Daz Central breaks my databases
ebslater26
Posts: 28
This is the second time I've tried to use Daz Central instead of Install Manager (the new app must be better, right?). Every time I try it my content directories get messed up, it breaks PostgreSQL, and my Smart Content tab (CMS) shows a fraction of my products and they are all grayed out.
I just spent an hour removing it and fixing Daz. Why make such a broken product?
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Daz Central should respect the Install Manager directory settings - and show Managed By Install Manager in its settings dialogue - so unless soemthing is going wrong with the settings in DIM that is surprising. Are you using just the single, default profile in DIM or have you added and are you using a second profile?
My databases and Smart Content has broken three times in the past week. Twice I have uninstalled all products through DIM and reinstalled them. This usually fixes it.
Yesterday I installed another hundred or two products. Started DS and my Smart Content is broken again.
I don't use Central, my DS isn't online, and my log on information isn't entered into DS.
If this is related to what you are experiencing, there may be more going on than just Central.
OP, by chance, do you have SY Starry Sky Lights and HDRIs for Iray installed?
I have been trouble shooting what is causing my Smart Content to break and I narrowed it down to this product.
I install it, start DS, Smart Content is gone.
I uninstall it, Smart Content is back.
It would help if the way in which PostgreSQL or Smart Content are breaking was described.
Here is what I saw.
1. Smart Content populated properly. Everything is defined and in its place.
2. Install SY Starry Sky Lights thru DIM. Start DS. All Smart Content definition is gone. Everything is in "Default" and nothing else.
3. Tried re-importing metadata. Tried clearing the database. Tried starting and stopping CMS. No change.
4. Exit DS. Uninstall SY Starry Sky Lights.
5. Return to DS. All Smart Content is back to being catagorized. No database operations were needed to fix it.
I've been fighting with this for a week. I only discovered today that SY Starry Sky Lights was the root cause.
I've uninstalled and reinstalled. Everything was working up until SY Starry Sky Lights was installed. That's when I realized where the problem was.
What was obfuscating the problem was the number of recent products that have Smart Content problems:
X-Fashion Stylish Outfit Shorts for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Females
The Alchemist Workshop Props
The Young Wizard Outfit
King's Magister dForce Outfit
Trending Socials Outfit for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Females
FG Construction Props
Virgo Zodiac Tattoo for Genesis 8.1
etc. etc. etc.
All of these have issues where the metadata information isn't coming up properly. Missing icons, missing catagorization, etc.
Here are some screenshots as evidence.
The first two are some of the products with metadata problems.
The third shot shows my current Smart Content appearance.
The fourth shot is the result when I exit DS, start DIM, install SY Starry Nights, then restart DS.
Whatever is causing the issue with SY Starry Nights might not be an isolated situation. The same cause and effect may be happening with other products.
That sounds like (very) bad metadata - please report it via a ticket (assuming you are sure you have the current version of the package - I have it, installed through Connect, with no deleterious consequences)
I'm sorry. I'm not opening a ticket for this. Don't take this the wrong way but... It took me a week to fix it, I don't want to use even more time documenting, explaining, and having to re-explain it. It's just more aggrevation that I don't need.
You have no idea how much time I waste trying to trouble shoot and resolve issues that shouldn't be happening in the first place. Then spending weeks trying to ferry a ticket to completion is just adding insult to injury.
To answer the specific questions you asked:
I don't use Connect or Central. I use DIM and nothing else.
DIM is up to date. The packages in DIM are up to date.
If the DIM package is broken, I would expect that the Connect / Central package probably has the same problem.
Jason, have you done something to customize your categories in Daz Studio? Normally all DIM installed categories are subcategories under a top level Default category. Your third image showing your Smart Content in the "good" state does not have that top level Default category.
Here is my Smart Content display. I do not own the SY Starry Nights product.
Nope. No customization involved. I've never intentionally used this option.
When I reset the database I made it a point to not backup the user data.
