Reality- Somehow Still on my computer
Serene Night
Posts: 17,639
Hi:
I bought Reality 4.2 last year, but unistalled it because it was bogging down my system horribly creating hundreds of temp files. Reality 4.2
Well lately, my machine has begun to hang and crash and generated an error about reality and octane...and once again it looks like somehow- and I have no idea how- reality is doing its thing It is creating hundreds of temp files in my scenes making them crash. I can see them if I go to scene view and show hidden files.When I open the file and save as scene subset, it removes them, but I don't want reality on my machine and I'm mystified how it has once again it began to corrupt my saves. Opening each save takes 5-6 minutes and is very time consuming to open and save as scene preset to remove the reality junk.
I checked my plugins and there is no reality plugin. So I'm not sure how it is doing this. I search my hard drive for reality and I do not see it.
I also cleared my cache for daz....
I know it sounds fantastic, but somehow it is on there. I don't know exactly how. And I want it gone. What can I do?
PS: I chatted with the vendor last year. He pretty much insisted I must have a version 2 of reality on my computer. I don't as far as I know since the version I bought was 4.2 from DAZ Store. He also didn't believe me about the temp files, which I admit I felt a bit frustated by because they are real and in my scene files. I need some real help... Not to be dismissed.
Without an uninstaller and a list of file names to look for I'm feeling frustated... I just want to locate whatever is generating the reality stuff in my scene files and remove it. Beforming a clean install is not an option. I have hundreds of hours of work invested in keeping my runtime organized the way I need to do my art.
Anyone have any advice? It is clear reality still exists on my machine in some way. I've already done the obvious things. I cleared my cahe reset the database, reimported metadata.
Here's what I'm seeing in my scene files.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
If it's Reality 4.2 you want to look for a Reality.exe, probably in a folder called Reality_DS which should be found within the base folder of where Daz Studiois installed, but it may be in Progam Files (I have to say it's a good product but the install process is awful!). To be fully sure do a search in whole system for files called 'reality' (include hidden/system files/folders).
I don't seem to have a reality.exe My search results produce only materials some pas made for reality. I threw those away, but I suspect if its there it is not something obvious.
I wish this product came with an uninstaller.
If it is Reality 2 it would be a dll, but that'd show up in your plugins list in DS.
The good news is that (from memory), once you clear out the detritus from your scenes they should not come back. Also, from memory, I had a conflict between Reality and Octane plugins (can't recall the versions involved) a while back, but that just caused Reality not to work and did not involve crashes.
Hmm. Sadly not seeing that. When I first had this issue last year I scoured my runtime free of reality- or so I thought. What is odd is that I've been not having this problem until a couple of weeks ago when something triggered it again. At least there is a fix!
But I actually want to know what is causing the octane/reality errors because it is very time consuming to remove from old files, and it just seems like it is something which is installed is causing the problem. For the life of me, I Can't tell what.
Thanks for your help though!
Yes, the problem would be a hold-over from the time you had Reality installed I'd guess. New scenes would not suffer from this. If they do, that is a whole other ball game!
Unfortunately, the files are all mostly new. I mean files I've been using since after the reality was removed. So there is something reality still around if it has come back. But it has only flared up in the last few weeks. Prior to that it was fine.
The resaved files don't seem to have the reality taint though, so I hope it will go away for a while again, and that would suit me fine.
If it is some lingering remnant of Reality causing the problem, Serene, there are a couple of things you could try. Both should be done with some care to avoid creating more problems than you solve, but you can't really get into trouble unless you deliberately change something. Initially one is just looking to see if the problem can be identified. What you do if you find something is another matter. Enough said.
Option 1: Run a copy of CCleaner using the Registry Cleaner option - Scan for Issues. A list (probably a very long list) of potential problems will be identified when the scan completes. Take a quick scroll through them. watching for any references to Reality. You can exit without making any changes i.e. "fixing" any of the items in the list. If you do find such references to Reality amongst the list and you are not comfortable messing with the registry, report back and we may be able to offer further advice.
Option 2: Do a search of the Windows Registry for references to Reality. This is probably an extra level of scary for many folks, but again there is no harm in just looking - you can exit without making any changes. If you find something, you can report back for advice or instructions.
I've gone through this a couple of times now and had to use two different commercial uninstallers. The vendor is quite adamant that simply deleting the installed directory will eliminate it, but I found remnants of the darned thing all over the place. It desperately needs a real uninstaller.
'Everything' from ( http://www.voidtools.com/) is free, fast and will help you root the program out.
This sounds horrid! I can't say I understand the problem you're having. At the moment I have the Octane demo installed and the previous version of Reality 4 point whatever. I haven't run into this issue, but looking at your screenshot is greatly perplexing. I know the Octane for DS demo was not playing nicely for me, but those were very different problems. Have you tried uninstalling Octane for DS? If you have already gotten rid of Reality it might be worth doing this as part of the troubleshoot process.
Have you made sure you've deleted all the reality files from their original install location? For example my Reality is located in C:\graphics apps\DAZ Studio\Reality. The last time I had to delete Reality to fix an issue it was as easy as deleting this folder. It does leave some content behind in your content library, but that shouldn't cause issues, but you could always remove that too (if you haven't).
Jim do you ever go to scene tab and show hidden node files? That's where the problem shows. I had no clue that when I used reality it would damage my daz studio install to this extent. It is very unfortunate because this issue lingers and my machine can't seem to handle all that garbage reality and octane put in my files making them slow to open and prone to freeze.
