Missing (but not) .dsf file

westernnomad

I have just transferred all my personal Daz files to my new computer. However, when I tried to load a product that I designed, the new computer reports that the .dsf file for it is missing. When I searched for it, I found it exactly where it belongs in the data\autoadapted directory.
How can I fix the broken link between the .duf and .dsf?

jestmart

Is it in a mapped library?

westernnomad

jestmart said:

Is it in a mapped library?

Apparently. It's in C:\Users\Christopher\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data\auto_adapted\Badge FTA Marshal_298\geometry_...

The directory is mapped up to ...\My Library. It's probably not necessary to go any deeper than that, right?

---
After further investigation:

In the missing file report, it shows that it's trying to reference the wrong directory. Perhaps its a function that's different between the 32-bit and 64-bit version of Daz. It changed the directory structure to data/[creator name]/[product name]/[duf name]/[geometry source name].dsf. So should I just create that directory path and transfer the .dsf there?

Fortunately I don't have a lot of products. Most are simple enough to remake with no sweat. This scifi-style badge is another story.

jestmart

My Library should be as far as you need to go for the Content Directory Manager, always stop at the folder that contains the "data" and/or "Runtime" folder. I think you will need to open the log to get the exact error and post it here. I am not feeling too well today so this will be my last post until tomorrow but there are others that can help.

mCasual

my main Runtime folder is my old Runtime folder from WinXP.32 days
which under Windows 7 is now

C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ\Studio\content

i also have some stuff in
C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library

under some circumstances, ( the way the content directories are set up i imagine )
...
when i save a scene,
...
Daz Studio 4.6+ will sometimes attempt to write files in

C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ\Studio\content\data

i'm not sure this was always the case

anyway the trick is

to use your administrator privileges to make this folder ( C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ\Studio\content\data ) writable

else you'll have to find ways of using only the content from your very own MyLibrary Runtime folder

-------
the symptom of that type of problem was that it would take 2 File/Save attempts to actually save a file
and, later, when re-loading this scene, some files would not be found

---
why you ask ?

because Daz Studio 4.6+ saves parts of you scene as data files in \content\data folders

if Daz Studio gets told by Windows "no i wont let you write files here" then parts of your scene wont actually be saved to disk

( i think DS3 when facing this situation went looking for a writable location its data files )

mCasual

Casual said:

...

note that this means you may resuscitate a scene file you thought lost forever

example

i had a scene containing a blue dress, with some work, material settings, morphs and d-forms spent on it

due to the fact that DS4.7 could not write data files in the \data\ folder, when i attempted to load that scene later on, i could not !

so after granting write-access to the /data/ folder to "Everyone" ( which includes Daz Studio )

i opened DS 4.7, a blank scene, i loaded the dress and saved this scene to disk

just doing that created the \data\ files for this dress

so now if i open the blue dress scene .... tada, it now works

----

i used similar tricks to revive very old daz scenes,
in the case of Daz 3, one can look in Daz Studio 3's .log file
and find out what are the missing data files that caused the crash
experienced while loading the old .daz scene

then load those figures and props, save the scene to disk

if you have dvd/cd backups of your Daz content folders
you may also be able to find the missing \data\ files there

jestmart

User content was never meant to be in Program Files folder even before Windows Vista. Just because you can force it to work doesn't mean you should.