if I open an old duf where does Daz look to find the source of the items?
alan bard newcomer
Posts: 2,203
My old work flow was C drive for stuff like base morphs etc. E drive for often used content and G drive for other content.
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The new work machine has two m2 drives C drive for prog and my daz library like before and the E drive has less non daz on it so I moved some content from the G drive to the new E drive and changed it's location in the content directory in Daz.
Is that were where daz will go to find the data that used to be on G but is now on E and automatically resolve those locations correctly?
Does the CMS look at the content directory to guide it's lookups?
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content that has been installed in a content library will be indexed within daz studio with a relative path and it won't matter where the drive is as long as the new content directory location has been added within daz studio. Daz Studio doesnt usually look for the drive it only looks for the path from the content folder onwards.
if the content was an asset or texture you made yourself, rather than something installed in a content library, then daz may reference a texture file using a full file path, and those duf files you may need to edit to allow daz to find the file.
I used to have all my directories on the G drive (and on a backup drive -- so that if the G drive died, all I had to to was replace the drive and make sure the drive letter was G)
Later I had directories on both E and G .. when I moved to the new computer the E drive was an m2 drive so I moved some of the stuff on G to E and remapped the directories ... and that should work, right?
So it's a relative path in the duf file and Daz converts that to a Lettered path based on the content library.
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That's what I thought but I have learned that the DIM never cross checks so occasionally when I'm uninstalling a product (that studio has no trouble finding) DIM will coplain about no folder then unstall but then will want to redown load because it's install path has changed when the (folder used as directory) was moved to another drive... studio will find it because the content directory now points to the new location but that doesn't not update Dims installed pathsbecause there is nothing the makes DIM recertify it's records to match the content directory.
yeah I have this issue on one computer now too and it affects smart content
My DIM paths don't match my installed files
Unlike daz Studio and the CMS DIM has to isntall thee xact location to which it installed - if the files are no longer there it will not, and should not, try to find them somewhere else.
yes, I'm split between two computers now and have tried to build matching HD with the same path letter on each machine.
But sometimes it's hard to keep track of thousands of files.
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even if daz uses a relative bath ... in order not to fine these files it has to look in drive letter X or Y.
Where it looked makes it easy to figure out what is missing, what didn't transfer etc.
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It's a program it has to get the letter somewhere and then use the letter to look for the item so all that's need is
I looked in E/ 25 fantasy/Runtime/Textures/DAZ/Characters/GenesisBodysuit/Chainmail2_DiffuseBlue.jpg and it wasn't there.
that lets me figure out where it needs to be or is corrupted etc and also tells me if that data is not in E it could have been on G when I created the scene.
/Runtime/Textures/esha/ForestScout/blaze hood_Belt1.jpg
/Runtime/Textures/RD/Defiant/BlazeBootsTx.jpg
/Runtime/Textures/RD/Defiant/blazeBracersTx.jpg
this first image of the cats is from the older computer (just loaded) the second from this one (just loaded) so all I have to do if I locate the files missing is fix them
The alternative is copying 62 gigs between to machines again.
Fixed... but how in the heck did a half dozen content manager folders get changed from G to E when the folders are on G.
Fairly simple fix once I knew where daz was looking at where they were.
And "GenesisBodySuit" is not the product name, argh.
Daz Studio stores, where possible, a relative path - if there are content directories nested one inside another that may have additional folders for files in the nested directory. On opening Daz Studio adds the relative path to each listed content directory until it gets a hit or runs out of directories to check.
I don't have nested ones... all top level folders added as directories ... which by the way .. the program handles very well ... I probably have have 50 directories.
I can't imagine having 15k products in one folder ..
so I start by installing them in folders like clothes, hair, characters etc.
But the relative path has to know what hard drive to go to when it goes and if it can't find the item in that path.. at least it could ID the path complete when it says it can't find the object. And I imagine a lot of times the part of path it shows is correct ... but the start of it is where the error occurs.
I think I've seen others comment "why couldn't they find this it's right there" and it may be "right there" in the part of the path the report shows. But because of the part of the path we don't see it could be a different path.
Replied to your other post.
sorry to stick it here but can't find the other post.
tried to load a character
got the list of "files not found"
but they were there so where did the duf look?
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the character folder was on the E drive
but the duf I was opening was from 2020.
But the 07 character folder is on E
but Dim says it was installed on G while it's mapped on E in daz.
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missing file list (remember I carp because it doesn't show where it is looking for that path?)
