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What has happened to QA at DAZ?

Ken OBanionKen OBanion Posts: 1,447
edited December 1969 in Daz Studio Discussion

I'm getting pretty fed-up with the precipitous decline in the quality of DAZ products recently.

A lot of what I've purchased and downloaded lately has been, for lack of a better term (that passes muster with the TOS), drek. Included in this list of boogered-up packages are Victoria 6, Michael 6, Danika for V6, Nordic Hair for Genesis 2.... And I'm willing to bet that there will be others that I haven't tried to use yet.

Files missing or misplaced, directory hierarchies that don't match the manifests, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. They don't load in DAZ Studio; they don't load in Poser, using the DSON Importer. And yes, I have the latest versions of everything. I've tried uninstalling and re-installing the content (and before you ask, yes, I was using DIM for those tasks); I've even tried re-downloading everything.

I did eventually manage to get Michael and Victoria to load, by moving about 70 MB of misplaced content, and manually locating the misplaced textures, but when the files the application (be it DAZ Studio or Poser) is looking for just flat-out aren't there..., well, there really isn't a whole lot the end-user can do about that, is there?

Doesn't anyone at DAZ test this stuff before you push it out the door?

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,252
    edited December 2013

    What files were misplaced in the current version of V6, taking that as an example? (Edited to change M6 to V6 since I don't yet have the former installed.)

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,598
    edited December 1969

    How are you installing them? If you are extracting the zips manually, did you make sure there isn't a folder named "Content" inside your actual content folder?

  • Ken OBanionKen OBanion Posts: 1,447
    edited December 1969

    Unfortunately, I failed to get a screen-cap of the relevant error message (not that one, at least; I do have a few others), but it was a list of several files, all with a .dsf extension. The error gave a path of '/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 2/Male/Morphs/DAZ 3D/Michael 6/'. I ultimately found them in the '/content/data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 2/Male/Morphs/DAZ 3D/Michael 6/' directory. I copied the dontents of that directory into the one the error message specified, and Michael loaded without further incident. (Except for a misplaced texture file -- the bump-map, if memory serves.) I did the explicit 'locate' (as in, clicking the 'Locate' button, and following the specified path), and once again, I found the mislaid file one directory down in the hierarchy, off the 'Content' top-level folder.

    The same thing happened with Victoria 6, and the Nordic Hair, and I did the same thing to fix the problem. But I shouldn't have had to. And that's pretty much my point.

  • RenpatsuRenpatsu Posts: 828
    edited December 2013

    You probably have two nested content folders - which is usually a big no-no - or you have installed to a directory that Daz Studio isn't able to see (one that isn't added to the content directory manager). At least those sound like reasonable explanations here. Make sure that when content is installed that there are no nested content folders and the content is installed in the right places where Daz Studio can find it. Potentially just adding the other content folder to Daz Studio may resolve it - unless they are nested. E.g. DIM is not able to find out where you want the content to be installed, so it chooses a directory on its on by default, which usually leads to such problems.

    Post edited by Renpatsu on
  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,598
    edited December 1969

    When you manually install ANY DAZ zip, do NOT put the folder named "Content" inside your content folder, just what's UNDERNEATH the folder named "Content".

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    All of the content mentioned installed fine for me. As others have mentioned it does sound like you have multiple content folders set up, and you may be installing the items incorrectly. The Daz Install Manager bizarrely specified a different directory to the one I use for my content as its default, so it's worth taking a look there to make sure it's not directing items to the wrong place or into nested folders, as others have suggested.

    Have you been able to install other items using the DIM without problems, or is this a common problem you have when installing via DIM? If it's the latter then I'd strongly suggest taking a look at the settings to ensure it matches your Daz runtime folders.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,726
    edited December 2013

    Ken, while I completely agree with you about DAZ QA missing a lot of problems, I did not have problems installing V6 or M6 with the DIM. I have sent you a PM with some screenshot of how I have my DIM and Content Directory Manager set up. Maybe you can compare to yours and see if you somehow got a nested content folder.

    Post edited by barbult on
  • Ken OBanionKen OBanion Posts: 1,447
    edited December 1969

    Thanks to all for your helpful suggestions. It's going to take a bit of diagnosing to discover how applicable all of your offerings turn out to be, but I do appreciate your efforts in that regard.

    When I first installed DAZ Studio (4.0 Pro, back when you had to pay for it), I created a 'DAZ Studio Content' directory to hold all my DS stuff. And I always point to that directory as the target whenever I install anything. Until recently, this has always sufficed.

    Inside that directory, there is a 'content' folder. There is also a 'data' folder. And another 'data' folder inside the 'content' folder. I did not create any of these directories; they were created back in the day when DAZ content was delivered as self-extracting archives (executables). And all of the content I purchase from DAZ -- at least, that which is intended for DAZ Studio, as opposed to Poser -- gets installed into that 'DAZ Studio Content' directory; I do not specify any sub-directories. If, as a couple of you have suggested, there are nested 'content' directories (I'm looking, and I don't see any), then it was because those nested directories were defined in the archive itself.

    And this, I would suggest, is part of the problem: the directory structure of DAZ Studio content is so convoluted, so downright Byzantine, that these types of errors are becoming entirely too common -- and all but inevitable.

  • Zev0Zev0 Posts: 7,092
    edited December 2013

    Post screenshots of your content folder and we might be able to see what is going on or where the error might lie.

    Post edited by Zev0 on
  • RenpatsuRenpatsu Posts: 828
    edited December 2013

    This would be nested for example:

    DAZ Studio Content
    |
    |-----data
    |-----Runtime
    |-----content
             |
             |-----data
             |-----Runtime

    "Daz Studio Content" is one content folder of yours, which contains a "data" directory (and also a "Runtime" directory) and "content" is another content folder, which contains again a "data" directory (and probably also a "Runtime"). In this case the "content" content folder would be nested in the "DAZ Studio Content" content folder.

    If this is the case for you, then this will for sure confuse Daz Studio.

    Post edited by Renpatsu on
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