Content Gatherer Problem
Nelmi
Posts: 38
Hi, I am having a problem with Content Gatherer. It used to work fine but since yesterday it is not reading texture files from my Runtime folder. It reads the scene files but cannot find the textures even though they are there and in the correct folders. I have uninstalled CG and re-installed it but no luck. Any help would be appreciated.
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I was curious if you ever worked this out, because I cannot get it to work either.
No, I could not get it sorted out. The guys at Daz eventually returned my money. I am not sure if you are aware that the vendor had passed away in May.
Content Gatherer will not work with content installed with Daz Connect. Did you install that way?
No, I installed it manually.
I'm not sure if my original comment was clear. So just in case, I was referring to Content Gatherer being unable to find content (characters, materials, props, shaders, textures, etc.) that are installed with Daz Connect. I wasn't referring to the method of installing Content Gatherer itself. I hope that is clearer.
Apologies, I misunderstood. Here is a screenshot that I sent to Daz Support. Basically, as you can see it does not find the items in my runtime. The files are there and in the correct location but the buttons do not turn green and therefore are excluded. It is a great tool and I would love to find a way to make this work. If it works, I will purchase it again.
That is exactly how Content Gatherer behaves for me with content that I installed with Daz Connect. Is it possible that you installed that Velvet Iray Shader with both Daz Connect (from within Daz Studio) and also manually or with DIM? Perhaps you installed with DIM first and later clicked on the product to "update" it inside Daz Studio?
This is one of my own products. I used CG to help me organize content for packaging. I tried it with purchased products as well and had the same problem. Now I have to do everything manually :(
Content Gatherer still works OK for me with content installed with DIM and content I created myself. I'm afraid I don't have any other suggestions.
Thank you very much for your input. Maybe Phoenix1966 can add to the discussion. It worked fine when I purchased it and then all of a sudden it stopped working.
Can you go back to one of the projects that used to work and see if it still works? Maybe there is something subtle that you are overlooking. It might be good to read through the instructions again, in case you forgot a step. Are there any error messages related to Content Gatherer in the DS log file? (Grasping at straws, now)
I have the exact same issue. My own content cannot be found. I knew Ralf had sadly passed away, which was why I posted to this thread. I had hoped that maybe you had found a solution, because I know it still works for some content creators.
My brief experiments with the Gatherer tool worked for me, but I always like to know what others are running into, and fixes/hacks that may extend the life of such utilities.
Without knowing the content products in question, I wonder that something as simple as special or odd characters in the product names might be related - e.g. spaces in a product name or path.
Even if you aren't able to fix something like that directly (without breaking other dependencies...), it's always good to know a problem's cause and not pull out any more hair than necessary, etc.
Is there anything about the various missing files that seem to form a trend?:
- odd filenames?
- multiple occurrences of the item(s) in multiple runtimes? (e.g. I have multiple figure-bases like genesis1 in multple runtimes, and DS knows what to do with 'em, but other tools may be confused?)
- possibly you've "unmounted" one or more of the relevant library/runtimes in DS/Poser (where the tool seems to get the list of runtimes, even if standalone) after creating the scene?
- if you are OK with unzipping and manually editting a saved scene file that fails, can you look at the duf file contents and notice anything different about the entries that aren't 'gathering'? (absolute vs relative paths?)
- if a duf file references a texture or geometry element n a poser-style runtime, does that runtime need to be 'mounted' in DS to be on the list that the Gatherer uses to search for the elements? (does that make sense?)
Ralph's utilities have been pretty rock solid for me, but I'm hardly pushing any of them to their limits. Too bad we can't ask him - he was always reallly helpful... sigh.
Hope this helps,
--ms
Ok, I have found out what causes the problem but I have no idea how to fix it. I hope you can follow my explanation. My runtime is quite big so I have it on a separate drive (E). I also have another runtime that I have on my D-drive. This is exclusive for new products that I load there to be tested before I package it. Normally I would use CG to package the files from this drive. CG stopped working. I tried to package the files from the E-drive with no success. In CG I checked the "Folders" section at the bottom to see where CG would look for the runtime and saw that it does not read the runtime folders on either my D or E drive. In fact, it found a runtime folder on my C-drive that was created by the Reality plugin. I cannot add another runtime to this list. When I transferred the files from my current testing drive D to C, it worked. CG is definitely reading the information from this runtime folder.
So, now that I know why it is not working, how can I fix it?
To Mindsong: I didn't have this bookmarked, so I didn't see your reply. Sorry about that.
I've used Ralf's products for years. I relied on his Runtime Zip for what I also hoped to use this tool for. So I am pretty comfortable using his previous products. This won't gather my original content or other, established products. I have Daz Studio installed in what I believe is the default location and CG just doesn't see the application, although it does for Poser 11, which is right next door. I can't seem to find a way to add a directory. In that respect, I think nfo_e7b2cb83f1 and I are in the same boat.
To Phoenix1966:
Did you see my last comment? I think I figured out why it was not working because I managed to get it to work but I don't know how to fix it to read from the folder where it should be reading from. Maybe you have the same problem?
info_e7b2cb83f1: I think we're dealing with the same issue, since I don't see a way for CG to find my Daz Studio runtime even though it can see Poser 11's (which is literally next door to it and CG can find that one without issue).