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/CTRL3duAmberPosture.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberAfraid.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberClosedSmile.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberConfident.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberGrin.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberOpenSmile.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberShySmile.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberSillyFace.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberSurprised.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberTongueOut.dsf
/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberUnsure.dsf
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From the Duf file
"id" : "CTRL3duAmberPosture",
"source" : "/data/DAZ%203D/Genesis%203/Female/Morphs/3D%20Universe/G3FAmber/CTRL3duAmberPosture.dsf#CTRL3duAmberPosture",
"name" : "CTRL3duAmberPosture",
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So daz has the folder 07 teen characters on drive E in it's directory
But dim says it's installed on G as seen in the manifest file.
manifest
<UserInstallPath VALUE="G:/07 teen characters"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/CTRL3duAmberPosture.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/CTRL3duG3FAmber.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/CTRL3duG3FAmber.png"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberAfraid.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberClosedSmile.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberConfident.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberGrin.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberMouthOpenOH.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberOpenSmile.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberShySmile.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberSillyFace.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberSurprised.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberTongueOut.dsf"/>
<File TARGET="Content" ACTION="Install" VALUE="Content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/3D Universe/G3FAmber/eCTRL3DUAmberUnsure.dsf"/>
dragging a copy of the folder (all 32 gigs) over to the G drive again
and ta-da it loads and the files are found.
So the path maybe be relative but it's pretty obvious the duf loader pulls the start of the relative path from the hard coded line in the manifest file.
Next I will block the folder on G and change the G to an E in the manifest file and see if daz finds the files.
So I changed the name of the folder on G and then changed the manifest file from
<UserInstallPath VALUE="G:/07 teen characters"/>
to
<UserInstallPath VALUE="E:/07 teen characters"/>
and it loaded the files.
This means in the future if I have lost files I can check the manifest file for the product and change one letter and probably fix the issues.
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This is what I was trying to express when I said "there has to be a hard location somewhere"
The "hard location" you're looking for is in Content Directory Manger(CDM), not in DIM. This is where DS stores the 'missing' part, drive letter and top level folder, of files paths in asset files.
As they don't share a common 'manifest' neither will tell you if the other can locate files or not, other than when set to default.
Because of this, you can install to an unmapped directory, resulting in missing file errors, or files that can't be uninstalled in DIM.
This appears to be what happend in your case, as DIM installed to a drive/directory that wasn't mapped in CDM.
To correct this issue, you simply need to add the directory to CDM, either in DS or by editing the ContentDirectoryManger.dsx file manually.
(note, manual editing is only possible if you have more than one content set, and only sets other than the Current set can be edited. The current set list is stored elswhere)
The CDM list is accessed either by right clicking on the 'hamburger'(menu) button on the Content Library tab or Edit>Preferences>Content(clicking the Content Directory Manger button at the bottom).
Once there, click the particular content set you want to add the directory to, and select 'Add' from the left options. This will open a file explorer window where you can navigate to the desired directory.
Select the top level folder, and click "Select folder".
Then click Accept, and the directory will be added to the content set and CDM will close.
You may get some delay, possibly significant, before DS becomes active again, depending on directory active in Content library, as larger asset sets will take longer to refresh on screen.
To edit the DSX file, go to c:\users\[username]\appdata\roaming\daz 3d\studio4 and select ContentDirectoryManager.dsx.
By default this directory is hidden, so you many need to enable 'show hidden folders' in file options to get to it, depending on O.S.
Hope this helps.
Alas it doesn't because the active directory in the CDM was E 07 teen characters and it couldn't find the assets
The Manifest files in this case showed the products as installed in G 07 teen characters and I copyed the 07 folder back to G and then it was able to find the file.
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Considering the number of computers I've had since 2007 and the number of disks and of course outgrowing them it's remarkable my mappings still work as well as they do.
But I've sorted content in to folders and used those folders as directories since way back so just remapping the directories in Daz is fairly easy and now I know how to sync the manifest files.
For years the C drive had the "sacred stuff" and a second drive had the general products but at one point even the data drive had to be split because it all wouldn't fit on a 3tb drive.
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Remember the option to have the CDM search for content on drives? Would be nice if running that would make it update the manifest files, also.
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When created the duf file as in saving a scene I'll bet it uses the CDM entry. But the CDM entry from 5 years ago might have been set to the G location so that was saved in the scene file and since that location was not active this year it couldn't find the data there. So updating the manifest file updates the location the scene file sends the program to look for the iten.
As I have said before, the scene file does not store the drive letter unlkess it has to (file not in a content directroy). It stores the relative path and it tries thata gainst the content directories until it gets a hit or runs out of directories. If the files were not being found it means they were not in a mapped content directory - because you have the one on G selected and not the one on E: - or that the relative path within the content directory is wrong (e.g. there is an extra folder between the content directory and the first folder of the path, or there was when the files were saved causing it to be added to the relative path).
the scene files relative path is apparently run against the manifest files to get the absolute location of the data
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manifest file
manifest
<UserInstallPath VALUE="G:/07 teen characters"/>
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Once I moved a copy of the data back to that location .,.. they were no longer "not found".
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As I noted when the files were on the E 07 teenage characters as found in the CDM listing ... they weren't found ... so the scene reading subroutine doesn't look at the CDM file but reads the manifest files for the absolute location which when the manifest said G 07 teen characters which was non-existent ... it could not find them.
