[Released] Content Wizard [Commercial]

RiverSoft Art

Rod Wise Driggo said:

I am a huge fan of Content Wizard. I might have found out the perfect workflow finally and thought why not share it.

The following is meant for users who want to be flexible in installing/uninstalling stuff and the metadata created with CW.
My setup is like this: I have a 4 TB external HDD to store all my downloads and a 2 TB SDD for my working library. I use only DIM. Therefore my 4 TB holds all the packages downloaded with DIM (I never delete them) plus folder structures from the downloads from other stores. I install only to my 2 TB SSD.

Important: I have a dedicated library for CW-initial installs. This library is always empty and has only a subfolder "runtime" with a nested folder "support" as Content Wizard is needing those to create the metadata-files.

1. Preparation of ZIPs
Initally I manually combine the downloaded ZIPs. So if there are 1+ I locally extract and combine everything in one ZIP. If I do not like the naming inside of the people (or environment etc.) folder I adjust. Sometimes I even use a Renamer-tool to change the name of particular files i.e. to include G3F/G8F if the product is for multiple generations. I also remove any readmes etc. from the ZIPs.

2. First install with Content Wizard to CW-library
I analyse the ZIP, install and let CW create the smart content. Once this is done I create the installer manually adjusting the name to my liking.

3. Deleting of installed product
Now I find the new product in smart content, let it be shown in the file library and delete it within DAZ studio. In the CW library I delete all installed files including the metadata-files CW created under runtime/support. So the product is completely gone. Doing this with a CW-only library is rather easy as you just have to delete everything appart from the folders runtime and runtime/support which need to stay for future installs.

4. Altering the supplement.dsx (Optional)
You may ignore this step but then your new product will show up in DIM similar to all other products. Instead I extract the supplement.dsx from the created installer and change the Product Name. I alter i.e. "Product for G8F" to "Vendorname - Product for G8F (RC)" where RC is for example Renderosity. In doing so I can easily search in DIM for just lilflame-Stuff or Products from Rendo etc.

5. Moving the installer created with DIM to the packages-folder from DIM
The installer with the altered supplement.dsx then goes to the packages-folder and I delete the original files downloaded from the 3rd party store.

6. Re-Installing via DIM
Open DIM again or refresh to have the installer you just moved appear in DIM under downloaded. Just change sort order to rencently downloaded to have it appear on top. Now install/uninstall whenever you like.

Of course this workflow is a little time-consuming but quite rewarding. If you only move the installer and install "over" the files already created with CW, DIM would not remove anything on uninstalling as DIM can only delete files it created.

Disclaimer: I'm happy with this workflow but maybe there are faster ways in doing things. So feel free to add your thoughts.

Thank you for sharing your workflow!  I hope it helps people.

RiverSoft Art

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

Interesting. Today, I was able to literally crash CW. After using it a couple of hundred times (potentially the most reliable piece of software I have used in the last five years). The crashing item was a freebie for Cat Zeus over at Renderhub. Fiber fur, supplied by Vyusur, the creator of Zeus, who left Daz for reasons not made public.

And, yes, it was a crash of DS, not just a terminated script. Using DS 4.20.0.17. Crashing with a segmentation fault.

Do you have the log?  Can you repeat it?

Rod Wise Driggo

Finally discovered the Smart Content-Pane inside of Content Wizard. Did not use that one before but seems to be helpful. That is once someone might be able to explain to me how to select single or even multiple items. Whenever I click on an item it appears bigger in the "Compatibility Target" section and I need to click on "Remove Target" to get back to have everything in the middle again. I cannot find a way to select multiple items on Mac!

And a second thing: Was there any update to Content Wizard dealing wiht the SAVE-problem? Guess this only occurs on Mac. One cannot exit CW by clicking on save. If one does, there is a beachall spinning and no further reaction so whole Studio needs to be force quit. My workaround is currently to click on cancel after creating the installer but I would be glad to have the SAVE-option back.