When I reimported the metadata I unclicked the user data option as well.
For the screenshots I believe I was in the Default window, it just got cut off during the screen snip.
I know SY Starry is behind the issue; uninstalling it fixes the issue in DS Smart Content without having to do anything. In other words, after restarting DS the Smart Content is back to normal, with no need to do anything to the database or reimport metadata.
Edit to add, I see what you mean about the third image. I have no idea why that would be, to be honest.
I have that set - no issues with the install. Everything installed with Install Manager.Two images, because I have so much installed.
ETA - Like barbult, I'm wondering where the top level 'default' went - all the metadata DAZ provides is set up to install these cataegories under default. Unless this is a function of Central I didn't notice the day I played with it and found it too limiting for my needs.
First image, Smart Content with SY Starry installed.
Second image, Smart Content without SY Starry installed.
Default is present only when Starry is installed, which installs to a level above Default.
When Starry is not installed, there is no Default.
Which means that all my efforts try to fix this this week were wrong because I wasn't loosing all my Smart Content... My folders were being shifted around after the installation of SY Starry. And I wasn't expanding the Default category downwards, so I didn't see that they were nested under there, since I've never had an issue where the nesting would be FUBARed after a single install.
If you look in the Content Library pane at the Categories section, do you see the Default category as the top level there when SY Starry Nights is not installed?
I do. Starry is outside of the structure here too, but it is uninstalled. So no icons show up under it when selected.
OP - Apologies. I've derailed your situation when I thought these were related.
In reference to this image you posted:
With SY Starry Nights installed, if you expand the Default category in Smart Content, do you see your categories and product icons. If so, it seems like SY Starry Nights is somehow restoring your missing Default category but putting itself outside of that. This is perplexing. We are still just looking for clues. I wonder if there is some DIM configuration that could affect this.
Now that I think about it - I think the metadata for Starry Nights is bad as shipped by DAZ and I fixed my copy over a yearr ago while doing a complete re-install. I do remember that I had three products that installed outside default and one was a Sickleyield product. This is probably the one. I was up to my armpits in swamp and alligator at the time, so I never got around to reporting it.
I believe that when you have only Default categories, the Default tree is displayed without the heading "Default". As soon as something is added outside of Default, there is now a list of Category trees, and each is displayed. This SY Starry Sky Lights is adding a category outside of Default, so there are now two branches to show. Still, the Default branch should show all the categories that were there before, just nested one level down.
Almost - the Staryy Sky product does not have default at the beginning of its category path, as it should, so the top level Default category is displayed alongside its new sibling top-level category - when there are no sibling categories Default is hidden. See http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/smart_content/category_view/start
So it wasn't that the product was actually breaking anything, it was just adding an extra container to the list which would not normally show, but everything within that was still present. I already had some sibling categories, so it dodn't make any difference - I always need to expand default anyway.
With Starry installed, Smart Content looks like this when Default is expanded:
DIM set up is pretty simple:
Everything is downloaded to an external drive. Drive has a locked drive letter of W.
DS and stand alone applications are installed to C:. I have a DAZ subdirectory on C root. Under that I have a 32, 64, and Manifest directory.
Content packages are installed to two directories; D:/DAZ Installs/Base Library and D:/DAZ Installs/Temp Installs/2020.03.12
Mystery solved. There is nothing wrong with your setup. Change the metadata to put "/Light Sets/SY Starry Sky HDRI Iray" under Default (i.e., "/Default/Light Sets/SY Starry Sky HDRI Iray").
Northof45 and Richard Haseltine have solved the mystery. I have an extra top level category "barbult" for my personal categories, as recommended by Daz. That is why I see Default in Smart Content. Default and barbult are siblings (same hierarchy level). So the real problem is that SY Starry Nights has bad metadata, and either nobody reported it, or it was reported, but Daz didn't fix it.
Here is my rant, which is pretty much spitting in the wind. This happens 4 out of 5 times.
