Need to Get Smart Contact Back
melanie
Posts: 793
in The Commons
I just got things set up in a new computer and the only thing left to fix is my metadata in Smart Content. The only things that show up are newly installed content. Do I re-import metadata, or is there some other way to get it back? What's the easiest and safest way to get my content to show back up in Smart Content?
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Comments
If you have the products installed then you can use Content Database Maintenance to add the metadata. I usually check "Process Metadata Queue" & "Re-import Metadata" to sync up my Smart Content on my second machine after installing new items on the first which is a similar thing to what you need to do.
If you didn't export your "User Data" on your old machine then you won't get back any manual modifications you may have done.
I'm a little afraid of syncing my old with the new. It was having some weird glitches on the old one and I'm afraid of bringing those over. Years ago, I re-imported metadata and it brought in things I had never even installed, so I'm slightly leery of trying that. Or will it only bring in just the things that are actually installed?
It will reimport whatever you have in runtime/support.
Hmmm ... well I can only go on my experience and what it looks like it is doing to me. I believe that the two options I listed above will dig through all the linked base directories and find all the "dsx" files inside the Runtime/Support folder of each of them. These items are then presented to you in a window where you can scroll through the list and uncheck any that you don't want - although I just hit the button to (re)import them all each time.
Brining in stuff you have never installed sounds a bit odd and I am not sure why it would do that as AFAIK this would be an "offline" process - i.e. it is not grabbing data from the internet, only files that are on your HD (or other linked storage).
I will say that I have also, used the "Reset Database" option to completely nuke the Smart Content and then used the above two options again to re-add it back. As far as I can see this has not caused anything to be "lost" - other than custom categorisations which can be saved before hand by exporting that first.
However, if the weird glitches you were seeing before were caused by damaged/corrupted dsx files stored in your Runtime/Support folders then I suppose there is a chance these will come back.
That was a few years ago and in a much earlier version of DS. What it did was bring into Smart Content some items I had bought from third party vendors or in Renderosity. I'm tempted to give it a try and see what it will do. Every time I get a new computer, I have problems getting everything back in order. I don't customize folders, I just let things install from DIM on their own, so everything should just be where they would normally go. The little sprite sitting on my shoulder is saying to give it a try. I hope this will work.
Good luck! :)
If you do give it a go then be prepared to wait a few minutes once you have clicked past the window with the checkboxes. Obviously it will be different for everyone but on my machine that uses a network storage for my assets it takes just over 8mins to process ~3,200 products. I imagine you have a bit more than that.
It worked! It took me longer to go through all the check boxes to see which things I really wanted in there, especially really old stuff that I don't use anymore, but I got them in. The only hiccup was when a couple of items came in without their thumbnails, but that's no big deal. So, thanks to those of you who helped. I appreciate it so much.
Glad you got it sorted :)
The missing thumbnails is a bit of a pain. If you want to fix them manually you can save an image (jpg or png) in the Runtime/Support folder with the same basename as the corresponding dsa & dsx files.
One way to do this is to right-click on the product in Smart Content/Products an click "Edit Metadata" - don't change anything in there but this gives you the basename in the "Support" field. Note this down and then click Cancel. So for example if I clicked on the "Level 19" product it would list the support file as "/Runtime/Support/DAZ_3D_2789_Level_19.dsx". Then I would go to my Product Library on this website, type Level 19 in the filter and click on the link when it popped up, then right click on the thumbnail image and save it to the correct /Runtime/Support folder as DAZ_3D_2789_Level_19.jpg. The thumbnail will then show up if you trigger a refresh of the displayed items - either click on a different category and click back or change the text in the search bar.
There might be an easier way to do it I suppose but the above will work. Obviously if you need thumbnails for non-DazStore items then you'l have to source the thumbnails elsewhere but the rest is the same.
Thank you. Good ideas. These had thumbnails before, but they just disappeared. But if worse comes to worst, I can live with it. I have a few products that never had thumgnails when they were installed. Anyway, I'll keep this information in case I decide to try it.