Does 4.12.1.16 allow multiple instances of Studio?

Hurdy3D

Richard Haseltine said:

gerster said:

Richard Haseltine said:

outrider42 said:

I already explained why the multi channel approach is not acceptable. That's because the beta and general release can be miles apart in feature set. Look at how long 4.10 hung around as the general release, while the beta added features and stability improvements. Even right now, the beta offers a variety of improvements that people using the general do have access to. If this instance rule had been in effect back then, RTX users would not have had the option at all, because only the beta worked with those GPUs. And that lasted for months. I'm not talking about them using the RT cores to boost speed, though again the beta enjoyed that feature for months before the general release. Dforce is also constantly updated in the beta, and the general release dforce can lag very far behind. The dforce in 4.10 was extremely buggy and constantly exploded or even crashed Daz. This is why just saying users could open an instance of the beta and general release is not good enough.

 

So why should I punish myself with an inferior work around just because some users can't handle multiple instances? It makes no sense to me. Are you saying this really that big of an issue that support decided to kill the option off entirely?

 

And how can I be sure that using the beta and general release for instances will continue to work in the future??? Like if the same people complain about instances now also try doing that, and complain some again, perhaps Daz figures out a way to stop that as well.

 

So yeah, I rather think that is where this is going. That eventually we wont be able to run more than one instance of Daz even when trying to do multiple versions. And all because some people have problems. Removing a feature from everybody just because of a few is a terrible.

 

I think other people have done a decent job of explaining the issue here as well. Its all about workflow. Too many people use multiple instances as a part of their everyday workflow. And Daz just killed that. Now users are going to have to take a lot longer when working. And for those people where time equals money, that is a very bad situation. I can imagine this could even effect some PAs who use instances while developing their products. This move effectively harms their ability to make money by slowing them down.

 

The TLDR version:

 

Having multiple instances equals more money.

 

Having multiple instances equals better use of time.

First, I have to point out that it is a suppostion that the restriction is because the ability to run mutliple instances was because of support calls (it sounds plausible, but I can think of other possible reasons). But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using, and also there are potentially issues with thing like the shared settings files. Issues that might damage the installation or cause users to lose data obviously will carry more weight than those which are more a matter of work flow.

I see no reason to think that rstrictions might be imposed on having two different channels running at once - they don't share settings, other than the CMS and that can already cope with mutliple access (DIM, DS, Carrara) or active files (each has its own temp folder, at least by default).

Hey Richard,

a lot of people (including me) did use multiple instances for a long time without any issues.
I understand that there some edge cases which can cause trouble.

The solution is very easy, make it default single instance and add the option to enable the old multi instance behavoir (with some warnings or hide as a flag in a config file).

This single instance restirction slows down my workflow and I will not accept this.

My options are

1) Stay forever with the old version

2) 'Hack' the DLL file with that silly restriction (eg using the old dll file)

3) Vote with my wallet

I don't think that making this optional will hurt anyone.

I will point out (having been thwapped upside the ehad) that Rob's Nwe features post does say "*UPDATE IN PROGRESS*", https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5003831/#Comment_5003831 . Since rob has taken the time to point that out I would imagien that there is more to come in respect to managing instances, so it may be best to wait and see what happens next - though by all means think through the issues from your point of view so that you can, if necessary, sensibly make your case to Daz if the final implementation doesn't address your needs.

Hey Richard,

the post was updated and the statement Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time got the addtion: (by default)

Richard This are good news, that means propably that there will be toggle to allow again multi instances.... pweeeh!

That calms me down immensely.

outrider42

Whether it was support calls or not really doesn't matter here. Though I don't recall seeing posts about people having problems in the forums, which seems really strange to me. A lot of people would go to the forum first when they have problems, we see it all the time, before filing any support tickets.

 

Daywalker Designs said:

Richard Haseltine said:

outrider42 said:

I already explained why the multi channel approach is not acceptable. That's because the beta and general release can be miles apart in feature set. Look at how long 4.10 hung around as the general release, while the beta added features and stability improvements. Even right now, the beta offers a variety of improvements that people using the general do have access to. If this instance rule had been in effect back then, RTX users would not have had the option at all, because only the beta worked with those GPUs. And that lasted for months. I'm not talking about them using the RT cores to boost speed, though again the beta enjoyed that feature for months before the general release. Dforce is also constantly updated in the beta, and the general release dforce can lag very far behind. The dforce in 4.10 was extremely buggy and constantly exploded or even crashed Daz. This is why just saying users could open an instance of the beta and general release is not good enough.

 

So why should I punish myself with an inferior work around just because some users can't handle multiple instances? It makes no sense to me. Are you saying this really that big of an issue that support decided to kill the option off entirely?

