Opening old files?

JOdel

Is there any way to get older scene files open in current versions of the program?

I found back in the day that there was no way to get a DS3 file open in DS4. It either stalled or the file opened with items and textures missing.

But my content libraries have not been reorganized since 2012. Added to, but nothing has been moved around. Yesterday I tried (more than once) to open a DS4.0 file and the program stalled. I tried another from the same era and the program stalled. I can't even get them open, let alone see whether they are intact.

Okay. What was there an actual break point? Was it the change from .dsa to .duf or something like that? Or is there simply a statute of limitations on scene files and you have to make a point of opening and re-saving them once a year if you want to keep them viable?

I put a lot of work into that series of files and am not amused to find that they are now inaccessible.

mjc1016

Did you change OS/computer or anything else...like hard drives?

Dsa files need stuff that is NOT in the Content folders, duf files can rebuild the scene if the 'auto-adapted' and old data folders aren't found...

Also, sometimes it takes a very long time to open the old files...the longest one I had was over half an hour!

FSMCDesigns

That is odd, I just tried an older DS3 file and it opened fine in 4.8

JOdel

Well, since 2012 I've shifted my content library to a different hard drive. Probably a couple of times, and hadn't any reason to open those files, so I don't know whether they would have. But both the library and the file storage were always run from externals. I do think I drag copied by individual folders rather than restoring from Time Machine backup for the move(s).

I had to replace my computer earlier this month. That leapfrogged about four OS versions.

The old computer was fixable though, I'll have it back pretty soon. I can probably hitch the externals up again and see whether they'll open on the older OS.

I find that things done in 2013 open up without arguing. I'm pretty sure those were built in DS 4.5 or 4.6. But the files from 2012 don't. That's why I was wondering if it was the change to .duf that broke things.

JimmyC_2009

I just tried several scenes from DS3, and they almost all opened.

The ones that didn't open were Toon ones, and I remembered that I moved all the toon figures into their own runtime, and that was why, they would work if I could be bothered to sort out the folders again.

Make sure that you have the 'content' folder listed as BOTH DS and Poser Formats, that way it should be able to find both the 'data' folder and the textures which are usually stored in 'Runtime'.

JOdel

JOdel

FSMCDesigns said:

That is odd, I just tried an older DS3 file and it opened fine in 4.8

I've never been able to open all of my old DS3 files. Not even when I was still using DS3. Although in that case the scene would open up empty. Or just with the human figure in it (no clothing or hair).

And I don't expect to be able to get into anything from earlier to 2012 because of a *major* content library reorganization. Hardly anything is where it had been before that. But the ones from 2012 ought to be accessible, and they don't seem to be.

mjc1016

You should be able to open the dsa files in a text editor and find the path information for where it is looking for stuff...

JOdel

Well curiouser and curiouser. I looked again and the file that balked is a .duf. So, at a guess I was running 4.5 by November of 2012. And this time, the file opened without any more problems. Maybe only on odd-numbered days in even numbered months, perhaps?

I tried to open one of the more complex scenes from June, and it *appeared* to be opening with no more than the usual demand that I go and manually locate every texture used in every shader in every instance it was used in the scene. But as soon as it got past all that and started working toward the actual opening of the file the program quit.

Mind you, it's a big file (+45MB). But it would open on the old computer.