And finally a third thing I lost track about. Tried several times to alter the script so that a proper Mac editor would be loaded to edit. But never succeded. Was anybody successful in getting a Mac editor integrated?

SofaCitizen

Rod Wise Driggo said:

Finally discovered the Smart Content-Pane inside of Content Wizard. Did not use that one before but seems to be helpful. That is once someone might be able to explain to me how to select single or even multiple items. Whenever I click on an item it appears bigger in the "Compatibility Target" section and I need to click on "Remove Target" to get back to have everything in the middle again. I cannot find a way to select multiple items on Mac!

And a second thing: Was there any update to Content Wizard dealing wiht the SAVE-problem? Guess this only occurs on Mac. One cannot exit CW by clicking on save. If one does, there is a beachall spinning and no further reaction so whole Studio needs to be force quit. My workaround is currently to click on cancel after creating the installer but I would be glad to have the SAVE-option back.

And finally a third thing I lost track about. Tried several times to alter the script so that a proper Mac editor would be loaded to edit. But never succeded. Was anybody successful in getting a Mac editor integrated?

I only use Content Wizard on my Mac - but it's a 2019 iMac - do you have one of the new M1 macs? I imagine that could make a difference.

On the save issue, mine does sometimes lock-up too when I hit Save but usually only for a little while and then all goes back to normal. Not sure what it's up to and it doesn't happen everytime so I might need to start paying attention and/or watching the log to see if there is a pattern.

I have hooked up an Editor to it. Atleast I am pretty sure I have but I don't tend to use the features that would require it so will have to test it again in a bit. If it works I'll post what I did to see if that helps.

As for the first issue, that doesn't sound familiar however I have been very lazy recently and just accepting the auto-config. Might have to start paying attention tho as I have just spotted some CW-installed that tagged G3F models as Male so it's not doing a good a job as I thought.

SofaCitizen

OK, done some more testing and have the following updates:

Editor:

I have the following value set in data/RiverSoft Art/Common/RSSmartContentConstants.dsa:

var sEditor = "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app"

Obviously this will only work if you have VSCode installed at this location but if not then atleast this gives you a format that SHOULD work. Note, if you are looking in the Terminal in your Applications folder you will notice that Apps are actually folders but don't put the trailing slash in variable value. With this value set I was able to double-click on the File Type column to open the duf file in VS Code - not sure how useful that is but it demonstrates the setting is understood.

Multi-Select:

I just removed what I typed earlier as I realised I mis-read what you said the first time. I can now confirm I have the same issue in that I cannot originally select multiple items in the Smart Content tab window - as soon as you click the first item then all the other items dissapear. Shift-Click and Apple-Click have no effect, Ctrl-Click does not do anything and Option-Click says it will remove the item from the category.

However - after poking about and switching between the Smart Content and Table View a few times the behaviour changed. At some point when I started clicking the items they did not disappear and so I could click multiple items and when shift-clicking another category they all were added to it. However, there was no indication of which items were selected (e.g. no yellow border like in table view) and I have no idea what I did to make the behaviour change :/

Save Button:

I have some-what figured out what is causing this by tailing the Daz log. When I was opening Content Wizard there was a whole bunch of spam about images from a product that it was looking for in the temporary folder that were obviously no longer there. While this situation was in place, hitting the Save button resulted in a ~3min lock-up/beachballing while it was doing the "SaveInfoToSettings" function.

I was able to "fix" this by loading a mostly-empty configuration file using the "Load Configuration file" button and then clicking Save - this then beachballed for 1 or 2 seconds before giving back control of Daz Studio.

It seems like the "New Product" button is not correctly clearing the '<Setting Type="SubSetting" Key="Product Files"/>' value (as I would assume it should do) and so the file metadata for this is Saved when you hit the Save button - not sure why it takes so long to parse them tho. You can check this by loading up Content Wizard and clicking "Save Configuration File" before doing anything else. If you save the file to your hard drive and open it in a text editor you will see all the data that is being parsed at launch and when you hit the Save button. In my case I had 1,670 lines of configuration data for the last product I imported before hitting Save.

