Another question for an answer I should already know by now:

I have my old V4 characters saved in the now old .daz file format and if I remember correctly, DS 4.5 was the last version to recognize those file extensions and anything beyond that needed to be converted to .duf? So 4.8 won't recognize the old files?

So do I need to upgrade from 4.03 to 4.5, convert my V4, hair, clothes, props, and everything else from Daz scene to .Duf before I can then upgrade to 4.8 and reinstall everything all over again into that program? 

I believe it's only scene files that have issue. Everything else should still load as legacy items.

This may help.

https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/22469349-How-to-fix-a-DAZ-Studio-Scene-File-duf-with-legacy-figures

Much depends on which version of DAZ Studio was used to save each of those .DAZ files. Most versions after DS2.0 work, though not all. (There are reasons DAZ3D dropped the .DAZ format, this is one of them. 

I believe it's only scene files that have issue. Everything else should still load as legacy items.

This may help.

https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/22469349-How-to-fix-a-DAZ-Studio-Scene-File-duf-with-legacy-figures

Razor, thanks for that link. That will help. However, I never did get that far. My old .daz files are still that. They haven't been saved the first time as .duf files. That script is for Daz scenes that have already been converted to Duf  Pre-4.6+.

So how do I convert from .Daz the first time? Install 4.5, open old daz scene file, and then what? Does 4.5 give you an option under Save to Save As ...duf file?

One thing I ran into after replacing a dead HDD with a new one & installing even my trusty old DS 4.03 was when I went to open a .daz scene file it got to a point a few seconds in to opening where it said such & such files were missing or could not be found. The DAZ scene & character files were being opened from an external drive where I had backups of those files. That included V4.2, hair files, skin texture, clothes, props, and just about everything else. But when I tried to open that scene(any given .daz scene file say "Relaxing,Bedroom,Night") I got that error message about "files missing or cannot be found. Would you like to locate..."

And I'm thinking "Come on, they're right there already! This is a 27.8 Mb file so there's character, hair, clothes & props data in this file and has been since the day I saved it months ago."  So I need to be able to open those .daz files, and then save to .duf somehow before I can use that legacy fixing script.  

The problem you are running into is that the items are not properly indexed in the data folder. What version of DS are you trying to open them in? What version were they saved in? 

To recover those .daz files, in general, in a version they were saved in or later, but before 4.5 open each item that is in the .daz. This should allow DS to now find the things in the .DAZ scene file you previously saved, which should allow DS 4.8 to open them and save them as a DUF. 

Most annoying, and one of the major reasons the .daz format was dropped. 

Open the items and save them in a new scene (don't overwrite an existing file), if they are OBJ or Poser format - figures/props and injectable morphs, no need to reapply the poses or materials or to add lights or cameras.

 To bhoins & RH,

To answer your questions, I was opening them in DS4.03, and they were originally saved in the same. Then the C drive DS was installed on crashed. I replaced it with a new drive(Win7/64) and reinstalled DS 4.03. When I went to open the Daz scene files with Vicky4 that were backed up on external drive in the reinstalled program, is when I got all the missing files messages. Like I said, there's around 27-30Mb of saved character, hair, clothes, etc in each .daz scene file, but the program doesn't recognize it and reports missing files.

Now granted, I reinstalled 4.03, but not all the things used to make my characters originally. So, do I need to reinstall all the V4.2 character, muscle morphs, hair & body files, all the skin & vascularity shaders & body fixes, props & clothes back into the DAZ Library folders?  I was under the belief that the data saved in each Daz scene file which included all the above shouldn't have to be recreated and remorphed from the ground up. But what say you? 

Did you back up the "data" folder?  It is that folder that had all the missing files.

If not then the fix is to reinstall the content, and in the case of Poser format figure, props and morphs (basic shapes, not the settings) load them into a blank scene and save under a new name to regenerate the stuff in the Data folder. The Data folder in the first DAZ Studio Format content directory is a vital aprt of your back-up. You will also need to reinstall any products, regardless of format, with textures that you used.

