DIM No Longer Installs to Products Folder
xyer0
Posts: 6,064
In the past 30-40 days, I've been experiencing this issue: I will download and install products through DIM (in two separate actions WITHOUT Daz Studio open), but when I look in the Products folder for these items, all of them are at the bottom of their respective initial alphabet lists and greyed out (as though awaiting Connect installation). The few products that I've checked ARE installed, but I have to go through the Poser legacy folder hierarchy to find them.
Since my troubles coincide with Daz Central's arrival, I'm positing that this is a byproduct of it, as it uses DIM's structure. (I have never installed Daz Central).
I use the Products folder because I don't have to look up convoluted paths when I know the name of the product.
When this happened last month, I uninstalled each item and singularly installed it until it would show up in the Products folder. However, this does not seem to be working anymore. I've heard that installing by DIM as well as Connect can cause issues, and I'd rather not deal with Connect (although some items refused to show up in the Products folder unless I installed by Connect).
I'm submitting a ticket for this, but my experiences with Tech Support do not inspire hope.
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Comments
The only issue with Connect, aside from a few scripts that make unsafe assumptions about their location, is that if the files are manually removed then DS will think they are still there and will refuse to load a DIM install.
As for your issue, were you using a custom location for the database (the ContentCluster folder)?
Hi Richard, I install to an external drive. I don't know the term "ContentCluster." But I previously changed nothing before this issue arose.
Is there a known issue if I have installed a product via DIM and I also install it using Connect?
People have found that Daz Central reset their custom paths, which woudl lose the previous databse (but restoring the original path setting would bring it back).
OK. But I have NEVER installed Daz Central. I have tried resetting the path in the DIM Install Advanced Settings, but this still does not result in a DIM-installed item appearing as installed in the Products folder (though I CAN find it installed in the Legacy folder hierarchy).
There is at least with some products, if they have been installed with DIM also installing them using Connect will cause problems even if you uninstall them with DIM first. I once had some problems myself because of this and was told by DAZ never to install a product using both methods.
Thanks, @Taoz. I installed 31 Gb of products this morning by DIM. It's gonna be a long day.
@xyer0
"Products" is not an actual folder on your hard drive, so DIM won't install anything there. I believe it relies on metadata to list products. Similar to the Catagories "folder".
What are your installations paths in DIM?
@fastbike1 I'm using an external drive.
Now that you mention it, I remember a couple of Kindred Arts' products a few years ago that didn't show up in the Products folder. Tech Support told me "this is not considered a bug." But since I knew KA from DeviantArt, he had already found out that the metadata for these products had been mucked up. Once the metadata was fixed, the items in question appeared in Products. So, thanks for pointing that out. Evidently, Daz has stopped adding a Products ID to the metadata, or else they have removed it completely (which seems more likely since even older items are not appearing in Products).
I've decided to use Connect, where all the products show up at the bottom of their initial letter folder. Hopefully, this doesn't cause more issues. But Daz has left me no choice.
Hmm, that should not happen as far as I am aware - what problems were you experiencing?
Here's the conversation I had with support, I suppose it's OK to post it here as there's no controversial content and it is a general problem which I think people should know about.
My report:
"I've discovered something that looks like a bug in DS. Tested and reproducible in both 4.10 and 4.11 beta.
To test using the way described here it's important that you use a DS installation where the test product has never been installed with DIM before. It's OK if it already has been installed in Smart Content though.
Select a product from the "A Curious" series, like one of these:
11121 - A Curious Schoolhouse
11045 - A Curious Chapel
10349 - A Curious Passage
These products all have separate DS and PS files so maybe the problem affects all products of that type, and maybe not other install types that include Poser content, but I haven't tested that.
Install the product in Smart Content if not already installed there. Check the Cloud folder structure, you'll see there are no Poser libraries installed.
Now install the same product with DIM, both the DS and the PS file. Check the Cloud install again, nothing has changed.
Now uninstall the product and reinstall it, in Smart Content. Check the Cloud folder again while it installs. You'll see that it now attemtps to install the Poser libraries also, however all the Poser files remain partial (zero byte). The installation will take a long time, presumably because things are not working correctly.
If you check the product in Smart Content now, you'll notice that it says "Update Available". If you choose to update it seems to go through the same installation process again, but nothing seems to change in the Cloud folder other than the file dates, and it still says "Update Available" afterwards.
If you uninstall the product again with both DIM and in Smart Content, and then reinstall in Smart content only, the Poser files will still attempt to install. So the problem (zero byte Poser files being installed) "sticks" as soon as the product has been installed with DIM, even if you uninstall it again with DIM. That's why you need to use a DS installation where the product hasn't been installed with DIM before, to use the test method here. I suppose knowing that might help debugging.
Anyway, I don't know what the problem is here - that the Poser files are not supposed to be installed but erroneously are attempted to be anyway, or that they actually are intended to be installed but remain zero byte, but I hope you can tell me? I have a friend who install all her products in Poser in individual runtimes (one runtime per product), and she wonder if she can copy the Connect folders with her Poser compatible DAZ products for this. But that will only work if the Poser content is also being installed, and correctly, of course. It was actually when experimenting with this that we discovered this problem here. "
Support were able to replicate the problem and passed the report on to QA, who responded:
"We looked at this issue and The products install fine as they are meant to be installed. The user needs to pick one way to install DIM or Connect, by using both they will get conflicts.
Connect uses a different directory structure than DIM and shouldn't be blended the way the customer is doing it.
Please have the customer use the cloud structure for connect only and if they choose to use DIM to use the standard directory structure for DIM installs.
The reason the customer is having this issue is because of the way they are installing and is not something we can fix."
Reading it again now however I suspect that DAZ misread the last paragraph in my report, believing that I was using DIM to install content into the Connect library. I was not doing that, I just installed the products as you normally do when using Smart Content, to see how the Connect library was working, and discovered the conflict with products already installed with DIM that way. The fact that support could replicate the issue also indicates that it happens when using normal install methods as I didn't ask them to do anything else. So if it's a bug it may still be there.
Yes, I think that is how they read it - and I can see that having different files, and so metadata, for DIM and Connect might cause issues (I think something odd could happen with the split between male and female in DIM for the Starter Essentials, while in Connect they are one installation).
Well, then, hopefully I will not run into a difficulty with my 31 Gb of recently installed DIM content that I am now installing using Connect. Since I would like to continue using the Products folder, it seems I'm going to have to switch my future installation format from DIM to Connect.
DIM installs should stilll create Products in the database
Besides the starter essentials issue, the problem is metadata is not removed from the database upon uninstallation of a product (only the installed flag is set to false). So residual metadata from one installation source may conflict with metadata from another source if they are not the same.
But it's not doing it for me. At all. Even for over 100 items at one time; only one of them showed up in the Products folder as installed. For the rest I used the Connect thumbnails.
That sounds like some kind of database error. When you ook in the Installed tab of DIM do they mostly have ticks next to them?
@Richard_Haseltine No ticks for any of the most recently installed.
Try uninstalling and reinstalling. If you close DS before starting DIM make sure that it, and the PostgreSQL processes, are really gone before starting DIM.
Thanks, Richard, but I already used Connect on those items. My DIM issues coincided with my upgrade to 4.12. I'm switching to Connect except for plug-ins.