 

Those are just my observations/testing as a fellow Mac end-user.

RiverSoft Art

SofaCitizen said:

OK, done some more testing and have the following updates:

Editor:

I have the following value set in data/RiverSoft Art/Common/RSSmartContentConstants.dsa:

var sEditor = "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app"

Obviously this will only work if you have VSCode installed at this location but if not then atleast this gives you a format that SHOULD work. Note, if you are looking in the Terminal in your Applications folder you will notice that Apps are actually folders but don't put the trailing slash in variable value. With this value set I was able to double-click on the File Type column to open the duf file in VS Code - not sure how useful that is but it demonstrates the setting is understood.

Multi-Select:

I just removed what I typed earlier as I realised I mis-read what you said the first time. I can now confirm I have the same issue in that I cannot originally select multiple items in the Smart Content tab window - as soon as you click the first item then all the other items dissapear. Shift-Click and Apple-Click have no effect, Ctrl-Click does not do anything and Option-Click says it will remove the item from the category.

I can confirm this.  Multi-Select works in Content Library tab though.

However - after poking about and switching between the Smart Content and Table View a few times the behaviour changed. At some point when I started clicking the items they did not disappear and so I could click multiple items and when shift-clicking another category they all were added to it. However, there was no indication of which items were selected (e.g. no yellow border like in table view) and I have no idea what I did to make the behaviour change :/

Save Button:

I have some-what figured out what is causing this by tailing the Daz log. When I was opening Content Wizard there was a whole bunch of spam about images from a product that it was looking for in the temporary folder that were obviously no longer there. While this situation was in place, hitting the Save button resulted in a ~3min lock-up/beachballing while it was doing the "SaveInfoToSettings" function.

I was able to "fix" this by loading a mostly-empty configuration file using the "Load Configuration file" button and then clicking Save - this then beachballed for 1 or 2 seconds before giving back control of Daz Studio.

It seems like the "New Product" button is not correctly clearing the '<Setting Type="SubSetting" Key="Product Files"/>' value (as I would assume it should do) and so the file metadata for this is Saved when you hit the Save button - not sure why it takes so long to parse them tho. You can check this by loading up Content Wizard and clicking "Save Configuration File" before doing anything else. If you save the file to your hard drive and open it in a text editor you will see all the data that is being parsed at launch and when you hit the Save button. In my case I had 1,670 lines of configuration data for the last product I imported before hitting Save.

I will investigate.

 

Those are just my observations/testing as a fellow Mac end-user.

tsroemi

If the question has been answered before I do apologize, I couldn't find it in this thread: I would like to use Content Wizard to split up zips that contain different types of products, like a figure and her hair, or her clothes etc. I want clothes, hairs and characters to be in different installations. Unfortunately, there seems to be no preset to differentiate things this way; I can only split up between props, figures, data and so on, but neither hairs nor clothes are mentioned. Can I manually install these parts of a mixed zip to a specific destination that I set up beforehand, or is that impossible?

Thanks and cheers! Tina

RiverSoft Art

tsroemi said:

If the question has been answered before I do apologize, I couldn't find it in this thread: I would like to use Content Wizard to split up zips that contain different types of products, like a figure and her hair, or her clothes etc. I want clothes, hairs and characters to be in different installations. Unfortunately, there seems to be no preset to differentiate things this way; I can only split up between props, figures, data and so on, but neither hairs nor clothes are mentioned. Can I manually install these parts of a mixed zip to a specific destination that I set up beforehand, or is that impossible?

Thanks and cheers! Tina

CW is not designed for splitting up products, but for creating smart content metadata for a product. 

You *could* copy the zips yourself and for each zip copy leave in only the user facing files for each type of product (I wouldn't touch the data directory unless you really know what you are doing.  Since all the split zips will install to the same data directory, it won't matter for the installations).  Then when CW analyzes the zip it will only find the hair and create smart content for that, only find the figure and create smart content for that, etc.

tsroemi

RiverSoftArt said:

tsroemi said:

If the question has been answered before I do apologize, I couldn't find it in this thread: I would like to use Content Wizard to split up zips that contain different types of products, like a figure and her hair, or her clothes etc. I want clothes, hairs and characters to be in different installations. Unfortunately, there seems to be no preset to differentiate things this way; I can only split up between props, figures, data and so on, but neither hairs nor clothes are mentioned. Can I manually install these parts of a mixed zip to a specific destination that I set up beforehand, or is that impossible?