Everyone else: Thanks! I will try some of these solutions to night. Yeah there is absolutely nothing hidden or unhidden with the word reality in my computer. I have deleted everything that contains the word. I ran an uninstalled tool that found nothing
The vendor told me quite bluntly my problem does not and cannot exist and was no help at all beyond insisting I must have reality 2.0 installed Because that is the only way it could happen. As far as I know I do not have any form of reality installed. There is no plugin or folder called reality.
And yet something is generated reality files in my saves rendering them unusable.
They aren't, if I understand, hidden files but hidden nodes - they are not something Reality left behind on disc but simply some of the data it generated when you created the scene and it was installed (I think there was an update to stop this from happening).
If they are consistently labelled you could use the select by label script in my old Selection Tools freebie https://www.dropbox.com/s/z6ceaiasl8ll5u6/RHSelectionTools.zip?dl=0 to select and then delete them, alternatively you could use File>Save as>Scene Subset to save only the actual nodes you need and not the remnants.
Unfortunately, these are scenes I created afer I removed Reality from my computer. I took it off last year. These are all new scenes.
Regedit found no instance of reality in the registry.
File save as scene subset does work- but it is time consuming. It seems to have infected all my files. I'm concenred it is still on my machine, however like I said cannot find it.
This folder location does not exist. Thanks for trying to help though.
if the nodes are named uniformly (something #, where #is a number) then seelctign one of them and running my Select By label script should catch all of them. Depending on how long it took to run that's a click or two to launch the script and a button press to delete the unwanted nodes.
I'm pretty sure that some packages have reality nodes saved in them. I've never had reality, yet when I remember to look for them, I will sometimes find hidden reality nodes bloating up my saved scenes.
Once I delete them all from the scene and resave it, they don't come back (In that scene)
I wonder if that is what happened? I just haven't had this issue until my recent scene files started to cause it to happen... Maybe I should submit a ticket.
I just checked a few recentish scenes and only found a single Octane node. To be honnest I have never actually looked for hidden nodes. Do you often merge scene files? Maybe they are multiplying this way?
yes I do merge scene files frequently loading characters I reuse quite a bit since a lot of my art tells the story of several characters. But not enough I think to generate quite that many nodes.
Great tool! I'll be keeping that one. It didn't reveal the source of the issue but I loved it anyway. Useful for those of us who find the search in win 8 inadequate
Hmm I just tested merging scenes and I didn't end up with duplicate Octane nodes. I even loaded some scenes I've edited and used with Reality and didn't get any of those Lux nodes. Did Paolo or whoever you spoke to tell you when and why those nodes are created?
Edit: Actually I did another merge test (three scenes) and ended up with three Octane nodes. I suspect that if I had some Reality ones to duplicate I would end up with them. I just uninstalled Octane and the nodes are still there, so it does suggest that your issue might just be accumulated junk.
Here is my conversation about the issue with someone on the Reality Plugin Facebook site last year when I first had the issue.. I can't say I found it helpful. I still have the problem and it is back.
If you look at the original screenshot I posted, I have a ton of reality screen files. More than would occur with maybe the dozen times I've merged a character in the scene.
I did check out the screenshot. From that I could believe it is from merging, but hundreds or thousands. That's plain nuts. I start to see why you might have performance issues with that excess. That sounds like Paolo you're talking to. Strange that the problem went away then came back. I think I'd be more likely to save out presets for all the stuff I have in a scene and start fresh rather than go through the pain of removing them all individually.
Maybe it isn't a problem with Reality. It might just be a coincidence Reality data nodes are being created.
From what I can see (purely as end-user!), Reality 4 does not seem to add hidden scene nodes, as Paolo says (and he should know, it's his software!), that was a 'feature' of Reality 2. I can see hidden Octane nodes, not Reality.
I cannot say for sure - I'm not you, I've never had access to your computer(s) and files, etc., but it does look like you once had Reality 2 installed and that you have merged scenes; which has carried forward the hidden nodes and in some circumstances propogated them (which is, I believe, one reason Paolo stopped using them). From what you say they should not be created from new as there is no part of Reality active on the computer. Instead of the long, painful process of selecting them all and deleting, it may be worth using the 'cheat' method of saving as scene subset (which will/should) drop them all, clearing scene, loading scene subset and re-saving as a scene. Confirm that with a couple of scene files to confirm to yourself that all is as it should be, then do a mass purge of the hidden nodes or deal with them on a case-by-case basis, using whichever method you're happiest with.
I was just going to suggest but simonJM beat me to it - saving as a scene subset SHOULD clear out any remaining reality data, it's the fix I go with when somehting has gone sideways and I need to reset reality scene data.
First of all, thanks all for trying to help me.
Saving as scene subset works fine. And it did last year when Paolo (presumably) advised me to do that. That is what I'm doing now.
When I reopen files- reality data isn't in them... For now.
However, I have hundreds of old scene files and this reality/octane nodes bog down the files so much it can take 6 minutes or more to open them and sometimes Studio wants to crash. I kind of want to figure this out, so it doesn't happen again.
I don't have any of the folders mentioned by Paolo as part of reality 2.0
So unless, its something like one file I've merged over time, which would be difficult to believe... I'm not sure why this is still happening to this extent.
Oh, that sounds much better than what I suggested. It shouldn't happen at all, but I guess you can only try to make the best of it untill you find the root cause.