Keeping content on external drive--SOLVED
etaktrash_d29ae59121
Posts: 27
EDIT: SOLVED see new post at end
So I have over 100gb of DS content on my hard drive and it's just taking up too much space. I want to move it to an external hard drive, but I'm having problems! I tried to follow this: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/583911/can-i-put-my-daz-files-on-an-external-drive-and-how#:~:text=First%2C%20copy%20the%20files%20to,the%20folders. but the instructions didn't 100% match up with my DIM (there's no 'content' entry in 'downloads'), so I made a guess at Installation/DSON content instead and apparently was wrong. (also when I changed the 'thumbnail' archive I found there wasn't one). First none of the textures in the file I was working on would load, so I restarted Daz and then it gave me the whole PostGre SQL runaround and nothing I did would fix that--including reinstalling DAZ with the content destination as my external hard drive. So I switched the content paths in DIM (I hadn't deleted them in DAZ so I've techically got both, although it's only recognising the default) back to the default and hey presto, it worked again.
So what did I do wrong? Is it becuse I'm on Mac? Has DIM updated, so the instructions for that part should be different? Screenshots of my DIM attached (I don't use Daz Connect; it's never worked for me).
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Hi, I will take a look, I've done this (and I'm on macOS), but I need to check the instructions and see what is different, will come back with an answer shortly.
There is the list of content indtall paths....
Those are the standard install paths--on the hard drive? I wanted to put content on an external drive to free up space on my hard drive. Is that possible?
Just add a new path, install there, remove the old path.
That's what I did last time. I tried it again, and this time...
In Daz Studio: Preferences > Content > Content Directory Manager > DAZ Studio Formats. Add new location for both the Public and the <username> folders. Remove old paths.
In DIM: Advanced settings > Installation > add new path as in your screenshot. Remove old path.
First off, I got the dreaded PostGreSQL CMS error, so I went to DIM to see if there was something else I could do, and this time when I opened Advanced Settings it prompted me to reinstall CMS and all the other basics (Genesis etc) (it did not do this last time. No idea what I did different). Then I opened Daz from DIM, and it worked... sorta. Nearly all my content had error messages. So I closed and re-opened DIM and then it had all my content ready to reinstall... 700+ items, which took 24hrs.
Now it says it's reinstalled all my content, but DS says differently. Only a small handful of items are showing in Smart Content, mostly very old basic things like Genesis 2 and props from the same era. Everything else has a warning triangle on it, and when I try to load it, I get an error message: "Could not open file. File does not exist." This is the same for purchased content and things like Genesis 8.1.
Now, I can find these things in Content Library, but every time I try to load something it says "One or more files needed by the loading content is missing" and I have to reinstall each character, prop, etc one by one each time I want to use them (and they still doin't show in Smart Content after that).
What did I miss this time?
Goto your Content Tab (Hamburger Menu) and do reset database and then reimport metadata.
I've tried that, and it's still the same. Closed and re-opened Daz. No change. Reinstalled metadata again. Left it 15 minutes. No change.
Okay, eventually (after a lot of Googling and trying lots of things that didn't work) I looked at the Smart Content > Products tab and right-clicked an item: clicked Update Metadata. After that, the icon changed to grey with an 'install' icon in it. Clicked that, it installed, and... hey presto! It appeared in Smart Content and so did all its materials, etc! So now I am reinstalling everything this way, in batches, which is painfully slow. This seems completely ridiculious when I already reinstalled it all (again, painfully slowly) via DIM, but here we are!
That means installing with DAZConnect, which is good for most types of content, but not so great for script products.
So, this also emans your Daz Studio didn't know whee the content were installed. Had you updated the Daz Studio Content Directory Settings to point at the new directory?
You mean, in In Daz Studio: Preferences > Content > Content Directory Manager > DAZ Studio Formats? First thing I did.
depending on how the script is written http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/scripting/api_reference/samples/file_io/file_find/start , though I do recognise that testing anything that needs to use metadata or that is isntalled through Connect requires a version that has been built by QA with the product metadata so suporting Connect and being sure the support works is tricky [removed as laregely or entirely incorrect, or misunderstood].
Ah! When I looked at the location the reinstalled files were being installed to, I found them on my old hard drive, in <username>/Documents/Daz 3D/Studio/My Daz Connect Library. Which was a directory I had copied over to the new external drive, but hadn't changed in the DS settings Preferences > Content > Content Directory Manager >Daz Connect Data (which wasn't mentioned before!). I am doing the reset database/reimport data again now--which is taking a long time compared to my original attempt which was almost instant, probably because there was nothing there to copy.
Update: It crashed halfway through. and then, while I was restarting (it crashed a lot on the splash screen) I tried to copy over some of the data installed in the wrong place and because I am very stupid, managed to delete it (that charming feature Mac has where it 'replaces' the old file with the new). Sigh. (yes, I tried Time Machine. No, it did not want to help me). So now I'm reinstalling through DIM. Again. *crying face*
Connect installations cannot be reinstated without a copy of the database or reinstalling (which should see the existing files and not redownload them).
I've reinstalled though DIM, reset database, reimported metadata, and my Smart Content still looks like this (screenshot). If I go to the Products tab, right click and Update Metadata, then the Install option shows, and when I've done that, the item shows in Smart Content. But if I try to do them all at the same time, it crashes, and the same if I do it in batches, so... I really don't think I can reinstall what's apparently 700 items one by one. I really, really wish I'd never started this!
Can you load your content throught he Content Library pane under Daz Studio formats before doing the Connect install? You certainly don't wnat both DIM and Connect, as they place their files in different places, and some scripts are not written to be installed through Connect so you probably want the DIM version (or the content brought over from the old system) working regardless.
All right! So thanks to this discussion: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/16599/the-mac-faq/p72 finally figured out what was going wrong. It's the external drive formatting that was causing the problem, not the file paths! Mac is picky about case-sensitiv drives, and it appears my external drive was case-sensitive. Once I reformatted the drive to APFS, I could reinstall content via DIM and it all started showing up again. PHEW!
So, what I did was FIRST REFORMAT EXTERNAL DRIVE TO APFS, then go into DIM, change all the install paths from Users/Shared/MyDaz 3D Library etc to [My Drive]/Users/Shared/My Daz 3D Library, etc. I basically made identical file paths for everything, thumbnails, downloads, the lot, on my new drive. Then went into Daz Studio and changed the paths in Content Directory Manager. Then reinstalled content via DIM. Voila, all showing up in Smart Content, finally working as it should.
It was formatted as case sensitive, yes, that will cause all kinds of issues, specially with a bit older content (before that was something that was checked for).
Good advice is to not use case sensitive filsesystem on macOS unless you are going to run unix/linux applications that are directly ported over.
I wish someone had told me this a couple of weeks ago!
Sorry, that has been posted many times, I thought everyone knew it, my bad.