Thanks and cheers! Tina

CW is not designed for splitting up products, but for creating smart content metadata for a product. 

You *could* copy the zips yourself and for each zip copy leave in only the user facing files for each type of product (I wouldn't touch the data directory unless you really know what you are doing.  Since all the split zips will install to the same data directory, it won't matter for the installations).  Then when CW analyzes the zip it will only find the hair and create smart content for that, only find the figure and create smart content for that, etc.

Thank you, I will try that! 

Mark_e593e0a5

RiverSoftArt said:

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

Interesting. Today, I was able to literally crash CW. After using it a couple of hundred times (potentially the most reliable piece of software I have used in the last five years). The crashing item was a freebie for Cat Zeus over at Renderhub. Fiber fur, supplied by Vyusur, the creator of Zeus, who left Daz for reasons not made public.

And, yes, it was a crash of DS, not just a terminated script. Using DS 4.20.0.17. Crashing with a segmentation fault.

Do you have the log?  Can you repeat it?

It was constantly repeatable with 4.20.0.17. Using any lower version worked, using the current 4.21.x.x version also works. I suppose that was a glitch in the Daz scripting engine that made it just into that very version. 

RiverSoft Art

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

RiverSoftArt said:

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

Interesting. Today, I was able to literally crash CW. After using it a couple of hundred times (potentially the most reliable piece of software I have used in the last five years). The crashing item was a freebie for Cat Zeus over at Renderhub. Fiber fur, supplied by Vyusur, the creator of Zeus, who left Daz for reasons not made public.

And, yes, it was a crash of DS, not just a terminated script. Using DS 4.20.0.17. Crashing with a segmentation fault.

Do you have the log?  Can you repeat it?

It was constantly repeatable with 4.20.0.17. Using any lower version worked, using the current 4.21.x.x version also works. I suppose that was a glitch in the Daz scripting engine that made it just into that very version. 

Hmmm, I don't see anything in their change logs.  It could have been a DS issue or perhaps just a misconfiguration issue on your system.  When you went to 4.21 it fixed it.

Platnumk

For some reason when installing clothing for G9/V9 they don't show in the smart content if you have V9 selected in the scene

Sevrin

There have been issues with Smart Content compatibility since the launch of G8.1.  It's best to turn off Filter by Context in most cases.

Mark_e593e0a5

CW does not yet "know" the new figure generation. There needs to be at least one entry in /data/RiverSoft Art/Common/RSSmartContentConstants.dsa for Genesis 9. I have no idea if there ia a need to distinguish between male and female, as the figure mesh is unified. 

The entries should look like this (I am NOT SURE on the items marked in bold:

  'genesis 9 male'                : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Male'],
                                     gender: ['Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9M',
                                     generation: 9
                                   }, 

'genesis 9 female'              : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female'],
                                     gender: ['Female'],
                                     acronym: 'G9F',
                                     generation: 9

'genesis 9'                     : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World', '/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female', '/Genesis 9/Male'], // always female first
                                     gender: ['Female', 'Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9',
                                     generation: 9
                                   },

Platnumk

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

CW does not yet "know" the new figure generation. There needs to be at least one entry in /data/RiverSoft Art/Common/RSSmartContentConstants.dsa for Genesis 9. I have no idea if there ia a need to distinguish between male and female, as the figure mesh is unified. 

