I joyfully installed SR1. Immediately after installing: no library. I rebooted my computer. Then the library worked and I was able to produce a render. I closed poser 8.  When I opened it again, questionmarks in the library, folders don't refresh, intermittently I can do something, but mostly I can't access the content.

I re-installed the service pack, this time deleting the preferences. For a while then, I was unable to add any runtime folders to the library. I rebooted my computer again. Eventually I was able to add my external runtimes and I hoped all was well. I then tried to browse into those runtimes. Questionmarks again.

I was under the impression that the issues I was having with the library were known issues and that they would be solved with SR1. So far, it seems the situation is much the same as before the service release.

Weeping into my keyboard....

What OS?

I'm not too fond of the library either. It seems that there are a number of little glitches, like icons not showing up consistently, etc.

Yeah, I'm getting a similar problem occasionally.

When I start poser I let it grind away, counting folders until HD and CPU activity drop back to idle then go on about my business. Now, sometimes (seems to be at random, not seeing a pattern yet) some of the folder counts (sometimes most) stay at 0, no matter how many times I refresh and then eventually it will crash to desktop, with no error msg.

Then if I restart poser, it works fine...

Using WinXP Pro, no external runtimes.

Thank you BagginsBill

Windows Vista Business SR1
Acer Verizon M464 with Intel CoreDuo Quad processor
4 GB of Ram Installed
2 GB of dedicated video RAM
NVidia GeForce 9500 GT Graphics card

Poser is in c:Smith MicroPoser

Poser runtimes are:
d:Poser 8 content

d:Poser RuntimesApollo
d:Poser RuntimesHair
d:Poser RuntimesFurniture
d:Poser RuntimesScenes
d:Poser RuntimesPoser1-5
d:Poser RuntimesPoser 6
d:Poser RuntimesPoser 7
c:Smith MicroPoser 8

I have reported the problem to Smith Micro support and am now going to spend the South African public holiday with MsConfig to see if I can get this working. I really want to use Poser 8 because the renders look so much better than the ones I get with Poser Pro, and I like the new figures.

Nanette,

I'm starting from scratch here, since it should be working. There's something new/different about this problem you're getting.

So, no runtimes in c:Program Files, right?

Do you know how to show your OS Event Viewer? I can't remember where it is in Vista, but on XP it is on Start Button/All Programs/Administrative Tools/Event Viewer. After Poser misbehaves, close it. Then look around in the Event Viewer at the Application, Security, and System logs to see if there are any problem being recorded

Is Vista's UAC turned on? Just as an experiment, not a permanent solution, if it is on, try turning it off temporarily.

Is Vista's Indexing service turned on? As an experiment, not a permanent solution, try turning it off temporarily.

Ok, I think I know what my issue is. I think it's just choking or timing out or whatever on my over sized, barely organized single runtime (which is in the program folder). I get a of wall of question marks from my Pose library onward after poser 'finishes' loading. But after I restart poser, all the libraries after Figures are collapsed to the top level. Clicking on them expands them, begins counting items and poser acts normally.

This underscores my need to get organized, but still, this shouldn't happen and didn't happen pre-SR1.

Wait - you didn't tell me earlier that you had any runtimes in the Program Files. Under Vista UAC this is a protected area. It may be that you weren't getting a problem before SR1, but before SR1 it didn't find everything, either.

Please don't assume that my questions are not relevant just because you start seeing something different. I have a hundred possibilities I'm thinking about and I can't write the whole chain of investigation out for you. I need you to answer the questions and describe what you see.

First off, tell me accurately the full path to each of your runtimes. Because you didn't list any in Program Files before, but now you just said you have  "over sized, barely organized single runtime (which is in the program folder)." The locations of runtimes matters when UAC is involved.

Again:

List all runtimes - full path.

Do you know how to look in the Event Viewer? Did you look? What did you see?

Is Vista's UAC turned on? Just as an experiment, not a permanent solution, if it is on, try turning it off temporarily.

Is Vista's Indexing service turned on? As an experiment, not a permanent solution, try turning it off temporarily.

I'm using XP pro.

My runtime path is C:Program FilesPoser 8Runtime

Whoops - I'm so sorry. I'm running on very little sleep and didn't notice that your post, TikiGawd, is not from Nanette. Doh.

