poser formats section with their triangles. Take a screenshot of the contents of the Content Library pane so we can check that the correct libraries are shown there now.
Then open a saved scene. Do you get missing file errors? If so, what are they?
Do you know that when you close Daz Studio 4.20, you can't restart it immediately? It takes time to close down in the background. If you try to restart it too soon, it won't open. That doesn't mean anything is wrong. You just have to wait a little longer. You can use Windows Task Manager to see if the Daz Studio process is still running, but don't kill it off in the Task Manager. That can cause problems.
I've done that. :)
I didn't, just in case. x)
Oh deer.
Let me check in a few hours. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to check forums. Very smart, I know.... I really do appreciate your patience and tolerance with me!
I did know that, but I'm not sure if you meant to post this here or in another thread.
OK, here's what the Content Library looks like. It looks okay to me, the way I remember it being.
I'm still very much in the process of installing stuff though. The A version was a completely clean install, with only the basics that come with DS, and I've got pages upon pages of my content library still to download.
So for now, any scenes I open will have missing items, for a while.
Edit: The image won't let me expand it, so I'll repost it in full size.
That's looking pretty good! In the Daz Studio Formats section, I think My Library should be above My DAZ 3D Library. You can move it with the Move controls on the left side of the Content Directory Manager pane.
There is no need to check for missing scene files now, if you know that lots of content is not yet installed. Does Daz Central have a way to install everything at once, like DIM does, or do you have to install products one by one?
If you install a product, can you find it right away in the Content Library, where you expect it to be? (Just to confirm the the Daz Central installations are going to the place you expect them to go.)
So far I've been able to find everything. Jinx!
Oh right, I forgot to reply to this: It seems to me that Daz Central makes you click everything you want to install separately. I'm being picky about what I'm installing though, so I don't have to wade through tons of sci-fi and fantasy themed items I hoarded because they were free.
So far so good!
When you get to the point of testing old scenes, if you get a pop up telling you that missing products need to be installed, DON'T let Daz Studio install them! That will use Daz Connect. Just go to Daz Central and install those products yourself, so all of your installations are done the same way.
This is probably a very silly question, but.... can Daz Studio files somehow increase in size? On one hand I know they probably can't, because they're not alive and experiencing cell multiplication, but I honestly don't know what else can explain what's going on.
I'm about half way through installing the items I want onto my external (G:) drive. G is 1.8 TerraByte,* so it's a big boi, but it's filling up so quickly! I had many more of these items on my F: drive, which is "only" 930 GB and also held a lot of other stuff.
Even being selective about what I'm putting on G, it's over half full and I've got around half left to go. At this rate it's probably going to be full to the brim, and I haven't bought a lot of content since I decided to yeet Studio off my desktop. There should not exist close to two TB of content in my possession!
*Allegedly. I bought it as a 1.5 TB drive, but my computer says it's got some extra capacity.
Please tell me my computer may be miscalculating.
The files won't increase in size, but you might have both the download files and the installed files on the drive?
(I don't use DAZ Central so I don't know where it stores the downloads, or if it deletes them after install)
I was pretty sure they couldn't. But I did come into this world a little daft, so I figured it was best to ask.
Oh no?! Well, if I can find the uninstalled extra downloads, I can safely delete them?
Edit: I don't think there's a double set of files on the drive, but look at this. 590 GB of files use 840 GB of disc space. I'm confused.
Daz Central deletes the zips once done installing, Daz Install Manager can delete or keep as the user prefers.
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If the previous installation was doen witrh Daz Connect, which always compresses the files, and the new one with Daz Central or Install Manager, which may have compressed or uncompressed files, then the disc space used could increase noticeably.
1.8 TerraByte is not a big drive these days. Perhaps it is time to upgrade. 12TB and larger external drives are not uncommon now.
ONOZZ this whole process all over?
*cries in ded* I haven't even seen larger than 3 TB drives in stores in Norway!
Yes, that's cleaned out.
Nope! They're gone the way of the Dodo.
Well, I did, and things still look bigger than they ought to be. The good news is that I must be most of the way through installing everything, and it looks like I'll have some space left for a while. If I'm just very careful about only adding new content I really want, that I know I'll use a lot, and preferably need for the kind of pictures I like doing, maybe I can at least postpone another reinstall on another drive until next year's dangerous sales.