The entries should look like this (I am NOT SURE on the items marked in bold:

  'genesis 9 male'                : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Male'],
                                     gender: ['Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9M',
                                     generation: 9
                                   }, 

'genesis 9 female'              : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female'],
                                     gender: ['Female'],
                                     acronym: 'G9F',
                                     generation: 9

'genesis 9'                     : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World', '/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female', '/Genesis 9/Male'], // always female first
                                     gender: ['Female', 'Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9',
                                     generation: 9
                                   },

I tried this but it's making Daz Studio crash back to the desktop

RiverSoft Art

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

CW does not yet "know" the new figure generation. There needs to be at least one entry in /data/RiverSoft Art/Common/RSSmartContentConstants.dsa for Genesis 9. I have no idea if there ia a need to distinguish between male and female, as the figure mesh is unified. 

The entries should look like this (I am NOT SURE on the items marked in bold:

  'genesis 9 male'                : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Male'],
                                     gender: ['Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9M',
                                     generation: 9
                                   }, 

'genesis 9 female'              : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female'],
                                     gender: ['Female'],
                                     acronym: 'G9F',
                                     generation: 9

'genesis 9'                     : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World', '/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female', '/Genesis 9/Male'], // always female first
                                     gender: ['Female', 'Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9',
                                     generation: 9
                                   },

I will update CW for Genesis 9.  I don't know when and I don't know when it will get through testing (as you can imagine, Daz has a LOT of testing on their hands right now)

Platnumk

RiverSoftArt said:

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

CW does not yet "know" the new figure generation. There needs to be at least one entry in /data/RiverSoft Art/Common/RSSmartContentConstants.dsa for Genesis 9. I have no idea if there ia a need to distinguish between male and female, as the figure mesh is unified. 

The entries should look like this (I am NOT SURE on the items marked in bold:

  'genesis 9 male'                : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Male'],
                                     gender: ['Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9M',
                                     generation: 9
                                   }, 

'genesis 9 female'              : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female'],
                                     gender: ['Female'],
                                     acronym: 'G9F',
                                     generation: 9

'genesis 9'                     : { category: ['/Default/Figures/People/Female/Real World', '/Default/Figures/People/Male/Real World'],
                                     compatibility: ['/Genesis 9/Female', '/Genesis 9/Male'], // always female first
                                     gender: ['Female', 'Male'],
                                     acronym: 'G9',
                                     generation: 9
                                   },

I will update CW for Genesis 9.  I don't know when and I don't know when it will get through testing (as you can imagine, Daz has a LOT of testing on their hands right now)

I belive I have found a work-a-round until you find time to update CW,  It's when it trys to set the Compatibilities - do to G9 being a unimesh having it set to G9 Female, G8 Male or G9 Female + G9 Male causes Daz to crash but if you set it to Genesis 9/Base it seems to work.

watchdog79

I wanted to express my thanks for the tip on Rendo PAMAWO's products requiring unzipping and rezipping before installation via CW.

Perhaps adding this tip (something like "generally, do unzip and rezip archives from other stores") to the in-Studio PDF might save people a lot of frustration from following the guidelines to the letter and still not being able to install their products.

RiverSoft Art

watchdog79 said:

I wanted to express my thanks for the tip on Rendo PAMAWO's products requiring unzipping and rezipping before installation via CW.

Perhaps adding this tip (something like "generally, do unzip and rezip archives from other stores") to the in-Studio PDF might save people a lot of frustration from following the guidelines to the letter and still not being able to install their products.

I added this tip to the manual.  It will be in the next update.

DoctorJellybean

RiverSoftArt said:

watchdog79 said:

I wanted to express my thanks for the tip on Rendo PAMAWO's products requiring unzipping and rezipping before installation via CW.

Perhaps adding this tip (something like "generally, do unzip and rezip archives from other stores") to the in-Studio PDF might save people a lot of frustration from following the guidelines to the letter and still not being able to install their products.

I added this tip to the manual.  It will be in the next update.

There is going to be an update? I wonder what else will be in the update.

RiverSoft Art

DoctorJellybean said:

RiverSoftArt said:

watchdog79 said:

I wanted to express my thanks for the tip on Rendo PAMAWO's products requiring unzipping and rezipping before installation via CW.