So Tiki, you have XP and just the standard runtime? How did your P8 get bloated already? Did you copy stuff into it from another previous Poser version's runtime? If so, did you copy the entire runtime? If so, you trashed it. If not, I have more questions.

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you.

I didn't do a wholesale copy when I migrated from p7 to p8, I just copied the Geometries, Libraries, and Textures folder to the P8 installation folder BEFORE I installed P8 (that's how I've migrated with every version since P4).

Aha, OK, so you did the copy correctly.

Now, a big runtime is not a problem in an of itself. Beta testers had 500+GB of content and had no problems with P8 reading them. In fact, they reported that they were finally able to load total libraries much bigger than P7 was ever able to deal with.

However, scanning all of that does take some time. I don't know how much time it should take.  Poser only reads enough to show the counts for the top level of the folder trees, and also whatever sub-folders you had open. It doesn't go any deeper. So closing folders before exiting will make the next restart quicker.

But with all folders closed, how long does it take to initally populate the trees? And can you give me an idea of these counts - order of magnitude? Like are there any over 500? Are there are  lot over 500?

Quote - Beta testers had 500+GB of content and had no problems with P8 reading them.

Yargh! And I thought I felt like a pig with ~50GB...

Quote - But with all folders closed, how long does it take to initally populate the trees? And can you give me an idea of these counts - order of magnitude? Like are there any over 500? Are there are  lot over 500?

It takes about 3 minutes to completely count all top level items. Figures, Poses and Props are all around 700 items, the rest are all between 100 and ~180.

After doing a little experimenting, completely collapsing all libraries to the the top before closing does seem to fix the wall of question marks issue.

A "Collapse all Folders" button would be handy.

Collapse all Folders is already on the enhancement list - probably will be in SR2.

I'm also thinking of an option to have Poser save the folders contents it has opened to an XML file. Currently it only saves which folders it had open, not what was in them. Upon next startup, it could pre-populate the tree with the results stored in the file. Then it could take however long it takes to "refresh" these in case you modified your file structure between runs. This would mean that if you did not change your file structure, the tree would be loaded instantly with stuff it learned before.

Quote - Collapse all Folders is already on the enhancement list - probably will be in SR2.

Awesome!

Quote - I'm also thinking of an option to have Poser save the folders contents it has opened to an XML file.

Double awesome!

It would be nice if someone would make an editor for the Runtime XML file that would do things like alphabetize the runtimes, rearrange the order of the Runtimes, rename the Runtimes, etc. I have looked in the XML file, but it is a bit complicated so when things get too confusing, I just delete everything, and then re-enter all my Runtimes again (about 25).

Of course, there may already be plans to develop Runtime management from within Poser. It would be nice, at the least, if one could highlight a Runtime, and move it up or down on the list, or rename it without having to delete, and re-add it (and have it out of order).

LMK

 Semideu has a script very close to this for P7-PPro that I used all the time. Comments on the RDNA forums is he plans to upgrade or make a new one to work with P8.

LK,

Those are good ideas. More work, but good ideas. I'll post an enhancement request for this at SM.

Another idea I had was to have a master list of Runtimes, with a checkbox on each to decide whether it is currently "added" to Poser or not. Then you can streamline Poser by turning off Runtimes you don't need at the moment, but trivially bring them back if needed.

AS you have already looked at it, Just open the "LibraryPrefs.xml" file in a text editor and rearrange the order however you'd like them to appear.

I would suggest you make a B/U copy of the file first.

I dunno if anyone has reported this yet or not, but it appears that the 'vanishing library items' bug is still around.

I just noticed it when adding an item to my Materials library. The new mat collection didn't appear right away so I collapsed the folder and refreshed it. Item count went from 78 to 35.

Also, just before that happened, I noticed that the delete button disappeared when selecting a mat collection icon but showed up again when I selected a single material icon.

Oh wow, I have been away from this forum - sleep and work, plus time zone differences.

I don't have any Poser 8 stuff in Program Files.
UAC is off.
I'll try turning Indexing Control off too.

I am now about to go and buy a second monitor (as a result of a recommendation by John at Smith Micro support). I hope to be able to watch processes and events on one monitor while having Poser open on the other.

