Any tools to help me with my Database?

aedonix

So been using Daz for a while now and collected a bunch of assets, but. with initially not knowing what the hell I was doing, my Database has ended up in a hell of a mess.  There are assets I never use which could dop with being pruned, other assets which I am pretty sure I have 2 instances of (one installed into the incorrect place etc) and any number of other problems.

All in all, it means the database has become pretty bloated and as a result has slowed down scene and character loads significantly. (yeah yeah, all my own damned fault, but it is what it is and I wanna fix it)

Are there any tools out there that can analyze my database, remove duplicates, get rid of unwanted stuff and so on?  I have been looking for a database/content manager for a while but everything I find doesn't seem to be what I am looking for.

TimberWolf

There are none. Not a one. There are tools which can limit morph loading and reduce figure load times, some free, some commercial but there is no Swiss Army Knife script for your problem that I know of.

When you say database I'm assuming you're talking about your Data/Runtime directories and, unless you have multiples of these things, duplicates just aren't possible. The Runtime directory is the biggest user of disk space but unless you're using some strange combination of content directories and multiple installation types (DIM, manual, Connect) I can't see how that could have happened. You could possibly have multiple user-facing copies of a product in your content structure, or a bundle and one of its included products appear separately in Smart Content for example but this isn't really your problem.

I think you know the answer to this and I've had to do it myself. Delete the lot, re-install it.

At this point you might want to consider an installation route you prefer - manual or DIM. Pick one and stick with it. Connect is just too much hassle even though it looks like the easier route initially. Go manual if you want to create your own directory structure for your content and have a lot of non-Daz items, or go for DIM for ease and speed and understand you'll be flailing through whatever random directory structure your non-Daz assets have been assigned to by their creator.

You may have to make exceptions - I just could not get Ultra Scenery to work with a manual install and set up a seperate Content folder letting DIM handle it. I manually install 99.99% of items, removing redundant folders and self advertising, recombining products that are scattered across multiple unconnected folders and it can be slow going at times. The end result is a managed, curated content structure but the downside is it's not easy to uninstall content. It's doable, but it's a hassle searching through the Data and Runtime directories to remove the behind-the-scenes stuff. At the end of the day it's your choice.

One thing remains true though - if you've got to this point, figure out how you want to proceed, nuke your current data and start again. It will take time (I thought I could do this on our NAS box in 7 - 10 days but it took 4 weeks in the end to finally get it sorted) but we had around 75% of our core content back very quickly,

I know it's not what you want to hear and someone will undoubtedly come up with a way you don't have to do this following just 101 easy steps, but if you've come to the conclusion your current data is unmanageable and causing workflow issues then now is a good time to figure out how to organise it in the future and rebuild it.