 

And how can I be sure that using the beta and general release for instances will continue to work in the future??? Like if the same people complain about instances now also try doing that, and complain some again, perhaps Daz figures out a way to stop that as well.

 

So yeah, I rather think that is where this is going. That eventually we wont be able to run more than one instance of Daz even when trying to do multiple versions. And all because some people have problems. Removing a feature from everybody just because of a few is a terrible.

 

I think other people have done a decent job of explaining the issue here as well. Its all about workflow. Too many people use multiple instances as a part of their everyday workflow. And Daz just killed that. Now users are going to have to take a lot longer when working. And for those people where time equals money, that is a very bad situation. I can imagine this could even effect some PAs who use instances while developing their products. This move effectively harms their ability to make money by slowing them down.

 

The TLDR version:

 

Having multiple instances equals more money.

 

Having multiple instances equals better use of time.

First, I have to point out that it is a suppostion that the restriction is because the ability to run mutliple instances was because of support calls (it sounds plausible, but I can think of other possible reasons). But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using, and also there are potentially issues with thing like the shared settings files. Issues that might damage the installation or cause users to lose data obviously will carry more weight than those which are more a matter of work flow.

I see no reason to think that rstrictions might be imposed on having two different channels running at once - they don't share settings, other than the CMS and that can already cope with mutliple access (DIM, DS, Carrara) or active files (each has its own temp folder, at least by default).

 

I agree, Richard. It's likely that they saw two options to fix this and chose the one that was less work to accomplish.

Um, maybe the people having issues could just not use multiple instances of the software then? Wouldn't that be even easier? Nobody has to change anything at all.

The way I see it is: It can very simply stated that using multiple instances of Daz Studio is NOT recommended, and list those reasons. People who choose to run multiple instances do so at their own risk. But the choice to be able to do this should still remain, and a good number of people make that choice knowing those risks.

And aren't there risks involved with using a BETA software anyway? It called a BETA for a reason after all. You always recommend users to back up their Studio even installing the beta. If there was no risk at all, this recommendation would not be given.

Look, there are all sorts of things that users can do in Studio at their own risk. It is very easy to really screw up Studio. You can download stuff from outside sources and stores for example and get all sorts of serious conflicts if those files are not done correctly by the person who made them. Yet customers are still allowed to install data from outside sources. I don't see any effort to shut Daz off from outside sources (there would riots in the streets if they tried). The risk is something we all accept when using software like this. Using multiple instances of Studio is no different.

Asari

I also use 2 instances of studio. No problem so far. My current workflow for setting up a scene depends on having 2 instances. If I had to revert to only one that would take considerably longer for me to modify content and setup my scene. This is sad.

L'Adair

When I first read about this change, it was in the Change Log, and before .16 was released as a public build. I see now the bullet point mentioning it has been removed from the Change Log.

And because @outrider42 copied the text from the Highlights post, it's easy to see that "(by default)" has been added.

outrider42 said:

Application Launch

• Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time
  • Attempts to load registered file types via double-click or "open with" commands (once promoted to General Release) will forward to a running instance (if any) instead of allowing concurrent instances that compete for resources and cause conflicts

Application Launch

• Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time (by default)
  • Attempts to load registered file types via double-click or "open with" commands (once promoted to General Release) will forward to a running instance (if any) instead of allowing concurrent instances that compete for resources and cause conflicts

ETA: I see @gerster beat me to it…

Richard Haseltine

L'Adair said:

When I first read about this change, it was in the Change Log, and before .16 was released as a public build. I see now the bullet point mentioning it has been removed from the Change Log.

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/change_log#4_12_1_14

L'Adair said:

And because @outrider42 copied the text from the Highlights post, it's easy to see that "(by default)" has been added.

outrider42 said:

Application Launch

• Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time
  • Attempts to load registered file types via double-click or "open with" commands (once promoted to General Release) will forward to a running instance (if any) instead of allowing concurrent instances that compete for resources and cause conflicts

Application Launch

• Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time (by default)
  • Attempts to load registered file types via double-click or "open with" commands (once promoted to General Release) will forward to a running instance (if any) instead of allowing concurrent instances that compete for resources and cause conflicts

ETA: I see @gerster beat me to it…

I can't recall personally, but I believe by default (for application launch) was there before.

Hurdy3D

Richard Haseltine said:

L'Adair said:

When I first read about this change, it was in the Change Log, and before .16 was released as a public build. I see now the bullet point mentioning it has been removed from the Change Log.

