I just bought a new hard drive,and moved my my Daz Library there… the Daz Content transferred smoothly, i did the rebuild database and re-import metadata stuff, and all good there.

Issue comes when trying to read Poser content from the external hard drive.. I point the new runtime to my hard drive, the same location as the Daz Content, and it tells me “this doesn’t have a subdirectory called Runtime”, when clearly it has it! (please see pic attached).

Whats weird, if that if I point the content manager to My Library in my internal hard drive, it has no problems reading it and accessing it.. it just won’t read it from my external.. and it’s only the Poser content, Daz Content is all fine.

Any ideas what might be happening? I’d really appreciate to know.. thanks in advance!

Can you please post a pic of the Content Directory Manager with the relevant directories expanded.

Have you added Poser content at the top level folder (My Library/Runtime,My DAZ 3D Library/Runtime) or at the runtime folder level(Runtime/). Just a thought.

Everything looks fine there tbh,

On your hardrive is the poser library path correct with no nested folders:

/Volumes/Sandma01/Daz 3D/Studio/My Library/Runtime?

Though that should be fine if your Daz Content is running as expected.

What happens when you select to yes continue?

very sad update: now daz Studio won't read ANY Poser format, not even from my internal hard drive.. I unistalled and re-installed Daz Studio (from the DIM), and no changes...

any ideas?

Ah that sux, It really should be as simple as migrating the content to the new drive and redirecting Daz to the new location.

So its still seeing the Daz content? Just missing the Poser Libraries?

Did you try a manual search for content using the drop down on the Content Library Tab?

"Search Hard Drives for files" and direct it to search the external hardrive.

Try installing without using DIM?

The poser path in the image above is incorrect.

Select that same path but, go deeper until youve actually selected the runtime folder.

Then it will show up in the library content tree.

actually, it never shows up as /Volumes/Sandma01/Daz 3D/Studio/My Library/Runtime, only as /Volumes/Sandma01/Daz 3D/Studio/My Library/, even though I tell it to select the runtime folder, I go even all the way to the libraries folder, but it will stills tick to showing the second option, not the first one..

when i click on Continue, the Runtime is added, but it's empty, it shows nothing inside DS4..

also, this screen shows up when i try to do a hard drive search.. should my external HD be there? Like I said, what puzzles me is that DS4 reads my daz content on the external HD no problem, so the software does recognize there's another HD there... I just don't know why the poser formats is being such a pain  :/

You stop at the folder that contains the "Runtime", that is true for both DAZ Studio and Poser.

Quote - You stop at the folder that contains the "Runtime", that is true for both DAZ Studio and Poser.

I've done that many times, but the content manager just shows the root directory, it never shows the "runtime" one.. and yes, i have uninistalled everything, and then installed everything again manually, not using DIM..

what keeps puzzling me is why DS4 reads the external hard drive ok for daz content, but it rejects poser content only on the external HD... not even sure what that behaviour is about  :/

There is no logical reason for Studio to show Studio Format content and not Poser Format content if the libraries are mapped and set up properly.  Just for the heck of it add the Poser Format path under Other Formats in the Content Directory Manager and see what shows up in Content Library tab.

Ok there not showing up where?

Poser content will not show up in the smart content library.

Only in the manual content tree view library.

Please show us a screen shot of where there not showing up please.

I did, and nothing shows up, I mean, it read ALL the libraries inside my poser directory external hard drive, but it shows no files inside them... and where it doesn't show up is in the content library... this is driving me bonkers, because I thought that since my external HD was formated in exFAT, that this could be causing the issue... but, then why it reads the daz content with no problems?

I noticed DS4 has some problem with the word "runtime".. like, I opened genesis 2 from the daz directory in the external HD, and that figure has maps ion the rutime folder, and Daz said it couldn't find it, so I pointed to my external's HD texture location, and then the fifure loaded ok...

so, for some reason, DS4 has trouble reading the word "runtime", that's why it keeps saying "this folder doesn't have a Runtime subdirectory".... weirdest thing that has happened to me in all my 3D work years..

Studio has no problems reading a Runtime.  You don't have your libraries set up right.  I asked that you try the Other Format as would show exactly what is in the library folder.