I do think I am making progress though.
Since for other people firewalls and security programs seem to have interfered with the Poser 8 library,  I tried disabling ZoneAlarm firewall. I then discovered that it keeps resurfacing even if you disable it. So I have now completely uninstalled it and activated Windows firewall, and unblocked Poser 8 on that. So far so good, but the problem has been intermittent all along, so I don't expect it is completely solved yet.

Well, I just had another crash last night after adding something to one of my libraries and then refreshing. Fortunately, Poser 8 pre-SR1 taught me to save my work frequently, and always before trying to refresh the library. So, the bug is still there, or it is in the way Flash works or doesn't work on my system?

I have a Quad core 6800, 8 Gigs of RAM, 500Gigs primary and 1 TB secondary harddrives,  have 512 video card, but I am at work, and can't remember the exact NVidia card I have. All drivers updated, and Flash is up-to-date. I use Vista Home Premium 64, which is up-to-date, and I control the security myself.

The library also frequently freezes Poser 8. The freezes only happen when I am using the library. I can't do anything in Poser for 30 seconds to 1.5 minutes. If I click the Desktop Button near the Start Button, then click the Poser 8 task on the bottom bar, it opens, and everything works again. This is faster (or seems to be) than waiting.

The textures missing problem is gone. I can now use textures in directories named, "...V4Clothesruntime...".

I have had some problems with figures in old PZ3's (Poser Pro), but I think that something in the file is corrupted. I need to redo the offending figures. I had a few crashes of FireFly (but not Poser 8), always at the same spot in the render. It was the bucket before a hair figure. I deleted the hair and added another one, and suddenly I could render the whole scene again. I can't blame Poser 8, specifically, for problems like this.

Even with these problems, version 8, SR1 is an improvement in most ways over past versions. I am a hobbyest, and I use Poser for the fun of it. I am playing for hours at a time on Poser 8, so, I must be enjoying it.

lmk

This might be a little OT but those who are running Windows XP, there was a recent MS security update which played havoc on my PC.  Upon running P8 before SR1, the PC would reboot rather mysteriously.  RAM memory tested OK.  Soon after a random reboot while just idling, I removed the MS security update and haven't had any issues since then. 

Quote - Well, I just had another crash last night after adding something to one of my libraries and then refreshing.

I get this occasionally.

Quote - The library also frequently freezes Poser 8. The freezes only happen when I am using the library. I can't do anything in Poser for 30 seconds to 1.5 minutes.

Ditto.

Quote - Even with these problems, version 8, SR1 is an improvement in most ways over past versions.

More ditto. When P8 works, it works great, except when it doesn't, then it's not so great.

Hi - just installed SR 1, and it seems to be a disaster.  Am running the runtime under the program files, which are on D:Poser8.  It will not save any file of any size - little tiny prop files will save slowly, but anything - even an old P4 character - freezes the machine.
now, it finds everything in the folder - about 160GIG, pretty quickly, but it absolutely cannot save to them.  Even with the default Poser8 content folder, it freezes up with the base Andy character that loads
What should I do? move the runtime out from the program files area?  not to be unkind, but Poser 8 was working quite well before this (occasional crashes, had to stop using the external OBJ files) but this is really completely unusable. 

Yesterday evening I was able to use Poser for several hours without encountering any library problems.

It seems that ZoneAlarm firewall was the culprit. I had set it up to allow Poser 8 through, but that did not help. I disabled the service and the program using MsConfig, but that also did not help. The only thing that helped was completely uninstalling it.

So, I think I can confidently report that ZoneAlarm firewall and Poser 8 do not peacefully co-exist on the same computer. 

I can now use Poser 8, whereas before it was a huge pain and almost impossible to complete any task. For me this is a huge relief.

responding to my post - setup a tiny library runtime outside of the Poser 8 program, added that to the libraries, and suddenly poser works again.  it's Magic!

I hope your using a firewall of another kind. If not your computer is fully exposed to the internet and highly at risk.

Quote - Hi - just installed SR 1, and it seems to be a disaster.  Am running the runtime under the program files, which are on D:Poser8.  [...]
What should I do? move the runtime out from the program files area?   

No, you shouldn't. This may only be a problem if Poser is installed inside Window's Program files folder (and then only with with UAC on Vista and newer). So your setup is not affected by that.
What you should do is contact Smith Micro.

@**NanetteTredoux: ** Just to let you know, Poser 8 and ZoneAlarm coexist very well on my PC without interaction issues.