where does dim keep links to products
alan bard newcomer
Posts: 2,232
the Dim one thinks some of my files are in folders on the H drive, despite the fact that the are on the G drive.
Only problem is if you need to uninstall .. it can't find it on the drive that isn't there and insists on redownloading the item
despite the fact it's in the download folder already.
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so it has to be a date file somewhere that has the info Dim uses and I would like to edit it.
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Comments
Unless otherwise overridden in the DIM configuration the installation manifest will be stored in C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\DAZ 3D\InstallManager\ManifestFiles; the file is a combination of the Customer manifest (the free-standing .dsx file that downloads with the zip) and the Product manifest (the .dsx file in the zip) and the installation information - date installed and absolute installation path. One file for each product.
thanks, just realized another solution would be to have a way to make DIM scan the drive, but, hey it does do that when you start, how come it doesn't match the data?
DIM creates a file in the Manifest Archive folder (as specified in DIM Settings) when it installs something. That file will have the same name as the product with a .dsx extension (i.e., IM000nnnnn-xx_ProductName.dsx). In that file are the details of when it was installed, by whom, and, *drum roll* , where. If you move your library or change the installation destination, these manifests are not updated with the new drive and path, you would have to edit them manually (or in batch edit if there's more than a handful). They are plain text files, so you can just go in and change the value of "UserInstallPath" to whatever it should be.
actualy I think the content panel does scan the drive and get a list because they stuff does show up in the content pane. Now if Daz would make it check the install data which apparently isn't updated at all.
The Library is a relative path, so if you only change the drive letter and root folder, the CMS database is happy and you see all your content if you point the library to the right place. DIM only creates that manifest at install time, and doesn't know if you move the content later. Yes, that is confusing and annoying, but I think the original plan wasn't to have people moving their content all over the place. I sure didn't expect to have a 2TB library 5 years ago...
How could it work otherwise? DIM would need to know where files were even if they were no longer in a content directory, so relative paths and content directories aren't an option there, and if the files are moved it has absolutely no way to know where they've gone. DIM does have an option to reinstall content using the current destination path, which can help with moving the actual content directory, but there's not much it could do beyond that.
Oh, I understand the limitations, now that I know my way around, but it can be confusing for someone who isn't as familiar with the various finer points. For me, re-installing that much stuff would take hours, if not days, and the 5-minute patch to change the path is much more appealing. It's simple when you know the trick. How many users have outgrown their original installation disc and had to move their content? Every week there is more than one question about if/how/where one can move their library. Anyway, not trying to change DIM, it is what it is, and it does what it should. Most of the time.
more joy...
DIM says I have 31 items that start with collective3d
but they were scattered and I wanted them in one place
so I chose to uninstall and got the message about 6 of them not having a folder associated with them (cause DIM thinks they're on H not G and there is no H)
So I didn't unstall those 6
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want to the manifest files searched for collective3d ... wow, there are only 12 in the manifest listings (but then there are only 7,289 items in the manifest file but DIM there are 9,609 installed and 623 waiting to be installed) so there should be about 10,200 files in the manifest folder, right?
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so I open the ones that I can find that DIM thinks are on H to fix them and Lo.. no, they're on G according to the Manifest file.
Oh, and I now have 4 more to download that Dim thought were on G but apparently they were also H.
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Daz is incredible and it's not free because you pay a lot to have stuff to use with it.
And yes, it works well
but when I see stuff like this, I wonder how much better it could be.
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with a couple TBs of product and basically 50g a month to download.. not going to be able to redownload and reinstall.
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As for a batch file etc to fix this.. perhaps Daz should supply something that matches their manifest files to the content on the drive? And checks to see if there's a manifest file to match the installed products.
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and now it's after 1 and a couple hours ago I was just going to find a collective 3d scene to use for a render.
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so now I wait another hour to redownload the files THAT are already sitting in the download folder.. DIM doesn't even check there .. it just assumes that since I didn't uninstall from H there must be nothing in the download folder.
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And considering everytime I start DIM it takes a couple minutes to figure out what to download etc. You'd think somewhere along the line it would check the contents of the download folder.
DIM's manifests folder contains the .dsx fiels for installed products, regardless of whether they are actually on disc. It won't contain a file for anyhting that si not installed (via DIM). I've never had it complain about trying to uninstall soemthing that isn't actually in the original location - can you try again and get a screen shot of the exact error message?