Quote - Studio has no problems reading a Runtime.  You don't have your libraries set up right.  I asked that you try the Other Format as would show exactly what is in the library folder.

actually, I did that, and yes, it shows all my poser libraries and the way they're set up, but it doesn't show any poser files, no cr2s, no pz2s, nothing..

like I said what i dont get is, if it reads my internal poser runtime structure, and the poser structure of my external hard drive is a copy of this, why wouldn't read it? and why does it happen only with poser formats? if it was a thing that DS4 is confused because it sees that the external runtime is similar to the internal one, then why is this not an issue withy the daz formats?

I really appreciate all your guidance, guys.. I'll have to keep working with Poser Pro for the time being until i figure things out with DS4... I'll post back if I eventually figure out what the issue is

At this point we really need to see the actual library folder layout as it appears on your harddrive, including the sub folder layout of your "Runtime" folder.

This is perplexing. I have 26 active runtimes on one of my secondary internal HDDs; meaning they aren't on the same HDD as the Studio install. They all show up and work fine, even my old Mil2 runtimes.

I work with carrara so most all; excluding genesis G2F/M, of my content in in poser format; some 100 gig.

Try this, used the file/import browse to your Poser content files; runtime/libararies/charactor open a folder and see what is there. You should see and be able to load your files. If not the problem may not be Studio.

Now a common issue with Studio is not being able to get a clean reinstall with out some hunting and deleting. Just uninstlling and reinstalling isn't going to change anything because all your settings are stored elseware and don't uninstall.

Okay I should have been clearer about the point of the Other Formats 'trick'.  DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats library options both filter out folders that don't contain user facing files and therefore are not needed to be seen by the user.  Other Formats option doesn't filter out folder but it does filter files, so you will be able to see the folders layout as Studio sees them but not DS and Poser format files.  Being able to see what DS sees may give you a better idea as to the problem then looking at the folders in Apple's Windows Explorer equivulant.

first attachment shows how DS4 read my internal HD Poser formats with no issues, it even shows a character ready to load and no problems.. but you see how it doesn't show me anything of my external HD (called NEWHD).. it doesn't set any arrows to keep browsing the content..

Quote - Try this, used the file/import browse to your Poser content files; runtime/libararies/charactor open a folder and see what is there. You should see and be able to load your files. If not the problem may not be Studio.

this worked perfect by the way! at least I have a way to load cr2s from my external HD, but it's gonna be a major hassle to import every single file of my 1,000s of files I have on poser formats.. but at least it's something..

I'll appreciate any insights you may have into this..

Is the Runtime folder sitting in the root of the new drive? If it is, try creating a new folder, moving the Runtime into that in its entirety, and selecting that folder as a Poser content directory.

Quote - Is the Runtime folder sitting in the root of the new drive? If it is, try creating a new folder, moving the Runtime into that in its entirety, and selecting that folder as a Poser content directory.

no, the Runtime folder is in NEWHD/content/Runtime... I don't understand why DS4 skips the "content" folder and just maps it straight into Runtime on the "other formats" category..

I gave up on it all by now (hahaha).. I did a full uninstall using CleanApp for Mac, and I'm resting from this for a couple of days before re-trying again... if I get to get this working, I'll let you all know.. thanks so much for all the advice and tips!

Well, if the Runtime was in NEWHD/content/ then you should have picked the Content folder as the target, and that would have been the label that appeared in the Content Library under Poser Formats.

I did, that's what i was explaining before, that even though I selected "content" as the target folder, it still mapped it as if it was skipping it.

A week later (or more) I think i finally narrowed down what's going on: Daz Studio for some reason doesn't differentiate from upper or lower case, as shown in my screen capture... the texture is asking for is in the "Textures" folder, but it's looking for the "textures" (lowercase) folder... I noticed this caused duplicated folders when I reinstalled from zero using DIM.. so I had a "Libraries" and a "libraries" folder, a "Geometries" and a "geometries" folder, and so on... this caused special problems in the "data" folder, as I had two folders of the same name, with both in lower case, one of them from a previous installation, so DS4 was looking into the empty old folder, instead of the new one..

anyway, at this point I'm realizing there's some type of incompatibility between DS4 and Mac, cause it's the onyls oftware that's giving me issues (all versions of Poser never gave me any trouble at all on mac)... I'm almost about to give up entirely and go buy a PC notebook, just to run DS4 in it, now that they're cheaper than ever...

EDIT: just realized that DIM for mac is only for 32-bit systems, while my mac is a 64-bit one, and my version of DS4 is 64-bit.. wonder if that's the root of everything malfunctioning.

