Runtime/Content Library is unmanageable and I believe it is necessary to rebuild from the ground up

Anhedonia_79

I have tons of stuff in my Content Library. Unfortunately, when I first began placing items into my content library I did not know what I was doing. And at the time there wasn't the install manager to assist me. Over time of placing things haphazardly within the Library it has become cluttered and near impossible to find anything. I also encounter various error messages when trying to load content, most likely because everything was not downloaded into the right place.

In addition, I've tried to create categories to make the task a little easier; however, I cannot seem to get it to work. Either Daz tells me that it "cannot create a container" or it will let me create one (subcategory) but it will not let me put anything into it. Also, after creating a category and then closing Daz and opening it back up, the categories I created disappear (which isn't a big loss since I couldn't put anything in them to begin with).

I've purchased content from DAZ, Renderosity, and RuntimeDNA (free content as well) and have thus used both zip files and the old bitrock installer from DAZ (I think that is what it was called). This in addition to the install Manager. At this point I'm kind of just lost in the install madness. Nearly at my wits end, I'm thinking about totally uninstalling everything and starting over. Does this sound like the best option? And if so, what would be the best way to go about it? I've read on some of these threads that the process can actually be quite tricky when items have been installed by various methods.

Also, if I do venture down the total uninstall path, what would be the best procedures to use to reinstall all of this content (since it comes from various sources and in various forms - i.e. zip files, etc.)?

I am currently running DAZ 4.6 on a Windows 7 64bit system. Any help you guys can provide would be most welcome.

Anhedonia_79

fixmypcmike

If you have the disk space, you could backup your current content folder somewhere else and start fresh.

On the categories problem, it sounds like your database is 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.

Anhedonia_79

Thanks for the information. It is much appreciated. I wanted to include for you a picture of my Content directory (or most of it anyway - it wouldn't all fit in one screenshot) to show you just how messed up this thing is. I hope you can see it in the image. Things are so scattered across my machine that it's almost unbearable. I don't have any clue how long it will take me to find and remove or relocate this stuff. If there were an award for ugliest content library/runtime (perhaps directories is the more appropriate term?), I think I'd win. Would you still suggest the actions you previously mentioned?

Anhedonia_79

fixmypcmike

There are two main problems you have on the Poser formats:
1) nested content folders -- looks like you have a bunch of products where a folder with the name of the product was put in My Library. Having both My Library and folders underneath My Library as content folders will cause problems -- the Runtime folder needs to be directly underneath My Library
2) content in Program Files/Program Files (x86) -- Windows 7/8/Vista protect those folders, so putting content there can cause problems, since the files might not really be there.

Anhedonia_79

What would be your suggestion for a solution to that? Would it be faster to try and rearrange the content or to uninstall/delete and start over again. (And please forgive me if these are ridiculous questions - I know it can be annoying to have to break it down baby style for people, but in the DAZ world I am a baby). I very much do appreciate you taking the time to help me though - that's what I love about DAZ! Most helpful folks in the biz.

fixmypcmike

No problem, happy to help. You could go into all those separate content folders that are inside My Library, and move what's inside them up one level, so they merge with the folders under My Library, or you could just start fresh, making sure that when you install those products you only copy over the files underneath the product name. The most important thing is having the Runtime and Data folders directly under My Library (or My DAZ 3D Library -- whatever you choose to call the content library), not 2 levels down.

kenmo

Sorry I don't mean to hijack this thread. But I am having similar issues. I simply wish Poser and DAZ3D would abandon the present directory structure for asset management and simplify it the way Vue allows one to manage assets.

I mean getting rid of the runtime structure altogether.

Why is a car model sometimes placed under "characters" and other time under "props". The same for poses, sometimes it is under materials and not poses?

This is very confusing.

I should be allowed to place cars under a new structure like cars instead of characters or pops

I do not need a database to maintain my Vue assets. The way I organize my folders and sub-folders allows for easy navigation through my Vue collection of assets which is massive...

To simply adhere to the old runtime directory structure because that is the way Poser and DAZ have always done it is silly and hinders progress. And adding a database manager complicates something that could be very easy to maintain like in the Vue world....

Cheers

Richard Haseltine

You can already do that with DAZ Studio content, though if you want to use the CMS you will need to recategorise content that came with metadata. Only Poser's Runtime has, for historical reasons, the division into different libraries for different types of content. However, you will still need a location for geometry and texture assets, as I assume is the case for Vue (I don't recall that it embeds everything int he files, which would be impractical given that figures have huge textures and multiple morphs and tend to be used in multiple scenes - and presumably the protected Vue content has restrictions on embedding anyway).

JonnyRay

Character vs Prop
Poser first created the distinction between Characters and Props. Basically a Character is rigged with bones and a Prop isn't. So if a car is rigged for the doors to open, or the wheels to rotate, then it is a Character. If it isn't, then it is a Prop. Poser was strict about it too. A Character file ends in 'CR2' whereas a Prop file ends in 'PP2'. If you tried putting a CR2 file in the Prop folder structure, Poser wouldn't even display it. I'm with you on not liking the forced distinction. I used to hate having to find clothing (which I consider props) in the Character folder.

(( And don't even get me started about how hair can be a Figure, Prop or Hair file! ))

(( The other "pet peeve" of mine is if I'm looking for a bench for a garden scene, I don't want to have to remember which vendor created benches. Since vendors like to include their names in the folder path, it is a pain. ))

DAZ Studio and the Good News
The good news (in a way) is that DAZ Studio isn't as strict. They maintain the folder structure for compatibility reasons with the content, but DS is just fine with having Character (CR2), Prop (PP2) and even Pose (PZ2) folders wherever you want in those folders.

DIM and the Warnings
However, there are some caveats to this (especially when it comes to DAZ content installed/managed by the DAZ Install Manager (DIM)).

First, if you move the files and then want DIM to uninstall the content, it won't be able to find it. Probably not as big of a deal since if you're like me, you don't uninstall content very often.

Second, and a bigger deal, if there is an update to the product, DIM is going to put the updated files in their default locations. If you've moved them, the new updates won't overwrite the older files. This could cause you some issues down the road.

I keep two Content Libraries. One is for DIM to manage, the other is for my 3rd party content. The second one I move files around all the time. For instance, I have a Victoria 4 folder under Characters and in there have folders which contain the "poses" for the various custom morphs and skins I have for her. I just dragged the folders around into a structure which made sense to me.

Categories to the Rescue?
Now, all that said, Categories was supposed to be the way to fix this. Since in theory, you could assign categories how ever it makes sense to you. An object can even be in multiple categories. So if I want to have an entire outfit listed as Clothing-V4-Outfits-Domino and also have the shorts listed under Clothing-V4-Shorts.

However, I find Categories to be somewhat cumbersome because I have to go through my content library, right-click on an item, and choose each category it should be part of (navigated my category folder structure each time). I really wish there was a quicker way to apply them.