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/change_log#4_12_1_14

L'Adair said:

And because @outrider42 copied the text from the Highlights post, it's easy to see that "(by default)" has been added.

outrider42 said:

Application Launch

• Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time
  • Attempts to load registered file types via double-click or "open with" commands (once promoted to General Release) will forward to a running instance (if any) instead of allowing concurrent instances that compete for resources and cause conflicts

Application Launch

• Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time (by default)
  • Attempts to load registered file types via double-click or "open with" commands (once promoted to General Release) will forward to a running instance (if any) instead of allowing concurrent instances that compete for resources and cause conflicts

ETA: I see @gerster beat me to it…

I can't recall personally, but I believe by default (for application launch) was there before.

No it wasn't. Otherwise we wouldn't complain so much.

You can also see that the post with the change logs was edited a few hours ago (propably adding the "by default" hint), to clam the angry mob

Chohole

If you read the thread you will see it does say, in red bold uppercase letters, "Update in Progress"    so it is not static, it is being updated.

 

Ivy

gerster said:

Richard Haseltine said:

outrider42 said:

I already explained why the multi channel approach is not acceptable. That's because the beta and general release can be miles apart in feature set. Look at how long 4.10 hung around as the general release, while the beta added features and stability improvements. Even right now, the beta offers a variety of improvements that people using the general do have access to. If this instance rule had been in effect back then, RTX users would not have had the option at all, because only the beta worked with those GPUs. And that lasted for months. I'm not talking about them using the RT cores to boost speed, though again the beta enjoyed that feature for months before the general release. Dforce is also constantly updated in the beta, and the general release dforce can lag very far behind. The dforce in 4.10 was extremely buggy and constantly exploded or even crashed Daz. This is why just saying users could open an instance of the beta and general release is not good enough.

 

So why should I punish myself with an inferior work around just because some users can't handle multiple instances? It makes no sense to me. Are you saying this really that big of an issue that support decided to kill the option off entirely?

 

And how can I be sure that using the beta and general release for instances will continue to work in the future??? Like if the same people complain about instances now also try doing that, and complain some again, perhaps Daz figures out a way to stop that as well.

 

So yeah, I rather think that is where this is going. That eventually we wont be able to run more than one instance of Daz even when trying to do multiple versions. And all because some people have problems. Removing a feature from everybody just because of a few is a terrible.

 

I think other people have done a decent job of explaining the issue here as well. Its all about workflow. Too many people use multiple instances as a part of their everyday workflow. And Daz just killed that. Now users are going to have to take a lot longer when working. And for those people where time equals money, that is a very bad situation. I can imagine this could even effect some PAs who use instances while developing their products. This move effectively harms their ability to make money by slowing them down.

 

The TLDR version:

 

Having multiple instances equals more money.

 

Having multiple instances equals better use of time.

First, I have to point out that it is a suppostion that the restriction is because the ability to run mutliple instances was because of support calls (it sounds plausible, but I can think of other possible reasons). But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using, and also there are potentially issues with thing like the shared settings files. Issues that might damage the installation or cause users to lose data obviously will carry more weight than those which are more a matter of work flow.

I see no reason to think that rstrictions might be imposed on having two different channels running at once - they don't share settings, other than the CMS and that can already cope with mutliple access (DIM, DS, Carrara) or active files (each has its own temp folder, at least by default).

Hey Richard,

a lot of people (including me) did use multiple instances for a long time without any issues.
I understand that there some edge cases which can cause trouble.

The solution is very easy, make it default single instance and add the option to enable the old multi instance behavoir (with some warnings or hide as a flag in a config file).

This single instance restirction slows down my workflow and I will not accept this.

My options are

1) Stay forever with the old version

2) 'Hack' the DLL file with that silly restriction (eg using the old dll file)

3) Vote with my wallet

I don't think that making this optional will hurt anyone.

I have 6 different versions or copies of daz studio software. & i can run them all at the same time for various reasons as needed, and they never give me errors.  I keep them mostly because of compatibility issues from a older instance of daz studio to a new version. which may have broke a plugin, add-on or script etc during the upgrade. The fact is It happens all the time,   there is many times when a new release of daz studio will break compatibility of a older versions plugin or scripts and is the major reason for keeping multi instances of studio.  having the ability to render and build scene at the same time is another reason.

I am no longer updating or upgrading daz studio beyond daz studio 4.12.0.33 or daz beta 4.12.0.34  at least until some of these issues has been fixed and if I am asked I will recommend to others they should hold off on upgrades as well, Specially if they want to use more than one copy of daz studio at a time. or keep a copy of daz that has working scripts   Other wise you will be SOL if you try to go back to a older version studio because the upgrade broke something in the compatibility and you can no longer run a plugin, script.

