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Best way to go about organizing my assets and backing up my organization system successfully?

FrauBlucherFrauBlucher Posts: 36
edited February 17 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

 I recently had to reinstall windows 10 and reinstall all programs and assets. I have what I thought was a backup of my custom catagories that I had created. When I just checked the file on my external hard drive to make sure I had the correct one, I'm not seeing any reference to the catagories I created, just the Daz provided ones. I think I may have saved the wrong thing. I thought I followed the instructions, but maybe I missed something or just assumed what I created would be included. 

The way I was organizing things before, I was right clicking each asset folder and adding it to the the system I had set up (Modern, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Historical, then divided by type of item). My prior custom catagories in Daz showed up at the bottom under Catagories- Default. 

Assuming that I have to sort all my assets again what is the best way to do this that will allow me to actually save my work? At this point I have quite a few assets so it's going to be a project. I want to make sure I do it the right way this time. 

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

*edited for clarity and spelling

Post edited by FrauBlucher on

Comments

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 8,023

    How did you "backup" your custom categories ?

    - Standard way: export user metadata (Content DB Maintenance > check Export User Data option....), then re-import them after setting up DS in your newly-installed Windows system

    - Fast way: completedly backup cms database ( %appdata%\DAZ 3D\cms ), then restore it in your new system.

  • FrauBlucherFrauBlucher Posts: 36

    crosswind said:

    How did you "backup" your custom categories ?

    - Standard way: export user metadata (Content DB Maintenance > check Export User Data option....), then re-import them after setting up DS in your newly-installed Windows system

    - Fast way: completedly backup cms database ( %appdata%\DAZ 3D\cms ), then restore it in your new system.

    I believe I used the standard way Content DB Maintenance > check Export User Data option. The second one (fast way) does not make any sense to me so I know I didn't try that one. I got the information from the Daz forum on how to export it, but it's been many months so the specifics have escaped me. I have not tried to reimport what I have saved.

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 8,023
    edited February 17

    Why the fast way doesn't make any sense to you ? If you have 30K products, 10G size of cms database, you could get it restored just by copy/paste within 30 secs. with all metadata intact ~~

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • FrauBlucherFrauBlucher Posts: 36
    edited February 17

    crosswind said:

    Why the fast way doesn't make any sense to you ? If you have 30K products, 10G size of cms database, you could get it restored just by copy/paste within 30 secs. with all metadata intact ~~

    It doesn't make sense to me because I my computer knowledge is patchy at best. Copy and paste to where?  Thank you for taking the time to explain this. 

    Post edited by FrauBlucher on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,316

    crosswind said:

    Why the fast way doesn't make any sense to you ? If you have 30K products, 10G size of cms database, you could get it restored just by copy/paste within 30 secs. with all metadata intact ~~

    Because she's not a programmer / system administrator and doesn't know what an SQL database is or how to back up & restore them.

    The DAZ Studio supplied why that she did the backup & restore is fine. What is a few minutes when if you have thousands of products in DIM you will be reinstalling in a clean windows install that will take many hours, especially if run off a USB drive?

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 8,023
    edited February 17

    FrauBlucher said:

    crosswind said:

    Why the fast way doesn't make any sense to you ? If you have 30K products, 10G size of cms database, you could get it restored just by copy/paste within 30 secs. with all metadata intact ~~

    It doesn't make sense to me because I my computer knowledge is patchy at best. Copy and paste to where?  Thank you for taking the time to explain this. 

    Oaky, the steps are pretty simple:

    0) Fully close DS and DIM applications.
    1) Open your File Explorer / File Browser, go to the path: %appdata%\DAZ 3D\  Copy cms folder to one of your disks (non C drive !) ... (screenshot 1)
    2) After you install the new system, as well as DS and postgreSQL of course, copy / paste the above cms folder to the very same path  %appdata%\DAZ 3D\  Overwrite it !

    Also, make sure you backup these folder as well. Then restore them to your new system.
    %appdata%\DAZ 3D\InstallManager
    C:\Users\Public\Documents\DAZ 3D\InstallManager

    In this way, you don't have to re-install products, export / import metadata... yada yada . All the data of installed products and custom metadata will be intact.

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    Post edited by crosswind on
  • FrauBlucherFrauBlucher Posts: 36
    edited February 18

    Thank you for the detailed explanation! That sounds like a quick way to do things. I will definetly use that way for my next backup.

    I wanted to see exactly what would be in the saved cms file so I copied my current cms folder(created after the reinstall) and compared it to what I have copied on my external drive. The cms copy from today shows a Content Cluster file and a  cmscfg.json file. On my external drive I have my prior (I thought it was more recent)Content Cluster file within the Content database file, but not the cmscfg.json file. Is it possible that this is still useful? I assume the other files are there because I saved it by the standard method.

     

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    Post edited by FrauBlucher on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 8,023
    edited February 17

    The file cmscfg.json comes from the cms path / port settings in DIM... check below screenshot. So each time you launch DIM, it writes this file to cms folder.  So don't worry about it ... no matter you have it or not.

    Just make sure you correctly configure the settings in DIM as well as Content Directory Manager beforehand.

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    Post edited by crosswind on
  • FrauBlucherFrauBlucher Posts: 36

    crosswind said:

    The file cmscfg.json comes from the cms path / port settings in DIM... check below screenshot. So each time you launch DIM, it writes this file to cms folder.  So don't worry about it ... no matter you have it or not.

    Just make sure you correctly configure the settings in DIM as well as Content Directory Manager beforehand.

    Thank you so much!! All of my catagories are back! I'm going to do a do a bit more asset sorting then resave the file the fast way. You saved me many hours of work. Thank you for your easy to follow instructions. 

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 8,023

    FrauBlucher said:

    crosswind said:

    The file cmscfg.json comes from the cms path / port settings in DIM... check below screenshot. So each time you launch DIM, it writes this file to cms folder.  So don't worry about it ... no matter you have it or not.

    Just make sure you correctly configure the settings in DIM as well as Content Directory Manager beforehand.

    Thank you so much!! All of my catagories are back! I'm going to do a do a bit more asset sorting then resave the file the fast way. You saved me many hours of work. Thank you for your easy to follow instructions. 

    No problem ! Pls take your time ~~smiley

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