Content manager problem
My content manager does not seem to be working properly. The last 3 orders I have made do not appear in Smart content (some were older items, but I've just downloaded the new Ranger pack, so that surely ought to be smart content). In addition, when I look for the products in the Products section of the content manager, they are listed, but clicking on them produces no files. The content is there - I can access it by manually finding it in the database, or doing a search, but this is a nuisance. I've never had this problem before.
Any advice? Or should I just put a support ticket in?
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Comments
I am not sure what you mean by 'content manager'?
All items that have been installed will appear in the Content Library pane, it doesn't matter if they have Smart Content or not. If you go to the Content Library pane, select DAZ Studio Formats > My DAZ 3D Library > People > Genesis 2 Female, you should find your content there for the Ranger outfit.
Have you tried going to the drop-down menu in the Content Library pane (top right corner), and selecting Content DB Maintenance > Re-Import Metadata? That should bring your metadata up to date. Products and Categories appear in the Content Library pane as well. The Content Manager is where you enter the paths to your content that DAZ Studio uses, it can be found in Preferences.
I'm not quite sure what I mean by 'content manager' either........it's whatever controls my database. Someone mentioned in an earlier post I made about the possibility of CDM crashing, and I thought this stood for content database manager! The thing is, I can find the content OK - it's just that it is not appearing in my smart content as it should. There is also this problem with the products tab in the database. If I click on 'R', for instance, I get an entry for the various Ranger files, but when I click on it, it displays no files. That means I have to find the files manually, which is a real pain. Search sometimes works, but only if the files have logical names. This cannot be right! I'll try re-importing the metadata, but if Install manager isn't importing the metadata when I install the stuff, that means I might have to do that very time I download new products.
You probably mean CMS (Content Management Service), which runs as a process in Windows. It looks after the database, and is responsible for populating the Smart Content pane, among other things. If it was not running as a process, you would not have any Categories or Products to view, so that is not your problem here.
Just a thought, when I click on Products in the Content Library pane, nothing appears until I double-click on the name of the selected item.
Anyway, try reimporting the Metadata, that usually works.
Re-importing metadata had no effect. You can see from the screenshot what i get when I click (or double-click) on Products/R. The same thing applies to all my recent products - shadowplay lights, space base, crimson court, dreamer wings and Lady of the Lake for Genesis. It also happened some time ago when I purchased Wilde Rhoades for Genesis, but after that I had no problems until the last few days. With genesis 2 selects in the scene, none of the Ranger prooducts show up anywhere in Smart content. Dreamer wings and Crimson Court are quite old but I would have thought Space Base, Shadow Play lights and possibly Lady of the Lake items would be in Smart content, but they're not.
I don't have the Ranger stuff, so I cannot check, but Space Base is in Smart Content.
Mine is under Default > Environments > Architecture > Exterior, and it lists Box1.DUF, Box2.DUF and Box3.DUF. You can then right click on the item and select 'Show in Content Library', which makes it easy to find the rest of it. In Smart Content, make sure that nothing is selected in the Scene pane, then select 'All' in the Smart Content pane, and type in 'Space' (without the quotes) into the search box at the top, and it should appear. You could try that with Ranger as well?
If you do not have your own Categories set up (nothing to lose), then you could try the Reset Database option, which deletes everything in the DB files, then Re-Import Metadata again to redo it.
I don't know why these things are not appearing for you.
If you create your own category and categorize the Ranger items, then close and restart DS, is your new category still there? If not, your database is probably corrupt.
1) If you haven't exported user data recently, do that first, so you can restore the categories that are still working.
2) Close DS and uninstall CMS.
3) Reinstall CMS by running the installer in C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ 3D\DAZ3DIM1\cms (if you have DIM installed) or by reinstalling DS. That will give you the latest CMS, which will reduce the chances of the problem recurring.
4) Search for the file ContentDB.ind -- if you let CMS install to the default locations it will probably be in Program Files (x86) or ProgramData. I would search your entire hard drive with "Hidden and System Files" visible, in case you have more than one set of databases, which could also cause problems. That file is the index for the database.
5) Stop CMS and delete ContentDB.ind, then start CMS and launch DS. Let DS rebuild the index -- it might take a minute or two.
6) Scan for new content and categorize it.
7) Close and restart DS, and see if the categorized items are staying. If they are, you should be good to go.
8) If newly-categorized items are still disappearing, close DS, stop CMS, and delete all the files in the databases folder. Restart CMS, launch DS, and re-import metadata to get your user data back. It can take a long time, so don't panic if it seems to be taking a long time and the progress bar isn't moving.
I exported user data before I started using DIM. Now I use DIM and my DIM library is at the top of my content folder list. Exported user data goes in the DIM library now. So, now I have two user data files. I've noticed that at least some scene identification information I have assigned is no longer assigned. Maybe that data was in that old user data??? Since then I have reassigned some missing things. What, if anything, should I do with that old saved user data file? I don't want to mess up things I've categorized since I got the DIM.
That's a good question. I don't know if it will import both user data sets or just the one in the first content folder listed. Do you know if the newer one just has new items that weren't in the original, or have things been changed as well?
I really don't know. I suspect I have changed some things, because it has been months since I started using DIM for new installations. I tend to create/fix metadata frequently when I get a product without it or a product with metadata bugs. Sometimes I recategorize old products to use the new DAZ categories (materials, not preset/materials, etc.). Sometimes I uninstall a product from my old library and reinstall it with DIM so I can easily update it in the future.
I looked at the saved user files with Notepad++, but they are long and complex, and I couldn't easily analyze the content. For example, if saved scene identification info is in there, what does it look like?
My instinct would be to move the older userdata files out but save them just in case, then do re-import metadata. The odds are that the corruption only happened recently. so the older stuff should still be in the newer userdata.
One thing i have learn here is if you click on the bottom where the icons should be and wait a few sec. the Icons will show up. I have an older system and this happens to me a lot.
I reset the database and re-imported metadata and now everything shows up as expected, both in the content library and in the Smart content. Thanks everyone for all the suggestions.
I'm having the same problems with Dystopia City Blocks and, Dystopia City at Night!
City at Night does show up in the Dystopia Content but there is nothing there to select!
Dystopia City Blocks doesn't show up at all!
Where are you looking?
Dystopia City Blocks is in Poser Formats > My DAZ 3D Library > Figures > Dystopia. The lights may be in DAZ Studio Formats.
I can't find any of them there either!
How did you install them?
Did you use the DIM (DAZ Install Manager), or did you unpack the ZIP file by your self, and install it that way?
The easiest way is to use the DIM, and it will put all of your content into the correct folders. Once it has been installed, you can go to the Installed files tab, right-click, and select 'Installed Files' to see what has been installed, and where.
If you installed it yourself, did you simply drop the folder called 'Content' into your My Library folder (or My DAZ 3D Library if you use that). Are you looking in the Content Library pane, or the Smart Content pane for your content?
Another question:
If I categorize every item so that they become smartprops, then I can export this option in my own database?
What if I install new items via DIM and the database gets corrupted? Can I restore the backup of the database and DS recognizes the new stuff?
Yes, Export User Data will export that information.
When you re-import after resetting the database you can re-import both your user data and the metadata for the items DIM installed.