I keep a copy of daz3 because i have plugins that no longer work in daz 4 & I paid for them and still use them. & I also have a copy of daz4.8 because the Age of Armour advance AOA light & atmosphere cameras sets I paid for & were broken with daz 4.9 versions of studio and I kept a copy of daz 4.9 for shader issues that were broke with daz 4.10  & so on and so on with each new version

That is all I can say about this on going issue in the forum. but there are many reason for having multi instances of daz running and I will use my wallet as well to make my vote

kyoto kid

...well as I mentioned, I'm staying with the 4.12 beta for now until this gets sorted out. 

Poser Pro has a background batch render process, Daz doesn't unless you shell out extra for Iray Server.

nicstt

I don't recall ever having a crash from multiple instances. If I do, well it's my choice to run multiple instances.

This removes my choice; it forces me to accept someone else's idea of how I should be using the software.

Robinson

Richard Haseltine said:

outrider42 said:

First, I have to point out that it is a suppostion that the restriction is because the ability to run mutliple instances was because of support calls (it sounds plausible, but I can think of other possible reasons). But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using, and also there are potentially issues with thing like the shared settings files. Issues that might damage the installation or cause users to lose data obviously will carry more weight than those which are more a matter of work flow.

As a software dev I totally understand why restrictions such as these are neccessary.  In the software I'm currently responsible for we solved this problem by having a single instance that could open multiple "main" windows.  They weren't running as separate entities.  As such you could propagate a change from one instance into the other quite easily (all instances are effectively working against the same model).  We designed the software like this from the ground up and I imagine coding in a solution in retrospect would be extremely difficult, i.e. 'I'm going to look for another job' kind-of difficult.  The other way to do it would be to use global locks to prevent one resource being modified whilst another is using it.  This has its own problems of course including a big increase in complexity.  That means more and more difficult to fix bugs in future. 

Simply preventing two instances running at the same time is very "cheap" of course (three or four lines of code).  Without details of what's going on under the hood it would be very difficult to suggest an alternative solution.

kyoto kid

Ivy said:

gerster said:

Richard Haseltine said:

outrider42 said:

I already explained why the multi channel approach is not acceptable. That's because the beta and general release can be miles apart in feature set. Look at how long 4.10 hung around as the general release, while the beta added features and stability improvements. Even right now, the beta offers a variety of improvements that people using the general do have access to. If this instance rule had been in effect back then, RTX users would not have had the option at all, because only the beta worked with those GPUs. And that lasted for months. I'm not talking about them using the RT cores to boost speed, though again the beta enjoyed that feature for months before the general release. Dforce is also constantly updated in the beta, and the general release dforce can lag very far behind. The dforce in 4.10 was extremely buggy and constantly exploded or even crashed Daz. This is why just saying users could open an instance of the beta and general release is not good enough.

 

So why should I punish myself with an inferior work around just because some users can't handle multiple instances? It makes no sense to me. Are you saying this really that big of an issue that support decided to kill the option off entirely?

 

And how can I be sure that using the beta and general release for instances will continue to work in the future??? Like if the same people complain about instances now also try doing that, and complain some again, perhaps Daz figures out a way to stop that as well.

 

So yeah, I rather think that is where this is going. That eventually we wont be able to run more than one instance of Daz even when trying to do multiple versions. And all because some people have problems. Removing a feature from everybody just because of a few is a terrible.

 

I think other people have done a decent job of explaining the issue here as well. Its all about workflow. Too many people use multiple instances as a part of their everyday workflow. And Daz just killed that. Now users are going to have to take a lot longer when working. And for those people where time equals money, that is a very bad situation. I can imagine this could even effect some PAs who use instances while developing their products. This move effectively harms their ability to make money by slowing them down.

 

The TLDR version:

 

Having multiple instances equals more money.

 

Having multiple instances equals better use of time.

First, I have to point out that it is a suppostion that the restriction is because the ability to run mutliple instances was because of support calls (it sounds plausible, but I can think of other possible reasons). But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using, and also there are potentially issues with thing like the shared settings files. Issues that might damage the installation or cause users to lose data obviously will carry more weight than those which are more a matter of work flow.

I see no reason to think that rstrictions might be imposed on having two different channels running at once - they don't share settings, other than the CMS and that can already cope with mutliple access (DIM, DS, Carrara) or active files (each has its own temp folder, at least by default).

Hey Richard,

a lot of people (including me) did use multiple instances for a long time without any issues.
I understand that there some edge cases which can cause trouble.

The solution is very easy, make it default single instance and add the option to enable the old multi instance behavoir (with some warnings or hide as a flag in a config file).

This single instance restirction slows down my workflow and I will not accept this.