I run ds4 and dim on mac without issue.

Razor42 that shirt came as part of the Genesis 2 Male Starter Essentials and can be found under People/Genesis 2 Male/Clothing/Surf's Up Outfit and Board.  Could you try it on your Mac and see what happens.

Im not using an external harddrive though.

The textures folder should definitely be all lower case to.

as I originally mentioned, i have NO issues with DS4 mapping things correctly when everything is installed in the local hard drive: it recognizes daz and poser formats with no issues... problems come when i try to map them to an external hard drive, where it onloy recognizes daz Formats, and no poser formats.

But yeah, just realized that the PoserCF files for the genesis starter essentials are all folders in lowercase, and my daz install in the Runtime folder is all caps.

Still no success after another day spending my time and energy on this.. I can't afford to run DS4 on my internal hard drive, I just have too much stuff and it would clutter my imac big time, so i need to find a solution for this.

Next step is uninstalling everything, and installed 32-bit Ds4 on my mac, and see if the issues are still present there.

EDIT: any ideas why DS4 should be showing duplicate empty files? (see screenshot)

._ files are hidden file types on a mac they store some file information in them. Its likely when you copied yur library to the hardrive its taken them with them. It is possible to remove them from the hard drive using a utility or terminal commands.

Quote - ._ files are hidden file types on a mac they store some file information in them. Its likely when you copied yur library to the hardrive its taken them with them. It is possible to remove them from the hard drive using a utility or terminal commands.

thanks, I'll keep an eye out if it happens again (since I deleted everything once again, that's no longer an issue).

Well, installing the 32-bit version of DS4 did nothing to change the situation, so i re-deleted everything again, and now will just give up in trying to figure this out. I'll install 64-bit DS4 on my mac, will install the basic files on my internal hard drive (V4, M4, etc), because since it doesn't recognize there's a Runtime on an external hard drive, it doesn't show me any characters that are in Poser format (like Victoria4.cr2, etc)...

Whatever it doesn't need to read poser formats (like genesis), i can install on the external HD, and I'll just have to keep my current folder on the internal HD only, until I can buy ba PC notebook. I trust that on PC, DS4 won't have issues reading daz and poser formats on an external HD. if it does, then I'll just give up on DS4 entirely and just deal with the hassle of working with Genesis in Poser and just live with it  xD

This sounds like a drive format or set-up issue - as far as I am aware the Mac OS, like Windows, ignores case by default though it can be set not to as a user option. Did you turn case-sensitivity on for the external HD, and if so do you need it? DIM doesn't handle large volumes of data, so it doesn't need a 64 bit version. 32 bit software runs on 64 bit OSes, it's the reverse that not possible.

Sorry to being getting back to this so late.  Thank you to Razor, I rather expected that would the result otherwise a small army of irate Mac users would be storming the DAZ gates.  Sandmarine a quick google for Mac and case sensitive came up with a lot of links that suggest the problem may be that your external drive is set to be case sensitive.  At this point I think you may find more help at a Mac specific troubleshooting site.

Quote - Sorry to being getting back to this so late.  Thank you to Razor, I rather expected that would the result otherwise a small army of irate Mac users would be storming the DAZ gates.  Sandmarine a quick google for Mac and case sensitive came up with a lot of links that suggest the problem may be that your external drive is set to be case sensitive.  At this point I think you may find more help at a Mac specific troubleshooting site.

thanks for the advice! I've decided to reformat the external hard drive as ms-dos (FAT), which is case insensitive, but has the 4GB file limit, but I doubt I'll have a single poser or daz file bigger than that, so I'm going for it... I'll report how this goes later!

Quote - This sounds like a drive format or set-up issue - as far as I am aware the Mac OS, like Windows, ignores case by default though it can be set not to as a user option. Did you turn case-sensitivity on for the external HD, and if so do you need it? DIM doesn't handle large volumes of data, so it doesn't need a 64 bit version. 32 bit software runs on 64 bit OSes, it's the reverse that not possible.

THAT FIXED IT! Can't believe I wasted so much time on this, when it was all about reformatting the hard drive from exFat to MS-DOS, now it works like charm!

Thanks for all your help, i truly really appreciate it!

:D Great new mate! Glad you got it sorted!

Quote - :D Great new mate! Glad you got it sorted!

yeah, glad I don't have to buy a PC notebook right away, haha.. thanks so much everyone for all your help!