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Aha! Found out why my install failed, it was because I tried to download to an external drive. It's a well loved Daz bug on Mac, where extrnal drives mounted under /Volumes in the path is illegal. I switched back to my internal drive and it installed. This particular error appears several other places.
Right. I really hope this gets fixed in v. 5 of DAZ Studio.
How did you install the content (i.e. how did the stuff on the remount directory get there?)
The content on the external drive is installed by DIM.
I tried the "search known directories for DAZ files" and "search Hard Drives for files" functions, but the first only seems to read directly residing on the Mac Mini and the second doesn't give an option to enter a precise hard drive path.
I expect one of the following steps to fail and that will help narrow the problem down. I'm assuming DIM on the Mac behaves the same was as DIM on Windows and that the DIM you used to install the content is the DIM you have on the M1.
{ "size" : 138, "FileCounts" : [ [ "runtime/textures/arki/makeupsalon/lie/masks/patterns/akrsmask2b.jpg", 2 ], [ "runtime/textures/arki/makeupsalon/lie/masks/patterns/akrsmask2c.jpg", 2 ], [ "runtime/textures/arki/makeupsalon/lie/masks/patterns/akrsmask2a.jpg", 2 ], [ "runtime/textures/arki/makeupsalon/lie/masks/foundations/akrsmaskbase1b.jpg", 2 ], [ "runtime/textures/arki/makeupsalon/lie/masks/foundations/akrsmaskbase1c.jpg", 2 ],2021-08-30 09:50:23.858 Remote Name Collision: 71905-2/71905-1 : Eadrith HDRI
No, the DIM I used to install the content is the one residing on the old Mac Pro, so probably this is the first step that may cause problems. Do I have to make something about this, to be able to see the content under the M1?
That doesn't work. None of the items are in the CMS DB because you didn't share, or copy, the DB. It is possible to make it work but it requires extra work for every package you install because you have to update two copies of the same CMS. You can:
I'd do the last. Apart from the first possibility, which relies on PostgreSQL network sharing, the other three approaches come down to making a functional CMS DB for a set of pre-installed files, it took me several days to get something that looked like it worked. Also the last step only requires installation of the "Default install set" to be share everything seems to be working. All the approaches except the first end up with two copies of the CMS DB both of which have to be maintained. I'm pretty sure someone here will have worked out how to do this; using and maintaining one CMS across multiple DAZ Studio computer systems, it would be interesting to here comments on how to do this.
DAZ Productions does not even support simply moving the content on the same machine:
https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/207531363-Moving-Content-Files-on-the-Hard-Drive
Sharing stuff is a whole extra mess of things to do... Sharing the DIM downloads directory is possible, although DIM will appear to grind to a halt at times. Two competing DIMs will not be happy (sooner or later they will try to write the same download files at the same time.) So only download using DIM on the machine the downloads directory is physically attached to and only run one at once. The other computer DIM must have a separate "Manifest files..." directory and should install locally. Just get a USB 3.1 hard drive for the M1 Mini ;-) You know how much space is required by the size of the CMS directories on the Mac Pro. My 5260 DIM installed products consume 1.15B; that data is on an M.2 SSD which is somewhat expensive (list price same as an M1 Mini, but now $272 on Amazon), but a 4TB hard drive with SATA III performance can be assembled for about $100.
@jbowler: Oh, my gosh! I'm afraid to ask. I was planning to just copy over my DAZ 3D Library from my Intel Mac Pro drive. And, of course, from my /users/~/Library, I was planning to copy over the DAZ 3D folder, which has the cms and other things in it. Will this not work? It seems that jbowler is suggesting copying over the DAZ3D Install Manager and Downloads and Filters, but not the Manifest files folder. Is that what you're suggesting? Could I then use the Install Manager to install all of the products I've downloaded?
Or, gulp!
gasp! 
are you saying that I should use the DIM to re-download and install everything I've already downloaded on the Intel Mac?
You can copy your content over, specify the content folder in DIM as your downloads location and install what you need to install. Don't copy the CMS database over, start with a clean slate. It will save a lot of heartache in the long run.
Just remember to reimport metadata!