Maybe someone knows a way to manually add Runtimes?
It sounds like the same issue. I hope somebody can shed some light on how to manually add runtimes. If I move my files into the runtime folder where CG is currently reading it from, it works. But that is not the ideal setup for me :)
You don't think something (typo/path-conflict/unicode characters, duplicate product, etc.) *in* a runtime, content library, duf, or cr2 may be causing the problem?, or generating a conflict with ralf's loading engine? So be it. I do. And you could use a product for years before running into the situation that actually exercised that scenario. Try running DS with two runtimes with slightly different installations of the same figure (e.g. V4/M4 with generated EXP files), and tell me with certainty which version will 'win'. Phase of the moon stuff, that.
Another angle: CG seems to learn about its library list from the libraries actively 'mounted' in Poser and DS. As such, I could also see running a DS 4.x beta (old or new) that doesn't register the 'active' DS runtimes/libraries that same way that the DS general release versions do (in the registry or standard ini file), meaning if you were to 'mount' a DS library in 4.8, CG may 'see' it, but the same library mounted in 4.9beta may not, etc. Going back and forth between versions (I do a lot), it's easy to forget what was 'mounted' in which, and it may matter to CG.
I hope you find your bug, but not seeing the library in CG means it's probably not looking in the place we expect it to be, or when it goes to look, it simply doesn't know what to make of it and skips it.
Lastly, I use a syncing tool to manage and merge smaller libraries into larger project-specific runtimes. Its handling of windows permissions (with the options I initially chose) caused some really strange problems (folders that were clearly 'there' and browsable to explorer, but were 'empty' as far as DS was concerned). Perhaps permissions have something to do with these missing / 'invisible' libraries.
2c
good luck,
--ms
ralf's program directories almost alway have 'ini' files that keep track of user history. It may be possible to find and edit his ini files to get the correct effect? I don't know if he uses the registry or not - possibly to find settings from programs that do use the registry?
cheers,
--ms
I only mentioned using the products "for years" so that it was understood that I wasn't completely new to this.
I have only one Daz Studio instalation and one runtime for it. However, I do use the PA publishing build that Daz provides to PAs. I was prepared to assume that was the problem (an "unoffical" version of D|S that CG couldn't see), but I know of other PAs who currently use it (and had no suggestions for why this one seemed to go south). I am going to poke around to see if there is an ini file I can edit to point it to Daz Studio. Thanks for the suggestion.
I've been following/enjoying your contributions/products in here for years - no doubts about your experience.
If not in an 'ini' file, perhaps it's as simple as loading up the general release DS version, unmounting your libraries, and remounting those same libraries, just to establish the expected info-source for CG... That'd be great if it were the fix. (If not an option, perhaps someone else could and find/establish which registry/ini entries are relevant).
cheers,
--ms
Installing a "proper" version of D|S isn't really an option for me, but thanks for the suggestion. No luck on an ini file (I had all the relevent boxes ticked to show any type of operating and/or hidden file/folder on Windows) unless it pops up in a weird location (anywhere other than the program folder or desktop). Again, thanks for taking the time to provide some useful ideas.
Looks like this (and his reference editor) are simply not meant to be for me. I am glad it still works for others as Ralf did great work. He's going to be missed.
Quick check of my 'Folders' settings indicates multiple sources are checked by CG to establish its list.
Note the orange - at least 3 DS variants... I use DS49 mostly (DS4C?)
Note the green - mounted in poser. When mounted in DS and CG restarted, that entry was prepended with DS4C.
Note the blue - what packages are 'found'... I wonder what happens when poser 12 and DS 5.x show up...
Note the scripts directory DS4S... I don't mount that explicitly. DS default makes sense.
I wonder if you 'mounted' your DS Content libs (not runtimes!) in poser if CG would then 'see' them, even if poser had no clue...
--ms
*jealously claws at the screenshot where it "sees" your Daz Studio*
It's definitely worth a shot. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks.
And... DS registry is involved. If you're adventurous, you could try manually adding these specific library entries, and seeing if CG ignores the rest of the Studio4 inconsistencies... I generally avoid the registry, but this sort of change would probably be pretty safe.
(I think I could generate a XXX.reg file that would allow just these changes. They're pretty simple to look at and see what they doo - kind of like XML...)
--ms
So, something like create a dummy Studio 4 registry entry, pointing to the Publishing Build content directories?
Exactly. Even if it's not currently installed or active, you may have the .../Studio4 registry infrastructure there already - e.g. if it was ever installed. Just no ContentDirs at this point in time.
If you don't use it much, it's safe to look around in regedit: open a command-prompt, and run 'regedit' and 'Ctrl-F' to 'find', and enter 'Studio4' (try w Keys, Values and "match-whole string only" checked), 'F3' to find the next one(s) - repeat. It's pretty obvious when you're changing things, so it won't hurt to browse.
I'm gonna go find the syntax for creating new registry entries...
--ms
I didn't have the Studio4 folder, so I created one and inside the folder created what I thought was a copy of my content directories from the publishing build. Now CG "sees" Daz Studio and it seems to work.
You are the boss!
As an aside, that also "fixed" (it wasn't broken, but I have that non-standard version of Daz Studio) the File Reference Editor by him as well.