Perhaps adding this tip (something like "generally, do unzip and rezip archives from other stores") to the in-Studio PDF might save people a lot of frustration from following the guidelines to the letter and still not being able to install their products.

I added this tip to the manual.  It will be in the next update.

There is going to be an update? I wonder what else will be in the update.

Right now:

• Genesis 9 Support
• Fix for the slow saving on new products bug
• Updated manual

There are a couple of bug fixes I am working on.  

watchdog79

RiverSoftArt said:

watchdog79 said:

I wanted to express my thanks for the tip on Rendo PAMAWO's products requiring unzipping and rezipping before installation via CW.

Perhaps adding this tip (something like "generally, do unzip and rezip archives from other stores") to the in-Studio PDF might save people a lot of frustration from following the guidelines to the letter and still not being able to install their products.

I added this tip to the manual.  It will be in the next update.

You're a star. 

clerian

Content Wizard is crashing both itself and DazStudio 4.21.0.5 for me almost every time I attempt to do a Install Smart Content for content I got from Renderosity. I checked the DazStudio log file and there is no error tracked by Daz or Content Wizard during the Smart Content Install operations, however I have noticed that whenever I buy new products and install them through DazCentral, 1 item's metadata always fails. I looked at the logs and apparently there is a duplicate product GUID (799228b1-8cb5-4f60-b950-a8bba06040b8) in my content database. Not sure if this is causing the crash for Daz and/or Content Wizard. Is there any way I can remove this duplicate and see if that resolves my issue?

 

EDIT: Daz managed to crash in a way where it allowed me export a memory dump file. It looks like Content Wizard is making Daz trigger a memory access violation. It's definitely repeatable with specific files, while some other files work fine. Could invalid json in the dufs cause problems in Daz during Smart Content install? The vendors are lilflame and Rhiannon.

RiverSoft Art

clerian said:

Content Wizard is crashing both itself and DazStudio 4.21.0.5 for me almost every time I attempt to do a Install Smart Content for content I got from Renderosity. I checked the DazStudio log file and there is no error tracked by Daz or Content Wizard during the Smart Content Install operations, however I have noticed that whenever I buy new products and install them through DazCentral, 1 item's metadata always fails. I looked at the logs and apparently there is a duplicate product GUID (799228b1-8cb5-4f60-b950-a8bba06040b8) in my content database. Not sure if this is causing the crash for Daz and/or Content Wizard. Is there any way I can remove this duplicate and see if that resolves my issue?

 

EDIT: Daz managed to crash in a way where it allowed me export a memory dump file. It looks like Content Wizard is making Daz trigger a memory access violation. It's definitely repeatable with specific files, while some other files work fine. Could invalid json in the dufs cause problems in Daz during Smart Content install? The vendors are lilflame and Rhiannon.

The json should not cause problems with the smart content.  Smart Content is really the database and not the files.

That CW is crashing Daz Studio to me means that it is a problem with DS, probably in the database but I don't even know what to suggest.

clerian

Hmm, I don't fully understand the model daz uses for managing its assets but the gears in my head are turning from what you said.

The weirdest part of all of this is that even when Daz crashes, Content Wizard is still able to insert the data into the database so that upon relaunch Daz shows the new smart content in my library. If there were some bad metadata that was messing up a SQL query like through SQL injection, the products probably wouldn't be showing up properly or it should be corrupting other records.

Also, I've been troubleshooting this issue for the last week, and each time I run into the memory access violations, my computer eventually BSODs and corrupts my windows installation. The first time this happened, I ran diagnostics on my CPU, RAM, and SSDs figuring I had some hardware failure, but after scanning my SSDs for errors and running 100 cycles of RAM tests and prime 95 on all my CPU cores my system came up clean. I thought the BSOD was a fluke, but it happened again tonight 10 minutes after I finished verifying that specific products cause the memory access violation.

In addition, I've reset my content DB a few times trying to figure out if there was some bad data. I reimported only official Daz content and ran into the same issue. Now I'm thinking that tomorrow I should reset the content DB and test the problematic products on a blank database. I guess while I'm at it, if I run into more access violations, I can try to shut down and see if that averts or hastens the BSOD.