The relative path in the scene file has to look somewhere to find where it goes. And since in the case of the items it couldn't find and they were on E and indexed on E in CDM and it took copying them to G as indicated in the manifest files for the product and then they were found ... it probably gets the location from the manifest folder.
The paths in DS must be wrong, the manifests are not used by DS only by DIM. Please show the DS content directory settings and the actual locations of the files.
I think i found the problem that's causing all this confusion.
"dragging a copy of the folder (all 32 gigs) over to the G drive again and ta-da it loads and the files are found. "
You're moving folders/files around in windows explorer, that were installed via DIM.
The proper 'fix' for files that get installed into the wrong folder, with DIM, is to have it(DIM) uninstall the file(s) and reinstall them to the correct(listed in CDM) directory.
The reason that what you've done thus far has worked, is because you created copies of the files in both directories, as they're on separate drives.
Single drive=move, multiple drives=copy.
The DS errors stopped, when you copied the files from the G:\07 teen characters folder, a directory not listed in CDM, to the E:\07 teen characters, a directory listed in CDM.
In DIM, if the files weren't in both locations, changing the drive letter would result in the "Show Installed Files..." list going from blue to black, indicating they aren't there, and the uninstall routine would just delete the entry, but not the files.
Hopefully this clears up the confusion.
What I said was the CDM listed files on E 07 teen characters. And the files came up as missing.
The duf file from 4 years ago had the files as on G 07 teen characters
(which is where they were back them.
If the program looked for files in the CDM it would have found them in E 07 teen characters
But the scene file said check on G and when I copied the files over to G it found them.
The manifest file also said the files were installed into G 07 teen characters
manifest
<UserInstallPath VALUE="G:/07 teen characters"/>
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After determining the that when the scene file and the manifest agreed on a location in this case G and the files were on G it could find them.
Next step in double checking I removed the files from G and reset the path to E in the manifest folder and the program found them on the E drive where the CDM had said they were all along.
Updated Manifest file says =UserInstallPath VALUE="E:/07 teen characters"/>
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I have scene files going back to 2007 ... and there have been a few drive changes along the way.,
But it's easy to duplicate a drive for a backup and it your designated data drive dies you put the backup in and change its drive letter to match the one that broke.
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Due to an increasing number of products over the past couple of years the data drive became two and the locations of the directories were duly changed in the CDM (which is really remarkable thing because it keeps track of about 40 different directories which are really just top level folders on the data drives).
What I didn't do was make sure the install paths in dim matched the new locations.
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A month ago DIM suffered a stroke and tossed the manifest files so when I went to check for the ten new products I had purchased it wanted to down load 15,000 files (about 6 terebytes worth against a bandwidth of 100g a month) fortunately Richard knows how to force DIM to recreate the Manifest files from the installer folder.
As I said above, the manifest files are not use by Daz Studio - only DIM makes any use of them. The only requyirement for Daz Studio is that the relative path in the scene file plus at least one of the content directory paths join together to make the location of a copy the actual file.
the duf said product is at G 07 teenage characters
the CDM said product is at E 07 teenage characters
and DIM via manifest said installed in G 07 teenage characters
G 07 teenage characters no longer existed.
and the program couldn't not locate them.
But two things worked to make them be found and load
either setting up a directory on G named 07 teenage characters
Or changing the manifest file from G to E.
Either way makes the connection work
I would guess that opening the duf and changing the G to an E would also fix it.
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This is not a relative path... it starts somewhere with the Drive letter and the directory name.
And that is the info not in the error message.
It's easy to debug "missing files not found in G 07 teenage characters /data," when you know that directory does not exist it is easy to fix.
but this "file in data/ etc etc is missing" is useless because the program is not sharing where it looked.
The path data/ etc etc is relative once the program knows where the directory is.
In this case the program decided the directory was G 07 teenage characters but couldn't deliver the message the directory G 07 teenage characters is missing.
If it is a bought product a duf file must not have direct path, else the PA have made an error.
If you have saved it yourself, then the duf file will only have an absolute path, if there is content outside the listed libraries.
So the .duf file itself has the full path? And the error message reports the full path?
the duf IDs the drive of the product as for instance G 07 teenage characters that's all no path beyond that. (my colon key is busted .. insert them where needed.
But the error messages doesn't mention where it looked it only includes "data/ etc etc/product name couldn't be found"
which is the relative path once it finds the Directory location in the manifest files or in Dim.
A new duf loading the character would find it on E 07 teenage characters where it would have been installed from, from the CDM which knows the data is on E. Which would be where it was installed from.
Just like the old one was installed from G. So the duf says G. which apparently sets the start of the path.
Please supply a screenshot of the .duf entries - it does sound as if the files may not have been in a mapped content directory when the scene was saved, though that would have been tricky.
But to stress again, Daz Studio does not look at the DIM manifests - it doesn't know what or where they are, it gets absoslutely no information from them, and doesn't care if the files are no longer in the installed location. They are a complete red herring.