Can't reinstall Studio using DIM: "Error opening underlying device"

bytescapes

I set out to do a full reinstall of Studio and all my content in order to tidy things up. I followed the uninstall instructions given by Jay Versluis on his site, uninstalling using DIM, cleaning up assorted directories manually, then downloading a fresh DIM.

DIM is now unable to install DAZ Studio and the CMS. Any attempt to install either of these packages fails. The Helper Log reports:

2025-03-05 11:56:04.549 [INFO] :: Open Package Failed - Error opening underlying device: The system cannot find the path specified.: Y:/3D/DAZ3D/Downloads/IM00018869-02_PostgreSQLCMSWin64bit.zip
2025-03-05 11:56:07.301 [INFO] :: Open Package Failed - Error opening underlying device: The system cannot find the path specified.: Y:/3D/DAZ3D/Downloads/IM00013176-02_DAZStudio423Win64bit.zip

The "Y" drive is a NAS; it is mounted, and accessible.

The relevant packages exist at the paths specified, and are readable.

I can install other content files from the same location using DIM, so DIM clearly has no difficulty reading files from that drive and directory. It's only these two that give me problems.

I have used DIM to delete the Studio and CMS packages and re-download them. This did not help.

The machine is running Windows 11, with only the standard Microsoft anti-virus; there are no third-party anti-virus packages installed.

The destinations for app installs are set to the standard locations (e.g. C:/Program Files for 64-bit app installs).

My guess is that it's some kind of permissions issue; either DIM doesn't have permission to read packages on external drives containing executables for some reason, or it doesn't have permission to install executables (in which case the error message shown in the Helper Log is misleading)

Has anyone seen this issue before, and figured out how to resolve it?

 

Richard Haseltine

There were issues with some download servers last night, so it may be worth a fresh download attempt.

Did you get the UAC prompt (Do you want to allo DIMHelper to make chnages to this system?) when you tried to install?

bytescapes

Thanks for your response. I did in fact get the UAC prompt.

I think I figured out the fix. It looks as if DIM doesn't play nice with network drives (or perhaps just with my particular network drive) when installing apps.

My solution was to unmount the network drive and temporarily change the download folder settings in DIM to point to a location on my C: drive. (Choose "Advanced Settings" from the Settings menu, click "Downloads" tab, select new folders for "Package Archive" and "Thumbnails Archive"). I then used DIM to download the Studio and CMS packages to that location, and installed them from there.

It seems that apps and plug-ins can't be installed from the network drive, and must be installed from a local drive. I had to repeat the same trick as above to install all DAZ Studio's plug-ins. Other content installs from the network drive without problems.

 

Richard Haseltine

I know UNC paths are not supported, but I thought in general maping a UNC path to a local drive (as you appeared to have done) was supported.