Content Library duplicates
ObscuroArcanum
Posts: 135
I am thinking DS4.6 doesn't like me very much. Together with my Duplicate ID errors, and other warnings, I have noticed another thing that isn't right in the Content Library. I'm not familiar enough with DS to know if this is normal (I highly doubt it) or even how to fix it.
In my Genesis>Characters folder, many of my figures are displaying twice. (I have attached a screencap to better explain)
If I double-click on either of the icons, they both load a figure (after DS spits out another Duplicate ID error) and looking at the folder where these figures are contained, I can see no reason for the duplicates.
Any help would be appreciated :)
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Comments
Looks as if you may have the files installed twice - if you right-click on an icon you can select Show in Content Library to see its exact location (and then right-click on that and select Browse to file location to open a window to the folder). Try that with two "matching" entries and see where they are on disc.
Yes, I agree that is what it looks like - like they have been installed twice, but in two separate locations, but browsing to the file location on both entries, I am taken to the same location both times:
C:/User/[username]/My Documents/DAZ 3D/Studio/My Library/People/Genesis/Characters
One thing you could try that is designed to remove duplicate content thumbnails is:
In the Content Library pane, click on the menu icon in the upper corner and select "Content DB Maintenance", then from that window, check "Consolidate File References" and press the Accept button.
While this may not be what is happening in your case this time since you verified the actual link was the same for both, you can also get the appearance of duplicate thumbnails if you can't see the file extensions and they have two different file extensions. If you want to see the extentions in the future: Edit > Preferences > Content Library: Check "show file extensions".
I have tried the "Consolidate File References" but it did not do anything.
However, when I enabled the "show file extensions", I did find something interesting. While both the duplicate images point me to the same location, I can now see that they have different file extensions.
I have no idea what the difference is between a .dsf and a .duf, or how I even came to have them both installed, but at least now I know what is going on; it isn't DS having a fit, because there are two files that it's finding.
I have these notes written down, although I don't really understand the fully:
.dsf, .duf: are just data, and are the officially supported format going forward. .dsf/.duf will not work in older versions of DS, but being data they will work in other applications such as Carrara (or even Poser and other third-party applications) once importers are available, unlike the scripts which require the DS scripting engine.
I have been told that if I have duplicate .dsf and .duf, I don't need the .duf.
Thanks very much for the info, Sean!
.duf is the format used by DS4.5+ for user-facing files; .dsf was used for 4.0. Most likely those products had both a DS and Legacy version and you installed both of them. If you have both, you only need the .duf, which is the preferred format for DS4.5+
(Note: 4.5+ still use .dsf for files int he Data folder, and some products have not been updated to .duf so they only have .dsf versions.)
Thanks for confirming this!
I wanted to say thanks for this info too! Switching to 'Show File References' really helped to make it clearer what was happening to my Library (It should be set on by default! :) )
Two questions: Exactly what does the 'Consolidate File References' do in the Content Db Maintenance menu? If there an item is listed in two different directories is one deleted or will it only delete an item showing up twice in the same directory?
My second question is just a confirmation:
Good to know! So we can delete the .dsf files without issue as long as we have the .duf version of the file?It is a Better practice to use the DIM to un-install the legacy files (.dsf) if they were installed by DIM. That will remove not only the user facing files but other files the user never sees but DAZ Studio uses. If you hand installed you should open the Legacy Zip file and be sure that you remove all the files that were placed in your content. Be very careful that you only remove files that match what is in the zip exactly, down to the letter exactly is needed here.
Since the “Remove Orphaned File References” and “Consolidate File References” options were removed from DB Maintenance dialog in DS 4.9.1.30, how does one deal with category duplicates?
They shouldn't happen, at least in the same way - that's why the commands were removed, they no longer made sense.
As far as I learnt, lots of products (especially in sales of the DAZ shop) come with extra Poser, ... PS, ... Legacy, etc. sub-packages.
Being now aware of this, I of cause download but do not install these. Only if a product don't work properly and requires one of those additional parts, I install them too afterwards.
Hey all. I have the same issue, I have the my content library for Poser and Daz 3 compatible content duplicated now 3 times! Once happened cos my laptop decided on its own to redesignate my external drive, and I had to do a content search to restore everything, and twice more because I had to move content from the OS drive to the other two drives in the laptop to save space on the OS drive. I tried everything suggested here, and I STILL have an enormous library list, half of which is just dead content listings. I'd really like to condense it down, but nothing works.
OMG... they had tools in DS for dealling with problems (that shouldn't happen but clearly do happen) ... and they removed them!! Yeah, that makes sense. Please DAZ... put them back.
They had tools for dealing with a situation that could happen, as a result of the way the CMS stored locations as aboslute paths, in older versions of the CMS - the new version of the CMS isn't vulnerable to the same issues (because it sues relative paths instead of absolute paths) so the tools didn't do anything and were removed.
Hate to resurrect this thread but it's 2 years later and I am having the same problem. Unexplained duplicates of Genesis 2, 3 & 8 and Base Male & Female are showing in Smart Content but there is only one copy of each when I go to the actual folder in my library. How do I fix this?
Open the Additional Information area at the bottom of the Smart Content pane or Content Library if using custom categories. Click on each duplicate file reference to check which Product it belongs to. I had many double references to files, where, although there was only one physical file, one reference was in product LOCAL USER, and the other in the correct product. The Genesis Base characters are in the Essentials packages, and have been updated more than once since their release. Installing the update over an existing installation might not always remove the old references. Compare Product Name, GUID, etc. for any differences.
I was convinced I had this problem (having had it before).
Both entries were .duf, The additional info looked identical. I checked another pair and they were the same apart from the dates, another pair were the same but slightly different sizes.
I cut and pasted both links into a text file thinking there might be some subtle difference.
There was! One was genesis 3, the other 8 !!! (excuse: there are 159 chars in path and 3 looks a bit like 8)
I know it's stupid but this might help someone in future.
It would be nice if vendors added a small 3 or 8 to the png maybe with a different background colour. Think I'll do that for my most used content.
Just realised this is only a problen when in 'Products' tab. In 'Files' only the relevant Gen 3 or 8 is shown.