By the Content folder, you mean the folder containing the downloaded files, correct? You do not mean the already installed content, correct? And, I should not install the CMS database. Then, having specified the Content (or the downloaded files) in DIM as my downloads location, I'll re-install (or install for the first time on the M1 Mac) the characters, props, etc. Is all this correct? Sorry to seem so brainless, but I want to be sure that I get it right.
@Totte: I haven't created any metadata, so I guess I can ignore that part. Correct?
If you use smart content (that is based on metadata), you will need it, as without that step smart content and Seach in DB will always be empty.
Yes, the Content folder is the folder containing the downloaded files. You can copy over the Library, which contains the installed content. However, the application and plugins should be installed from scratch. You will need to install PostgreSQL, but don't copy the actual database over.
What Totte is referring to is the metadata for installed content.
OK. Well, how do I reimport metadata?
Well, if you copy over the Library as well, and mapped the paths in DAZ Studio, then you can re-import the metadata in DAZ Studio by clicking on the menu icon (top right) of the Content Library pane, select Content DB Maintenance and select Re-Import Metadata.
Oh, I see what's wrong with my Textures. My main drive is case insensitive, but my external drive is sensitive.
For example, in the terminal shell
$ touch fred.txt
$ touch Fred.txt
creates one file on my main drive, but two on my external drive. The drive can be reformatted to be case insensitive, but I already have stuff on it. I may get another drive just for my Daz stuff.
You only need to do this for your own stuff and for stuff you have have added metadata for, either yourself or using one of the PA products (Content Wizard?) For all DIM installable items, so long as you install them using DIM, DIM will add the metadata to the CMS - this is what it does. Yes, you can try copying over the entire DAZ 3D content library, but this just contains stuff in the .zip files from the DIM downloads so why bother? It's very likely to be much faster to network-copy Downloads then locally install than it is to Network copy the DIM downloads and the DIM Manifest files and all the content. If you change your disk layout (quite likely with a new machine) the DIM Manifest files will be wrong:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<DAZInstallManifest VERSION="0.1">
<GlobalID VALUE="83677fb4-a6c0-4ef3-98e7-517........
<UserInstallPath VALUE="G:/DAZ 3D/Studio/Environments"/>
(The oldest product I own ;-) So DIM will have a bogus installation path and simply can't uninstall the product. This means that any product update that removes or moves product files isn't going to do that; instead DIM will leave crud in the content library because it doesn't even know the files are there. (Well, I think this is the case; I don't think it goes looking for where the UserInstallPath really is, but I might be wrong.)
Even if you are just moving stuff to a new disk there really is no advantage to using the OS "move" command; regardless of the OS it has to write the files to the new disk and that is the time limiting step. Have DIM "reinstall" by changing the "Content Path Shortcuts" to the new disk (but you have to be careful to do each Content Path Shortcut separately), selecting all the products installed to that shortcut (e.g. path::rx::^G:/DAZ 3D/Studio/Core$ in the filter), right clicking and choosing Re-Install Packages/All selected... is going to be just as quick, maybe quicker because the .zip files are faster to read than the corresponding installed files.
To change CMS directory layout on a disk consider using reparse points (Windows) or symbolic links (the name for the same thing on every other OS). These allow the old path to work even though you moved the CMS directories somewhere else (in fact they work cross-disk too, or even cross-network). Eventually you may choose to scan all the DIM ManifestFiles to see if anything hasn't been updated but I think that is the only thing that is necessary before deleting the links (no guarantees ;-)
You can export privately added metadata from the CMS. Right click on the Content Library tab. The problem is I can't see a way to re-import back to a new system. My understanding is that such metadata isn't stored in separate files (unlike that for products); it's just in the CMS. Again I might be wrong; I don't think I've ever added metadata to anything.
The exported user data goes to the same location as the vendor user data - /Runtime/Support/ - and can be reimported through the Reimport Metadata option in Content DB Maintenance. You can export individual product metadata too, right-click on the selected product container(s)>Export Metadata (hold down cmd/ctrl for options, as is often the case).
Saving scenes or presets also creates metadata for those files.
