Can somebody help me exorcise the Daz Connect demons?

mavante

In attempting to solve a problem I was having with AniMate1, I discovered that it was "seeing" duplicate aniblocks—and that some of those duplicates were in the "My Daz Connect Library" on my Mac. I don't (knowingly) use Daz Connect, ever; I work exclusively offline. I must have inadvertently used it as a noob when I first installed 4.11, though, so now I have this accursed "My Daz Connect Library" that I don't know how to get rid of without breaking something.

I've read a number of threads on here about Daz Connect, but frankly I was more confused after reading them than I was before reading them.

I attempted to use DIM to at least try to determine which content products had been installed by Connect (as was suggested in one or more of those threads), but following every instruction I could find about that—using the filters in DIM for "-Connect Installed," and for "Content>-Connect Installed"—DIM comes up with zero, zip, nada, nothing, as shown here in the attached screen grab of DIM.

Yet when I go to the "My Daz Connect Library," it has 18 folders inside folders called data/cloud! And those folders have content in them, as shown by the two screen grabs of folders attached.

I just want to get all of that content transferred to my own self-created content directory that I have on an external drive. I don't want to lose it, but I also don't want the possibility of duplicate content.

Can anyone give me a cogent explanation of how to resolve this? (Did I mention "cogent"?)

 

Richard Haseltine

The number at the end of /data/cloud/1_ is thge product SKU. Just find the product in one of the lists in DS (the products tab of Smart Content, or the Products listing in the Content Library pane), right-click on it, and select Uninstall.

mavante

Just find the product in one of the lists in DS (the products tab of Smart Content, or the Products listing in the Content Library pane), right-click on it, and select Uninstall.

Thanks, Richard. That was indeed cogent for 1/2 of the equation my post asked for. I also said this, my emphasis added:

I just want to get all of that content transferred to my own self-created content directory that I have on an external drive. I don't want to lose it

You've given me directions for deleting the Connect-installed content. My question is how do I get it transferred and not lose it. I believe those Connect folders/files contain some key content for Daz.

Richard Haseltine

You can move the Connect Library in itself, then the emtadata wills till work - as long as you have the folder that contains the /data folder selected as a Daz Studio Format and Poser Format Content Directory DS doesn't care where it is (this is one advantage of Connect over DIM, it uses relative paths throughout). You can also just take the contents of each 1_sku/ folder and merge them all into a single content directory, but merging folders used to be tricky on the Mac and that will break the metadata.

mavante

Richard Haseltine said:

You can move the Connect Library in itself, then the emtadata wills till work

Somehow the central points of my original post keep disappearing as though I never stated them. In that original post I said (my emphasis added): "some ... duplicates were in the 'My Daz Connect Library' on my Mac. ... I also don't want the possibility of duplicate content."

If there are duplicates in the "My Daz Connect Library," and I merely move it to my own Daz Studio format directory, it will merely be moving the primary problem from one location to another.

I know this stuff can be confusing. If you don't understand the situation I'm trying to solve, I appreciate your attempting to help, but I'd really like to stay focused on comprehensive and workable solutions.

Richard Haseltine said:

- as long as you have the folder that contains the /data folder selected as a Daz Studio Format and Poser Format Content Directory

You don't address the /cloud folder, as shown in the images I posted.  My own Daz Studio format and Poser format content directories do not have a "cloud" folder in them anywhere.

Richard Haseltine said:

DS doesn't care where it is (this is one advantage of Connect over DIM, it uses relative paths throughout). You can also just take the contents of each 1_sku/ folder and merge them all into a single content directory, but merging folders used to be tricky on the Mac and that will break the metadata.

Well, I know how to do merging on a Mac, and I thought it would go without saying that I don't want to break the metadata, but I guess not, so: I don't want to break the metadata.

Richard Haseltine

The /data/cloud/1_SKU folders are the content installed by Connect, the 1_SKU folder takes the place of the content directory itself and DS virtually merges them. If two products use the same files then they will occur in each 1_SKU folder, but there should not be any other duplication within the Cloud folder. However, the Install Manager files all go into the content directory directly, so any duplicates between products there will overwrite (which can be a problem, and is one of the reasons for having everything compartmentalised in Connect). If there is a Connect install then all files will be duplicated, one set directly in a content directory and the other in the /data/cloud/1_SKU/ folder - DS will use the Connect install, not the DIM install (and will look in the cloud folder even if you move the files to an actual root content directory, hence my warning above).

mavante

So I'll ask again, exactly as in my original post: "Can anyone give me a cogent explanation of how to resolve this? (Did I mention 'cogent'?)"

Richard Haseltine

If it's from two isntalls of the same product, uninstall one of them. Connect: right-click on the product, select Unisntall. DIM: click the Uninstall button next to the products entry.

If it's duplicated files across two products I don't think you can, but it should be pretty rare.

jestmart

The ultimate fix would be to delete the "cloud" folder and everything in it thenin Studio reset the database followed by rebuilding the metadata.

Richard Haseltine

jestmart said:

The ultimate fix would be to delete the "cloud" folder and everything in it thenin Studio reset the database followed by rebuilding the metadata.

Uninstalling would be less fiddly, though (you can multi-select).

nonesuch00

jestmart said:

The ultimate fix would be to delete the "cloud" folder and everything in it thenin Studio reset the database followed by rebuilding the metadata.

That's what I did and it only left with about a couple of dozen broken product icons out of about 4000 products. However, uninstalling and reinstalling those products via DIM did not fix the broken icons. I did save 40GB of DAZ Connect installs though that are gone.

mavante

Richard Haseltine said:

Just find the product in one of the lists in DS (the products tab of Smart Content, or the Products listing in the Content Library pane), right-click on it, and select Uninstall.

To quote the wise and witty Ingio Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

There is no "Uninstall" option when right-clicking on a product in Smart Content on a Mac, but you keep telling me to do that. Screen shot of a right-click on one of the products at issue is enclosed for your edification.

 

 

Richard Haseltine

mavante said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Just find the product in one of the lists in DS (the products tab of Smart Content, or the Products listing in the Content Library pane), right-click on it, and select Uninstall.

To quote the wise and witty Ingio Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

There is no "Uninstall" option when right-clicking on a product in Smart Content on a Mac, but you keep telling me to do that. Screen shot of a right-click on one of the products at issue is enclosed for your edification.

That looks odd - you should have Install or Uninstall in there, and it shouldn't be platform dependent.

mavante

Richard Haseltine said:

That looks odd - you should have Install or Uninstall in there, and it shouldn't be platform dependent.

"Should" and "shouldn't": The two most battered and abused words in the "technical help" lexicon.

However much it should, it isn't, as is inarguably shown in the screen grab above. And there is no slightest question that the ubiquitous "Beach Volleyball Set" was installed via Daz Connect, as is also inarguably shown in the "Exhibit B" screen grab attached to this post.

 

Lindsey

Is the Uninstall option missing from the Products alphabetical listing also?  Just curious.

jestmart

There is an Install sub-pane (whawoodyacalit?) you may need to be in it to un-install.

mavante

Lindsey said:

Is the Uninstall option missing from the Products alphabetical listing also?  Just curious.

Currently in the middle of a 235-frame animation render—which in my case is a do-not-touch condition—but I will check that sometime in the next 24 hours and let you know.

 

mavante

jestmart said:

There is an Install sub-pane (whawoodyacalit?) you may need to be in it to un-install.

I dunno, and can't check right now, but I've never seen anything in that pane when not connected online—and I don't want to connect to find out, for what I hope will be obvious reasons given the very topic of this thread.