Oh, I also did try unzipping and rezipping files on the off chance that it would fix the issue, but no dice there. Problematic products still crashed Daz.

I guess if the content DB reset is a bust, I can try dissecting one of the products and installing smart content that contains a single zip containing a single file at a time to try to isolate the problem down to a specific file that can then be examined further.

RiverSoft Art

clerian said:

Hmm, I don't fully understand the model daz uses for managing its assets but the gears in my head are turning from what you said.

The weirdest part of all of this is that even when Daz crashes, Content Wizard is still able to insert the data into the database so that upon relaunch Daz shows the new smart content in my library. If there were some bad metadata that was messing up a SQL query like through SQL injection, the products probably wouldn't be showing up properly or it should be corrupting other records.

You're right.  That is strange.  The crash is happening on the Install Smart Content, or does it come back and then crashes when trying to exit CW?

Also, I've been troubleshooting this issue for the last week, and each time I run into the memory access violations, my computer eventually BSODs and corrupts my windows installation. The first time this happened, I ran diagnostics on my CPU, RAM, and SSDs figuring I had some hardware failure, but after scanning my SSDs for errors and running 100 cycles of RAM tests and prime 95 on all my CPU cores my system came up clean. I thought the BSOD was a fluke, but it happened again tonight 10 minutes after I finished verifying that specific products cause the memory access violation.

It really sounds like it is not CW but that it is exposing something wrong on your system.  Are the runtime/support files there and uncorrupted?  Does CW get to the "Updating Assets Compatibility Bases..." step?  Can you post the Daz log so I can see CW's final message?

In addition, I've reset my content DB a few times trying to figure out if there was some bad data. I reimported only official Daz content and ran into the same issue. Now I'm thinking that tomorrow I should reset the content DB and test the problematic products on a blank database. I guess while I'm at it, if I run into more access violations, I can try to shut down and see if that averts or hastens the BSOD.

Oh, I also did try unzipping and rezipping files on the off chance that it would fix the issue, but no dice there. Problematic products still crashed Daz.

The zip files would have nothing to do with the Install Smart Content.

I guess if the content DB reset is a bust, I can try dissecting one of the products and installing smart content that contains a single zip containing a single file at a time to try to isolate the problem down to a specific file that can then be examined further.

Mark_e593e0a5

I am also experiencing frequent crashes when creating CW installs for G9 items (exclusively, G3 to G8.1 do work). It crashes DS with a segmentation fault late in the Smart Content creation process. After the crash, the product is installed correctly, but I would really like to have the CW zip files created.

BTW, I extended the constants DSA file to refer to a correct G9 base.

clerian

I managed to get Daz to crash so that CW stayed open and was able to copy the log (this doesn't always happen, when they both crash the logs aren't written to the Daz log). I attached the log, but you'll see that CW completes its operations successfully. I examined the dsx files in the runtime folder and nothing appeared to be wrong with them (the dsa file had the normal script in it).

I also wiped the contentDB and tried installing the problematic files fresh and that still caused Daz to crash.

I have just stripped the content down to the one core duf file in the People directory that I'm pretty sure is required for the smart content and it's crashing with just that one file. I extracted the duf and am reading through it now. Admittedly, I don't know the ins and outs of daz, just looking at the JSON structure for anything peculiar like if there's a daz parameter type mismatch. Something I'm seeing is that "value" and "current_value" for some parameters are not matching, and their precision goes beyond the "step_size" and the two values do not differ by a multiple of the step size (for example a step size of 0.01 is specified, but the two values differ by something like 0.1238543), but the values are still within the min and max range specified. Several negative exponents in some node weights, but they are only 7 digits of precision so should be in the range of a float, presuming node weights are floats. All the arrays specified the appropriate number of elements. A node called "bone" had an array with 23,354 elements referenced in another file (we'll call this file B). Interestingly, when I looked in the file B, that same "bone" node only had an array with 25,021 elements. I noticed several other arrays in file B that had less elements than the main file, as well (and in some cases, file B's node's arrays were empty where the main file's corresponding node array had hundreds or thousands of elements).