My options are

1) Stay forever with the old version

2) 'Hack' the DLL file with that silly restriction (eg using the old dll file)

3) Vote with my wallet

I don't think that making this optional will hurt anyone.

I have 6 different versions or copies of daz studio software. & i can run them all at the same time for various reasons as needed, and they never give me errors.  I keep them mostly because of compatibility issues from a older instance of daz studio to a new version. which may have broke a plugin, add-on or script etc during the upgrade. The fact is It happens all the time,   there is many times when a new release of daz studio will break compatibility of a older versions plugin or scripts and is the major reason for keeping multi instances of studio.  having the ability to render and build scene at the same time is another reason.

I am no longer updating or upgrading daz studio beyond daz studio 4.12.0.33 or daz beta 4.12.0.34  at least until some of these issues has been fixed and if I am asked I will recommend to others they should hold off on upgrades as well, Specially if they want to use more than one copy of daz studio at a time. or keep a copy of daz that has working scripts   Other wise you will be SOL if you try to go back to a older version studio because the upgrade broke something in the compatibility and you can no longer run a plugin, script.

I keep a copy of daz3 because i have plugins that no longer work in daz 4 & I paid for them and still use them. & I also have a copy of daz4.8 because the Age of Armour advance AOA light & atmosphere cameras sets I paid for & were broken with daz 4.9 versions of studio and I kept a copy of daz 4.9 for shader issues that were broke with daz 4.10  & so on and so on with each new version

That is all I can say about this on going issue in the forum. but there are many reason for having multi instances of daz running and I will use my wallet as well to make my vote

..crikey, I still have Daz 1.8 on my system for the really old stuff.

I also have Daz 3.1 Advanced because I still like the look of LDP2 and Azure Skies for 3DL rendering. (also paid for the programme as it actually cost back then).

L'Adair

Richard Haseltine said:

L'Adair said:

When I first read about this change, it was in the Change Log, and before .16 was released as a public build. I see now the bullet point mentioning it has been removed from the Change Log.

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/change_log#4_12_1_14

Ah ha!

So I stand corrected. Again. (lol) Though actually, I'm sitting…!

Mistara

i usually work with ds and carrara open at same time.

i have to convert everything genral rigged that i want to pose in carrara into blended weight or triax.

i frequentlyopen a 2nd ds to check if a new morph target is showing up for the figure.  morph loader says successful, but that doesnt mean it wont  stay after closing and opening
 

Ivy

kyoto kid said:

Ivy said:

gerster said:

Richard Haseltine said:

outrider42 said:

I already explained why the multi channel approach is not acceptable. That's because the beta and general release can be miles apart in feature set. Look at how long 4.10 hung around as the general release, while the beta added features and stability improvements. Even right now, the beta offers a variety of improvements that people using the general do have access to. If this instance rule had been in effect back then, RTX users would not have had the option at all, because only the beta worked with those GPUs. And that lasted for months. I'm not talking about them using the RT cores to boost speed, though again the beta enjoyed that feature for months before the general release. Dforce is also constantly updated in the beta, and the general release dforce can lag very far behind. The dforce in 4.10 was extremely buggy and constantly exploded or even crashed Daz. This is why just saying users could open an instance of the beta and general release is not good enough.

 

So why should I punish myself with an inferior work around just because some users can't handle multiple instances? It makes no sense to me. Are you saying this really that big of an issue that support decided to kill the option off entirely?

 

And how can I be sure that using the beta and general release for instances will continue to work in the future??? Like if the same people complain about instances now also try doing that, and complain some again, perhaps Daz figures out a way to stop that as well.

 

So yeah, I rather think that is where this is going. That eventually we wont be able to run more than one instance of Daz even when trying to do multiple versions. And all because some people have problems. Removing a feature from everybody just because of a few is a terrible.

 

I think other people have done a decent job of explaining the issue here as well. Its all about workflow. Too many people use multiple instances as a part of their everyday workflow. And Daz just killed that. Now users are going to have to take a lot longer when working. And for those people where time equals money, that is a very bad situation. I can imagine this could even effect some PAs who use instances while developing their products. This move effectively harms their ability to make money by slowing them down.

 

The TLDR version:

 

Having multiple instances equals more money.

 

Having multiple instances equals better use of time.

First, I have to point out that it is a suppostion that the restriction is because the ability to run mutliple instances was because of support calls (it sounds plausible, but I can think of other possible reasons). But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using, and also there are potentially issues with thing like the shared settings files. Issues that might damage the installation or cause users to lose data obviously will carry more weight than those which are more a matter of work flow.