I sit down to work on a simple project. I fire up DS and discover something isn't working as advertised. This time it was Smart Content. Other times its running out of memory unexpectedly. Or a product that didn't install properly. Or various G8 issues. Files that won't download. etc etc etc.
Opening DS has feels like getting a present from a grandparent. You don't know what's in the box, you know you probably won't want it, and you have to make sure to smile when you open it.
I then spend hours / days trouble shooting and fixing whatever the problem might be.
When it is resolved, I am usually too drained to actual work on the project I had planned.
It's turned into a tech support job.
I don't see anything in the referenced page that mentions sibling categories or the Default category being hidden. Is that the correct link?
Here is why the situation is broken and why it should be taken more seriously.
I had no DEFAULT category under Smart Content for months. When I opened Smart Content there was nothing to expand. All the categories presented themselves.
After installing SY Starry, I now had a DEFAULT and LIGHT SETS at the top level of Smart Content. Clicking on DEFAULT didn't cause the drop down to appear. It just populated the right hand content window. Nothing implied that I should be hitting the drop down. I had to go out of my way to realize that I should expand the category that was never there before.
That started a whole week's worth of pain:
Process metadata queue, reimport metadata, stop CMS, start CMS, reset database, uninstall 2100 products, install 2100 products, ad naseum. I did that uninstall / install process 3x this week. Each cycle was five or six hours.
Why did I go through all of this? Because there are so many products with bad metadata to begin with. I've become accustomed to unexpected errors. And the recent update breaking half my products.
I'm not an expert on DS, but I know enough to get around and trouble shoot things to try and figure out when things go sideways.
What hope does a new user have?
Ask first?
Anyway, to answer the OP's first question: DAZ Central is the newer app, but it is meant for beginners who do not want to, or cannot, tinker with all the customization that can be done with DIM. You will be much happier staying with DIM.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/smart_content/files_page/category_view/start
I had to stare at that to work out what was different, but the comment is on that page as an info boxout under User categories.
Thanks for your reply. I'm just using the default profile in DAZ. I keep my assett libraries organized, i.e. sepperate asset libraries for Characters, props, environments, etc. which is where I imagine my problems come from. After my troubleshooting the other day I figured out that Daz Central was changing the default location of my Content Database Base path, which I have customized in Install Manager (not the default path). Of course, I hadn't made a note of where I had it (and forgot) so it took a while to find.
I'm not really looking for a solution. I was honestly just frustrated and needed to vent. DIM works great for what I need it to do. I was just trying Daz Central to see if there were any cool new features, and the nagging fear that DIM will be discontinued in the future (I hope they don't).
FYI, I keep my assett libraries seperate so that I can unload a library and speed up loading/processing times. For example, if my Characters library is open in Daz it can take 2-5 minutes to load a character (I have a LOT of assets in my library). But if I'm working in an active project and need animations and response times to be reasonable, I unload some libraries, load my scene, and get to work. There are more steps in there obviously but that's the jist of it. I'm not sure if this is the right way to work or if there might be a better way, but it works for me.
I do the same thing you do (re: segmenting the product installations).
I would suggest looking into Content Gatherer for archiving any projects or scene assets.
It's a stand alone product that reads your DS save file and produces a list of all the files the scene is using. It will then export the list to a text file or collect all the files into a zip file.
Then later you can unzip the archive and point DS to the content directory. You can open the scene file without having to reinstall anything because all the needed files are already where they need to be.
The caveats are... the progam's author passed away, so it may very well stop functioning with any new DS updates... and it doesn't work on DAZ Connect / DRM / Central files. It will only work with archives that are manually installed or DIM installed.
It's saved me a lot of headaches by collecting texture, geometry, and temporary files that I would have otherwise lost.
I hadn't heard of Content Gatherer. That's fantastic, thanks! I was trying to figure out how to manage that exact problem. I should have known that someone else would have solved it by now. :P