Thanks for your answers. I don't know that I did. I'll have to look through my external drives. What I do know is that I have multiple folders with all my downloaded content from both DS website & Rendo, so at least I don't have to download everything all over again. But it will be tedious reinstalling ALL that. (sigh.)

And I want to wait until after I get Windows 10 final release version, cause there's no point in installing DS until I do that. The new Win10 install will just wipe everything off my HDD, so I need to install the new os first.

HOWEVER, after I do that, to go back to my original question, should I install DS 4.6.3.52 first, convert all .DAZ scene files to .DUF & then upgrade to 4.8? And will doing that(installing 4.8) wipe out all my 4.6+ data library folders?   

Installing a new version of DS should never wipe the Data folder. Installing an updated version of the content will replace the .dsf files for those items, but will not affect other content. I'm not sure why you would want to use 4.6 as a staging point, however - is it able to open .daz files that fail in 4.8?

My understanding was from what someone said maybe a year or two ago was that 4.5 is the last DS version that recognizes the old .daz extension and all files saved that way, and that I need to use that to convert all the old .DAZ files to .DUF. However as a link above posted by Razor42 says, there was a problem with all versions before 4.6.2.2(?)with compatibility. So apparently I now need to update to 4.6+ before I can have a program that reliably converts .daz to .duf with no problems.

And since 4.8 does not recognize the old .daz format, everything will need to be converted to a .duf file before I can install 4.8,  open those files & work with the content.  

DS 4.8 will open .daz files. Very old .daz files will fail, or fail to load correctly, but I think that was true of 4.6 too.

 By "very old .daz files," how would you define that? How old is too old? I have .daz format files going back to late 2011 or early 2012 through early July of '14. They were all created & saved with DS 4.03+. All were with V4.2, no previous generations. I do know that everything created & saved from at least last year and most of '13 had been working fine up until the Hdd failure.

I think DS 3 files will open, DS 1 won't, I'm not sure where the cut off lies. However, I have had DS 4.0 .daz files fail so it can be hard to predict - but the 4.0 (or 4.1) file that I have that fails has been failing for quite a while.

 Thanks Richard & everyone for your answers and help. Much appreciated!

Most .daz files saved after 2.0 will open in 4.5+ (No difference between 4.5 and 4.8 for this statement.) There are some versions of DS after 2.0 (some of them are certain versions of 3.0) where they will not, but that is not as prevalent as you have been told.  No I don't recall which particular versions, and AFAIK, nobody wrote them down, though most of the problematic versions of .daz files don't open in 4.0 or later versions of DS 3 either.

Hello everyone,

 I'm new in the 3D and my software is : Daz Studio 4.8 beta.

My problem is in my Content Library and subfolders.

Is it normal that we find a subfolder My Library there?  and subfolders Data - People - Props and Runtime ?

How could I fix this problem?

 I insert a photo to get an idea

I really need your advice

With respect

escalibur47 

No you should not have nest libraries like that.

 Hello

 Following your answer, I have another questions. How I should do for the configuration is displayed as it should be? And is it possible to remove what should not be there?

 My Daz 3D Library should it also not be there?

 Thank you in advance to enlighten me.

With respect

escalibur47 

Go to Edit>Preferences>Content Library tab, click the Content Directory Manager button, expand the entries under Current so we can see the actual folder names, and take a screen shot. If you post that here we can then give instructions.

 Hello RHaseltine ,

 I made the screenshot you asked. I inserted the message.

 Thank you kindly help me

With respect

escalibur47 

Well, the first path is wrong - you should not place any kind of content in the Program Files folders on Windows Vista or later. All your installations should go to C:/Users/Public/Documents/My DAZ 3D Library. The Data folder, and Runtime folder, should be there and not in sub-folders - if you have My Library or Content folders inside the My DAZ 3D Library folder, in Windows Explorer select everything, Cut (ctrl-x), go to the My DAZ 3D Library folder, and paste (ctrl-v), when asked if you want to Merge files say yes.