I see no reason to think that rstrictions might be imposed on having two different channels running at once - they don't share settings, other than the CMS and that can already cope with mutliple access (DIM, DS, Carrara) or active files (each has its own temp folder, at least by default).

Hey Richard,

a lot of people (including me) did use multiple instances for a long time without any issues.
I understand that there some edge cases which can cause trouble.

The solution is very easy, make it default single instance and add the option to enable the old multi instance behavoir (with some warnings or hide as a flag in a config file).

This single instance restirction slows down my workflow and I will not accept this.

My options are

1) Stay forever with the old version

2) 'Hack' the DLL file with that silly restriction (eg using the old dll file)

3) Vote with my wallet

I don't think that making this optional will hurt anyone.

I have 6 different versions or copies of daz studio software. & i can run them all at the same time for various reasons as needed, and they never give me errors.  I keep them mostly because of compatibility issues from a older instance of daz studio to a new version. which may have broke a plugin, add-on or script etc during the upgrade. The fact is It happens all the time,   there is many times when a new release of daz studio will break compatibility of a older versions plugin or scripts and is the major reason for keeping multi instances of studio.  having the ability to render and build scene at the same time is another reason.

I am no longer updating or upgrading daz studio beyond daz studio 4.12.0.33 or daz beta 4.12.0.34  at least until some of these issues has been fixed and if I am asked I will recommend to others they should hold off on upgrades as well, Specially if they want to use more than one copy of daz studio at a time. or keep a copy of daz that has working scripts   Other wise you will be SOL if you try to go back to a older version studio because the upgrade broke something in the compatibility and you can no longer run a plugin, script.

I keep a copy of daz3 because i have plugins that no longer work in daz 4 & I paid for them and still use them. & I also have a copy of daz4.8 because the Age of Armour advance AOA light & atmosphere cameras sets I paid for & were broken with daz 4.9 versions of studio and I kept a copy of daz 4.9 for shader issues that were broke with daz 4.10  & so on and so on with each new version

That is all I can say about this on going issue in the forum. but there are many reason for having multi instances of daz running and I will use my wallet as well to make my vote

..crikey, I still have Daz 1.8 on my system for the really old stuff.

I also have Daz 3.1 Advanced because I still like the look of LDP2 and Azure Skies for 3DL rendering. (also paid for the programme as it actually cost back then).

My oldest daz version I have is 2.8 I don't have that installed anymore though it was just when i started with daz...I do have daz advance 3.1.2.32 installed.& I still use the skydomes, dreamlights movie makers and some other stuff. Plus the particle fx and nerd3d fx tools have never had anything that could replace them so i still user them as well     I also paid for my Daz  3 versions with free upgrades & daz 4 when it was first released, studio was sold for $299 and i got good discount for early adopter. then 2 months later daz started giving studio away for free. I had to checked my invoices and sure enough paid  $149 bucks for daz 4 on Oct,26 2011   that is a sore spot that i never forgot.   back then we had to pay to use daz studio. & still had to buy the content. But at least it was compatible with poser 4  those sure were the good old days when poser and daz would work together. 

I just updated my poser pro 11  to poser pro 11.2 which has some new improvements ive been messing around with poser some lately . and if I have a need.  I have saved and kept every daz studio  & installer for every version of daz studio I ever downloaded & used . So I have options instead upgrading to a  daz 4.12.1 version.

outrider42

Chohole said:

If you read the thread you will see it does say, in red bold uppercase letters, "Update in Progress"    so it is not static, it is being updated.

 

Well, I am voicing my concern to help steer the development team in the right direction. 

Leonides02

I think all voices have been heard. The best we can do now (as I have done) is send in a polite, concise feature request. I did so yesterday and was contacted by Daz today. They'd passed along my concerns to the developers. 

 

Havos

I run multiple instances quite frequently. I can’t say it causes me no issues since occasionally the CMS database gets corrupted, which may, or may not be caused by running 2 or more sessions. The corruptions don’t bother me that much as I can rebuild the DB is about 5 mins, but that might not be the case for a new user. 

I think having only one instance allowed by default, but with an option for advanced users to run multiple seems like a sensible comprise.

kyoto kid

..yeah just had a "situation" with the latest DIM update as well, where it put the account.ini in the wrong location, as well as wiped out my sign in credentials and all my install preferences/settings. It was as if I had to do a full clean install instead of update.  Posted in the DIM update thread as well.  After that experience, definitely not sure I want to rebuild all my current setups/preferences for the Daz programme again if the same happens, as I have it set up on multiple displays so I don't have to toggle back and forth as much. 

RayDAnt

Richard Haseltine said:

But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using,

Can definitively state that performing file operations including File > New or File > Open in Daz Studio do not result in the automatic clearing of mission-critical temporary files. Meaning that they are not in themselves a point of conflict wherein multi-instancing with DS is concerned.

