Migrating old content database from XP to Win7
martinkeitel_e65f08430a
Posts: 83
Hi. I've started to use DS 4.6. Pro on Windows 7 after using it on XP for years. In XP I've organized my content and can easily find what I need. Now in Win7 the content IS there, but it's scattered around and it's very difficult to find. How can I import the old structure? When I choose "migrte old content database", I get an error. In the log file it says: "Could not open database file: C:...AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio3/Content" (under the users folder). Where is this database file under XP?
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C:\Documents and Settings\you\Application Data\DAZ 3D\Studio3\Content would be the equivalent for XP - assuming you have the content in the same relative locations on the new machine as on the old.
Migrating is for converting a DS3 database to DS4. If you're talking about bringing over a DS4 database to a different machine, the best method is to use "Export User Data" on the old machine, which will save the data in the "Runtime:Support" folder, then "Re-Import Metadata" on the new machine.
Thanks, this is what I was looking for. And it worked ... almost. DS4.6 on Win7 Professional crashed when "Processing userdata_1" reached 97%. When I restarted, the content database seemed to be ok. Later I found out that some stuff was missing, so apparently that 3%. When I try to run the "re-import metadata" again, the same happens.
What I've found missing are at least some V4 characters and poses. These can't be found even with a database search, though I look for files instead of the database. Yet in the content folder on my C: drive the files can be found. So what's up?
Actually that's not exactly the case: In the folder DMR Briana (V4 character) there are no files visible (although on WinXP they were). Yet when I do a database search, the Briana files are found. But when I search for missing Imogen, nothing is found. Also the folder is missing (but it exists on the C: drive). If I try loading a scene with the Imogen character, DS crashes.
Well, I decided to work on what I have. The database structure was close enough to what I wanted so that I started manually locating files and cagegorizing them, now the work is pretty much done - and it wasn't a small task!
So finally I am working on DS Pro 4.6 on Win7. Things seem to be working fine and I can make nice scenes without crashes.
Only one thing would be nice. To be able to render the nice scenes. When I click render, it seems to be like a lottery game whether the render works or not.. And the odds are in favour of NOT. So this problem persists though I've moved from XP to 7 an updated to 4.6.
Please don't tell me it's a lack of memory. I am trying to render a simple scene with Aiko3 and some clothes and Uberlight. Apparently it's the uberlight that is the problem because without it the crashes are not so likely. But with the quality of Uberlight who wants to render without it?
I have a quadcore PC, 4 GB RAM, Win7 Pro.
Can you provide more complete specs?
Also, describe, if any, the error messages associated with the crash...look at the DS log file, too.
Can you provide more complete specs?
Also, describe, if any, the error messages associated with the crash...look at the DS log file, too.
OK
Win7 Ultimate 6.1.76 SP1
Model P35C-DS3R, X86-based PC
Intel Core2 Quad CPU 2,40 GHz
Physical RAM 4,0 Gb
Virtual memory 7 Gb
Here's the lates error and it's identical to an earlier one:
DAZStudio has encountered a fatal error, and must close.
DAZStudio.exe caused ACCESS_VIOLATION in module "C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\dz3delight.dll" at 001B:653CBF24, Dz3DelightDll::DSlo_DetailtoStr()+1479684 byte(s)
Last error in log file before crash:
Rendering image
3Delight message #43 (Severity 0): R2093: object '' (displacement 'dzdisplace', surface 'dzdefaultshadow') used only 0% of its displacement bound
Other things in the log:
Failed to load image: C:\Users\Väinö\DAZ content\Runtime\textures\omnifreaker\Environment\OmDawn_EnvM.tif
Operation failed
Loaded image OmDawn_EnvM.jpg
Loaded image OmDawn_EnvM.jpg
Rendering image
I thought maybe the uberlight can't handle the scandic letters in my computer name. But why can it then load the jpg images?
Then I found the virtual memory accessed by DS is much less than what's available. Do I need to configure this on DAZ separately?
I did some testing and found out this:
I removed the texture from the Uber sphere. I had two lights with shadows, I disabled shadow from the distand light but left it on the spotlight. The image rendered smoothly. I did some other successful renders until I returned the shadow to the distant light. After that the render crashed immediately after calculating the shadow maps.
I started again and this time restored the map on the sphere. It also crashed the render.. With the same error message.
It does seem to be a memory related problem. Starting fresh after a windows restart things work better for a while. The stuff seems to accumulate in RAM. After DS crashes lots of memory stays occupied. How can that be fixed?
What takes lots of memory are the textures. I noticed the textures don't get deleted from the surfaces list even after an object that uses them is deleted. So the textures keep up using memory even when they are not needed. I don't find an option to clear unused textures.
And more... I'm working on a scene that has lots of hairstyles. The textures don't work apparently because of lack of memory. Obviously I want to take away some of the hairstyles and save them on a separate file. But now the prolbem is that when I open this file I can't save it anymore, even after taking away half of the stuff. When I choose "save scene as" either the save window doesn't open at all or if it opens, nothing happens when I click save. There's no error messages.
This is very frustrating, because there's no way out of the situation.
Would creating a new scene, and "merge into scene", then save as scene help? I've had this save me once when one of my scene files became challenging to work with. Also working on that scene after a restart of Windows will probably clean up those textures left in temp.
I got out of this situation by clicking "save" instead of "save as"... which is strange. Of course then I first had to make a copy of the previous file.
However, the crashing renders persist. Most recently it is a scene with just Aiko3 and the angel of light costume which has no texture maps, so really not much stuff to take memory. Unusually it crashes even without using uberlight - or sometimes it doesn't, without any logic. Sometimes it gives an error message (as described before), but often just crashes with no messages - not even in the log file.
Funny thing.. I had this problem with the scene in question, when I was trying to render an image series. Each time it would crash rendering the first frame. Then I changed to rendering just a single image in a new window. And it worked, with everything else as before. And what's the funny thing, after that the image series also worked.. So what to make of all this?
Is this happening to others?
If it is of any assistance, here's what it says in the error message as the exception reason:
DAZStudio.exe caused ACCESS_VIOLATION in module "C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\dz3delight.dll" at 001B:5F86BF24, Dz3DelightDll::DSlo_DetailtoStr()+1479684 byte(s)
BTW, I just updated to the latest version of DS Pro 4.6. It doesn't seem to help with this render crashing.
... and what helped a bit with the rendering of this particular scene (after trying all sorts of other things) was to switch from shadow maps to raytraced shadows. Rendered 5 frames before crashing. Althought this is not good, it's brilliant after all these troubles.
So I still hope you guys sort this out, because after some searchign I've found many people are having these problems. I was adviced to move from XP to Win7, but so far it hasn't helped a bit.