A Word From a Frustrated "New User":
HyJinx
Posts: 172
I'm sorry to be letting my frustration get the better of me, and even more sorry that I'm bothering you all with this, but I'm at the end of my rope. Regarding the "New User Help Forum," what exactly is its purpose? I'm guessing that those with lots of experience don't frequent an area specifically for new users. At least, that hasn't been my experience.
I've been diligently trying to fix a problem I'm having with Daz for three days now, I reached out for help in the new user forum yesterday and it was several hours before I received a response, which wasn't in any way helpful for a "new user." Soon after, I did receive more guidance from an administrator, but I wasn't able to resolve my problem. There's been no follow-up today, and no response to my additional posts on the topic. No interest at all in fact.
In the past three weeks I've spent several hundred dollars accumulating product that I'm not even able to access. I've un=installed and re-installed Daz... twice, What do I do now? What are the proper channels to follow to get my issue resolved? Is there a time of day that's better to post about an issue?
Again, I'm really sorry for complaining, especially to all of you who have been so willing to offer guidance in the past few weeks, this is in no way directed at any of you. My frustration is just with the general lack of response/ interest in the place that I thought was intended for exactly the opposite.
Deep Breath,,,,
/End Rant
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Comments
I suppose few experienced users check out the new user forum, and maybe we ought to.
As for proper channels, it sounds like you're having an unusual but fundamental problem so I'd suggest contacting DAZ directly for help.
use the help link atop this page to put in a tech support ticket. They WILL help you.
We Administrators are not DAZ 3D people mostly, we are Volunteers that Admin the TOS on the Forums in our free time. Some of us are in different countries than the US and many of us are only on line some parts of the day. I for example am in the US but do more late nights and am just now getting to the Help forum. I saw your earlier Post saying you were installing yet again and would then post your out come. The forums are not manned fully all day everyday if things go very bad but we do try to cover it all day everyday. And it often takes time to solve problems over the internet from posts only. We can only offer the help we have. We have no way to set at your PC and see the settings for ourselves which would help solve your issue. I'm sorry if the help you received was not able to solve your current problem. I suggest you send a Support Ticket to the Help center at this time.
I just finished submitting a request, as suggested in the first comment. I had no idea that asking for help from Daz directly was an option.
Thanks to both of you for the suggestion.
Also, I wasn't aiming my frustration at you. I understand that no one person can solve another person's computer problem remotely 100% of the time, I genuinely appreciated your time and suggestions. It's very kind of you to volunteer your time.
My issue was/is the principle of titling a section "New User Help Forum," when more experienced users aren't encouraged to offer guidance. I had no idea that the majority of help came from administrators. The concept just doesn't seem "helpful". Perhaps it could be promoted differently. Maybe a contest of sorts that offered a small reward to the experienced user who directly helped solve the most new user problems in a week's time? I'm sure there's a variety of other possible solutions, I'm just offering my observation as a person who falls into the "new member" category.
All the forums are open to all users except for a Members Only Forum for the users that join the Platinum Club. Often it is not that other users do not see the other users asking for help, it can be as simple as they have not been on line themselves until they post help to a user or it can be that they have no knowledge on the topic and do not wish to offer bad advice. By Far the Commons is the most widely used Forum on the site and you did the right thing by trying to find help in the New Users Help Forum first. If I could get my hands on your PC I'm more than sure I could solve the Smart content problem and Metadata or Database error that appears to be the only problem, I hope. I'm loath to get into deleting files from other peoples computers until I have explored all other options before such steps are taken. At the time of this post I believe you may have one of two problems, one the old Database File is bad and it opens but hangs the Manager, Postgres. Or two Postgres is not opening fully when DAZ Studio is opened, I should have followed up on your Task Manager post before you logged off last night but you were of line before I returned to the New User forums I believe. With DAZ Studio open and Postgres working properly we should see from 3 to 7 instances running at one time, if not then the service is resident but not active. A Bad Database file can be so corrupt as to stop the service. To fix that we will need to remove that old file from your system.
Sorry for the delayed response, a couple of things happened. First, another user suggested de-activating my anti-virus program, rebuilding the database, then re-importing metadata. My husband (whose computer I've taken over) was on board, so I decided to give it a shot. Considering his antivirus is very sensitive, I figured it could be throwing a kink in things. I steered clear of the internet while there was no virus protection. Sadly, this route didn't work either, still nothing in the CMS pane.
Also, when I submitted the help ticket I was offered a link specifically for troubleshooting the DCMS that I hadn't found myself in the User's Guide, so I tried that angle next, it included step-by-step instructions for fixing several possible problems. When none of the first options seemed to be causing the problem, the guide recommended un-installing/re-installing only the Content Management Service. I followed the detailed instructions precisely, but was disappointed to find the content pane still empty when I launched Daz.
One thing I did notice, though, I remember attaching a picture yesterday of the Install Manager, and asking what the check marks below the barrel looking icon represented. You said that the items with check marks would be available in Smart Content. Well, today when I go to the "Installed" portion of the manager, only Daz Pro 4.6 has a check mark. I've attached two images below, the first is just to refresh your memory from yesterday. The second is the way it looks today. Maybe this is the problem?
Thanks so much for your help and patience!
The ticks indicate whether the content includes metadata so that it will appear in your Smart Content tab under Daz Studio. Items without this can still be used within Daz Studio, but you will need to find them in the 'Content Library' tab instead. All content, even 'Smart Content' can be found here.
The first things to check are:
1) Is the installation directory the same as the Daz content directory? By default, these do NOT match (yeah, counterintuitive I know) so be sure Daz is looking in the right place for your installed files.
2) Does the item you're looking for have metadata? if the answer is no, you won't find it in Smart Content. Look in the Content Library instead.
3) is The Content Management Service (CMS) up and running? If no, get it kickstarted either through Daz Studio or by running it from your Start Menu.
Let us know if exhausted those options and we may be able to help you further.
As someone who has been involved with the New Users Forums from Day 1 I can tell you a little bit about why they are there.
They were requested by a concerned group of people who were concerned that many New Users were getting short shrift in the general forums and particularly in the Commons, with their questions often being answered with replies sucj as "This Question has been asked umpteen times before" which you have to admit is not very helpful. It meant that many New Users just got frustrated an never returned to using the forums.
So the group worked very hard with DAZ 3D and the New Users Forums were born
Best way of describing them is to quote from the original Post that was made by a member of DAZ 3D management when the forums first started.
I had problems installing the new Postgres database because my DIM was not the newest version ... it had said it has updated, but was not really.
Newest version of DIM is 1.1.0.21.
As for the new users forum: people go there when they have time and not problems of their own to solve ;)
Have you been asked about your firewall? ZoneAlarm is known to have issues with PostgreSQL in general, this is apparently a long-running problem.
If you look at your screen shots the First one is in the G's and the second in the A's. If you scroll the bar you should see all the things in the G's are still checked. Only Smart content files have a check and have matadata, all other files are found with the Content Library Tab in DAZ Studio. Actually all files are Smart or not, Content Library shows everything, Smart Content only shows smart items.