I read through the DSON format specification, and while it explains primitive data types, coordinate system, and a few other very general/abstract pieces of the underlying system, it doesn't define any specifics of how Daz structures its data within JSON or complex object-oriented data types Daz itself uses, such as whether a node that exists in one file and is referenced in another should have the same values, or even what key-value pairs should exist within a "node" object.

EDIT: I guess one other thing to note is that while 7zip did extract the JSON files, it gave warnings when I renamed the DUF and DSF in question to zip files. Not sure if this is typical of all compressed DUF and DSF files.

clerian

Just want to follow up, and I think this warrants a new post instead of an edit. I have been able to get one of my problematic files to install without throwing an error. I have attached a Daz log which pointed me in the right direction. After the crash, I went to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4 directory and opened the log.txt file before running daz again, and it showed the messages in the attached file as the final output.

The thing that stuck out to me was the warnings about nodes. So I went and tried a few things. First, I tried to simply load the object into daz and save it as a wearable, then use the newly saved version in the CW package, but that crashed as well. I figured that simply resaving an item doesn't alter it intrinsically (strangely, Daz throws no errors about nodes when these objects are loaded in, only during the install smart content operation), so I would have to change the file. Seeing that node mismatch in the DUF earlier made me think if I altered the polygon count, it might fix things up a bit, so I loaded up the Decimator plugin and the following process is what actually worked:

1. Load the figure into Daz and make sure it is selected
2. Navigate to the Decimator pane and click "Prepare to Decimate"
3. Check the "Nodes" and "Polygons" checkboxes in the "Remove invisible" section at the top of the Decimator section with Resolution % set to 100
4. Click "Create LOD" and use either the pregenerated name or choose something
5. In the Parameters tab of the figure, there should now be a new section called "Mesh Resolution" and make sure the LOD you created is selected
6. Export the object to OBJ, use Daz measurements
7. Import the object, use Daz measurements
8. Select the new object, then go to Edit > Object > Rigging > Convert Prop to Figure and click Accept
9. Go to Edit > Figure > Transfer Utility... and select the original as the source and target as the new object and click Accept
10. Go to the Surfaces tab for your original version and copy them, then paste the surfaces onto the new version
11. Unparent the new outfit from the old one
12. Load in a basic Genesis figure that the outfit was supposed to be worn by, right-click your new outfit in the Scene pane and choose Fit "your outfit" To... and choose whatever options are appropriate in your situation
13. Select the Genesis figure and then choose File > Save As > Wearable(s) Preset and make sure only the outfit you want to export is checked in dialog window.
14. Copy the newly saved DUF into the file structure of the CW package that was failing (please make a backup of the original first) and zip it
15. Load CW in Daz
16. If you already have a configuration file for the package, load it, and replace the zips with the new ones (this must be done even if the zip files have the exact same name as before)
17. Click Analyze and set up metadata
18. Install Content (overwrite if prompted)
19. Install Smart Content
20. Export Zip File(s) & Self-Installer

I did have a complex multi-figure outfit and I thankfully only had to decimate the main figure and then re-fit the child figures to the main one. I also attached a screenshot of that since it had some unusual objects in between the figures in the original (which I retained).

Hopefully this helps others.

EDIT: It's possible that the Decimator steps are unnecessary and simply exporting to OBJ and reimporting is all that's needed. If you don't have the Decimator plugin and are running into the same issue as me, it's worth a shot to try, otherwise I would recommend using Decimator to remove any hidden/missing nodes.

RiverSoft Art

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

I am also experiencing frequent crashes when creating CW installs for G9 items (exclusively, G3 to G8.1 do work). It crashes DS with a segmentation fault late in the Smart Content creation process. After the crash, the product is installed correctly, but I would really like to have the CW zip files created.

BTW, I extended the constants DSA file to refer to a correct G9 base.

G9 support is on my roadmap.  It is hard to balance time between new products and updating the old products.