You can mount the volume anywhere you like (Windows or Mac OS), no need to use a symbolic link. Windows requires you use a pre-existing emtpy folder but that isn't required on UN*X systems (the stuff in the folder isn't accessible by path name until you unmount the other volume.) That may not help though; it is a routine and good piece of system security to ban the execution of programs or even libraries located on removable drives. If Mac OS is configured that way for removables and the drive is regarded as a removable applications can't usefully be installed there and, in fact, executable files might even be banned by the OS/file system.
Ah, thanks; very useful information:
Based on my experience that doesn't go immediately to /Runtime/Support; I checked my /Runtime/Support in the CMS direcgtory where I save scenes and I have "UserData_1.dsx" from February 2019. I guess I tried the "export user metadata" option once. It's 2MByte in size and seems to record the stuff in Lost+Found (which was produced by DAZ Studio) as well as "Save Files" which I'm assuming was produced by me.
So there is an important step in moving/re-installing content data; it is essential to use the Content Library[tab]/cmd-click/Content Database Maintenance/Export User Data... option on the original system before moving to a new system. Because the data is saved to the first CMS directory in the "DAZ Studio Formats" list regardless of the CMS directory the corresponding content is in (I just verified this) it normally ends up being in a directory which contains just user created data. It's fairly obvious that the "re-install from scratch" approach can't recreate this directory so I think most everyone will copy it and then the "reimport metadata" step will restore all the information about their saved scenes ;-) I kept losing that. (Not that I cared; I know where I saved them.)
The curious thing now to my mind is that the "Export User Data..." I just tried produced two 20+MByte files (UserData_PublicBuild_[12].dsx]) and even with my verbosity I don't think I could expand my metadata to that size.
I have to wonder whether this is something I managed to do by using "Reimport metadata..." to re-populate a new PostgreSQL database. Someone else should try it, someone with a clean install system, to see if export metadata includes metadata for DAZ purchased products (as mine does.)
Older versions soemtimes had product data reload as user data, an issue that was fixed some time back as I recall but there might already have been mis-classed data in the system by then.
I suspect everything in any content managed directory needs to have a fully lower case name from the CMS directory root (i.e. it might be ok to have case sensitivity below that, but I never got to the bottom of what went wrong with the other Mac user who apparently had a case sensitive root.) The CMS database (Postgre) seems to be used in a way that requires the content paths (which start at the CMS directory) to be case insensitive although Postgre can work either or both ways.
It's pretty easy to lowercase every file and directory so long as there are no collisions and it is easy to write a script to detect the collisions as well:
will list every uppercased item (including things in uppercased directories). Going from there to a script to detect collisions is easy given an awk that supports the 'tolower' function (it's a classic awk problem, python works as well of course.)
All the same I wouldn't go down this road; DIM seems to just blindly unpack product zips in a way that preserves case, so DIM will keep on recreating upper-cased files and, if you lower case them, all manner of badness will break lose because DIM won't be able to update the now lower-cased content.
I'm finally downloading using the new DIM on Mac mini M1 , but finding some descrepencies. For example, Holt 8 is missing, unfound in the search, but the Holt HD package installed fine. Holt 8 exists in my old Mac Intel mini version of DIM. Any ideas?
Missing where? In Install Manager, in Daz Studio after installation with Install manager (or Daz Central), in the list of products in Daz Studio after it has connected to your account?
Making the beta use the CMS on the Mac Pro actually made the Smart Content pane see the products (so it might have read metadata correctly), but there remained the issue with the files on the Mac Pro disk not being actually accessible. I ended up reformatting as case-unsensitive an external hard drive I already connected to the Mac Mini and using it for my contents. I set DIM on the Mac Mini to use it for content installation and now I'm downloading the essentials and Genesis 8 and 8.1 content. When done, I'll be back to Daz and have to reset the CMS directory to the one in my user folder on the Mac Mini. This may be an issue, because from the Daz system browser for selection I was not seeing the Library folder in my home to be able to access it; now I enabled by Terminal the option to see the hidden files, but I don't know if it will work in Daz, and the window doesn't allow to manually edit the directory path. I'll report later if I've been able to solve this issue. May I need to manually edit Daz's preferences file, can somebody guide me to do it correctly?