Product Library Unlinked Items
marble
Posts: 7,500
My DAZ Studio Product Library is becoming increasingly unreliable. I have an ever-increasing number of "empty" icons which do not link to the actual product item. My question is: is there a way to refresh or re-link the whole library? Here are some examples of what I mean:
Render_Presets.jpg
672 x 1027 - 115K
DAZ_Products.jpg
682 x 1031 - 150K
Post edited by marble on
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Comments
Have you rearranged the actual files on disc? Have you changed your content directories?
I always have put the downloads where I want them because I don't use Smart Content. That works fine for most things but these orphaned items have mostly been part of my library for years and now DAZ Studio can't link them. I can't figure a way to have it find the products or even start from scratch.
My content directories are where they have always been although they are not the defaults that DAZ uses. For example, I don't use public folders but I do set up the preferences in DIM to put products in the appropriate content libraries. From that point, I manually move things around so, for example, I can move content bought from elsewhere into the appropriate folder along with DAZ store content.
I can't even click on one of those orphaned icons and tell it where to find the actual file.
Those are database references - if te files isn't in the relative path that the database has recorded then it won't found. If you are using a custom organisation of your files then you need to either redo the metadata or not use any view driven by the database - not just Smart Content but Products and Categories in the Content Library pane, and all the Presets tabs in property panes. I don't know why it would suddenly change, unless the files were moved afresh or the content library they were in was disconnected, but n general if you want to use any databse-driven mode or feature you should leave the files where the installation puts them and use categories or links to organise.
Ok, so say I don't want to use the database driven option - what are the alternatives? DAZ puts things where I don't want them but that has always been the case since I started using DAZ Studio 15 years ago. I don't see why I can't just click on an icon and point it to the file location.
On further investigation, it seems that my database is a mess. Here's a product I installed recently and it seems to me that there is an icon for an existing item and right next to it is another orphaned icon for exactly the same item.
So I went for the kill-or-cure option and reset the database. All the products that were listed have now gone, along with all the orphaned icons. Fortunately, my Content folder tree is still there so I can find the products where I put them. I guess the database will start to populate again over time but I'd still like to know the alternatives to using a database.
Daz Studio Formats/Poser Formats are the only non-database driven views. Note that some things, like AutoFit, do use the Content Management System.
I think the view I have now, with just the Content hierarchy and my own folder arrangement suits me fine. I don't need the DAZ imposed organisation. Is it possible to disable the database system and what would happen to the content view if I did? I am a little wary of trying something like that and ending up having to re-install my whole product library using DIM (not to mention the non-DAZ purchases).
If you literally disable it then you will have trouble using AutoFit, possibly Face Transfer (I'm not sure there), and potentially other features (now or in the future). If you don't use those views then the dead links are not going to be in the way, so I'd leave it be - and at least have a default isntalaltion, without moving files, of the base content.
Yeah, I think you make a good point. I'll just leave it as is and reset the DB whenever it gets messy. My whole workflow depends upon knowing where things go (in my folder arrangement) so I'll always be moving files to where I want them. It makes it difficult to save render presets because they disappear too when the DB is reset.
You can just create links in DS, which you cana rrange as you like and which will load the content from its default location - best of both worlds. You can right-click on a file in DS to copy the content, then rght-click to paste a link where you want. Thiss cript will help with creating links, which you can then rearrange at will http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/scripting/api_reference/samples/specific_ui/create_asset_links/start
Thanks but I suspect that I would need to reinstall everything (please no!) in order to get everything back to its default DAZ location. I probably should have used links from the outset but I had no clue as to how the database system works (still don't).
Well, you could always reinstall stuff as you needed it/came across a missing icon rather than doing all at once (might give you an interesting perspective on which things most interest you, he says in his best "Always look on the bright side of life" mode).
It might also remind me of stuff that I have forgotten that I bought over those 15 years (I have been know to try to buy things a second time). Nonetheless, half a TB of content (and I bet that's a pretty low figure compared to many here) would be a daunting task.