 Can also state that

Richard Haseltine said:

issues with thing like the shared settings files.

 Is a risk factor for all applications wherein multi-instancing is employed. Hence why it is routinely included as a (default off) option in an application's settings menus for advanced users to make use of.

The primary rationale for limiting multi-instancing in current versions of Daz Studio is avoiding unwanted competition for resources - particularly system and video memory. Neither of which are concerns for advanced users with firm handles on the memory requirements of their workloads.

L'Adair

kyoto kid said:

..yeah just had a "situation" with the latest DIM update as well, where it put the account.ini in the wrong location, as well as wiped out my sign in credentials and all my install preferences/settings. It was as if I had to do a full clean install instead of update.  Posted in the DIM update thread as well.  After that experience, definitely not sure I want to rebuild all my current setups/preferences for the Daz programme again if the same happens, as I have it set up on multiple displays so I don't have to toggle back and forth as much. 

Make a copy for safe-keeping. (I do.) You'll find the ini file in C:\Users\[name]\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\InstallManager\UserAccounts, for Windows users. (No idea where it goes for Mac.)

Richard Haseltine

RayDAnt said:

Richard Haseltine said:

But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using,

Can definitively state that performing file operations including File > New or File > Open in Daz Studio do not result in the automatic clearing of mission-critical temporary files. Meaning that they are not in themselves a point of conflict wherein multi-instancing with DS is concerned.

 Can also state that

Richard Haseltine said:

issues with thing like the shared settings files.

 Is a risk factor for all applications wherein multi-instancing is employed. Hence why it is routinely included as a (default off) option in an application's settings menus for advanced users to make use of.

The primary rationale for limiting multi-instancing in current versions of Daz Studio is avoiding unwanted competition for resources - particularly system and video memory. Neither of which are concerns for advanced users with firm handles on the memory requirements of their workloads.

Rob says that that is one of the two primary reasons stated - the other is what you meantioned earlier in the post, the conmflicts in settings, temporary files etc. If it was system resources then Daz wouldn't have deliberately enabled the beta and release builds to be run concurrently. He does say that all this will become clearer in future releases, which like the streess on "in progress" is encouraging (though he obviously isn't giving any details).

andya_b341b7c5f5

nicstt said:

This removes my choice; it forces me to accept someone else's idea of how I should be using the software.

This, unfortunately, is the price of closed-source, proprietary software, even when it is 'free'.

thistledownsname

Once in a while I use a second instance to keep setting things up while the first one renders.  I wouldn't trust my machine to render 2 at once, but for moving things around, the 2nd manages.  Oh, and I also use it if I need to copy settings from one thing to another.

Peter Wade

This could be a useful change for less experienced users, and also to prevent accidental launching of extra instances. I've done this sometimes, I've been looking through a folder with my scene files in it, tried to double click a render to look at the image and accidentally clicked the .duf file instead. My system is not powerful enough to run two instances so I have to wait for this one to finish it's startup before I can shut it down. For the more experiened user there should be a setting to disable it. If it is enabled by default then only users who know what they are doing would find the setting and switch it off.

andya_b341b7c5f5

Robinson said:

Richard Haseltine said:

outrider42 said:

First, I have to point out that it is a suppostion that the restriction is because the ability to run mutliple instances was because of support calls (it sounds plausible, but I can think of other possible reasons). But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using, and also there are potentially issues with thing like the shared settings files. Issues that might damage the installation or cause users to lose data obviously will carry more weight than those which are more a matter of work flow.

As a software dev I totally understand why restrictions such as these are neccessary.  In the software I'm currently responsible for we solved this problem by having a single instance that could open multiple "main" windows.  They weren't running as separate entities.  As such you could propagate a change from one instance into the other quite easily (all instances are effectively working against the same model).  We designed the software like this from the ground up and I imagine coding in a solution in retrospect would be extremely difficult, i.e. 'I'm going to look for another job' kind-of difficult.  The other way to do it would be to use global locks to prevent one resource being modified whilst another is using it.  This has its own problems of course including a big increase in complexity.  That means more and more difficult to fix bugs in future. 

Simply preventing two instances running at the same time is very "cheap" of course (three or four lines of code).  Without details of what's going on under the hood it would be very difficult to suggest an alternative solution.

Indeed.  Fairly standard software development operating procedure.  Don't get me started on people quite suddenly removing really useful and well known but undocumented features from software libraries, thus breaking all the apps you have lovingly built on said libraries using said features extensively. 

outrider42

Actually that brings up an interesting point. So if you only have one instance of Daz Studio, and have Studio open while clicking on a duf in your Windows, what happens? Does this duf load on top of your current scene? Does it delete your current scene and load?

Either option sounds terrible if you click that file by accident. And what happens if you are in the middle of a render and click a duf?

If you ask me, the consequences of this change could be worse than the multiple instances are. At least now we if we accidentally click a duf that opens a new instance, we can simply close that new instance. But if Studio limits instances, accidental clicks could massively screw up your current scene.

So by "fixing" one problem, you could well be creating another. I don't see the benefit to this configuration. Instances should be allowed.

nicstt

andya_b341b7c5f5 said:

nicstt said:

This removes my choice; it forces me to accept someone else's idea of how I should be using the software.

This, unfortunately, is the price of closed-source, proprietary software, even when it is 'free'.

Ahh, but it does have a cost. I've had this conversation before with various companies, and have sought refunds on purchases and returned items. I've then not shopped there anymore - and more importantly, stopped reccommended said product.

If it causes me extra hastle and work, then I move to blender. I use both now. I have more content than I need and can get it into Blender if I must, after all multiple instances of Blender still work just fine; I buy said content because of the fun, hastle and work take away that fun, and so make purchases unnecessary.

 

Richard Haseltine

outrider42 said:

Actually that brings up an interesting point. So if you only have one instance of Daz Studio, and have Studio open while clicking on a duf in your Windows, what happens? Does this duf load on top of your current scene? Does it delete your current scene and load?

 

Either option sounds terrible if you click that file by accident. And what happens if you are in the middle of a render and click a duf?

 

If you ask me, the consequences of this change could be worse than the multiple instances are. At least now we if we accidentally click a duf that opens a new instance, we can simply close that new instance. But if Studio limits instances, accidental clicks could massively screw up your current scene.

 

So by "fixing" one problem, you could well be creating another. I don't see the benefit to this configuration. Instances should be allowed.

I just tried testing this, and even using Open With both times the second file opened in the General release. However, I am pretty sure that if it's a preset it will apply it (so you might have to undo, or delete content added by a wearables preset) and if it was a scene you'd be prompted to save/discard/cancel (assuming the loaded scene had changed since load/last save).

RayDAnt

Richard Haseltine said:

RayDAnt said:

Richard Haseltine said:

But there are issues with running multiple instances, for example that if two instances are running doing a File>New or File>Open in one will clear the Temp folder, potentially removing files that the other instance was using,

Can definitively state that performing file operations including File > New or File > Open in Daz Studio do not result in the automatic clearing of mission-critical temporary files. Meaning that they are not in themselves a point of conflict wherein multi-instancing with DS is concerned.

 Can also state that

Richard Haseltine said:

issues with thing like the shared settings files.

 Is a risk factor for all applications wherein multi-instancing is employed. Hence why it is routinely included as a (default off) option in an application's settings menus for advanced users to make use of.

The primary rationale for limiting multi-instancing in current versions of Daz Studio is avoiding unwanted competition for resources - particularly system and video memory. Neither of which are concerns for advanced users with firm handles on the memory requirements of their workloads.

Rob says that that is one of the two primary reasons stated

File > New/Open menu actions leading to clearing of temp files? Because that demonstrably isn't true. You can navigate to \ProgramData\DAZ 3D\Studio4 with the current General Release (where multi-instancing currently remains unrestricted), launch and play around with multiple instances, and you will see that the only time any files there are cleared (not to be confused with being overwritten) is on the closing of an instance. And even then, any active scene files remain unnafected since those are stored in the working memory of each process. As of 4.12.1.016 (temp file behavior remains the same between the current Beta and General Release despite other changes made) opening/closing files presents no direct issues to multi-instancing. 

 

Richard Haseltine said:

If it was system resources then Daz wouldn't have deliberately enabled the beta and release builds to be run concurrently.

A) Build channels - by definition - operate programmatically as separate applications. Meaning that there has been no explicit enabling of concurrent operation between General and Beta releases of Daz Studio.

B) Competition for system resources (like system/GPU memory) is a major factor in running more than one resource-intensive application at a time. And this is especially true in the case of multiple builds/instances of a single program, since each will exhibit roughly the same (if not identical) resource usage fingerprint.

 

Richard Haseltine said:

He does say that all this will become clearer in future releases, which like the streess on "in progress" is encouraging (though he obviously isn't giving any details).

Cool.

Despite how it may seem, I'm actually quite confident in the Daz team's ability to handle multi-instancing appropriately. My goal here is to clarify what real-world program functionality is/isn't at issue currently when multi-instancing is brought into the picture - not step on anyone's toes.