Has anyone else noticed this? Start up Poser 8 (SR1) all library functions work. After one to over a dozen renders (maybe connected to the complexity of the scene), the library folders will have "?" instead on content numbers, you cannot add or delete runtimes, you cannot add anything from the libraries as the check mark and double check mark buttons are gone. Some folders will still show content, but double clicking the item gives you the "loading" message but will not load the figure, light, prop, pose, etc. Refresh does not work.

Now the odd behavior:
 

Click on the 'Content' tab, allow Content Paradise web info to load and go back the the 'Pose' tab and the entire library system is fully functional. This is repeatable.

I haven't had the nerve to put P8 on my Mac yet. I have it on my Windows box and have some similar problems to what you mentioned. When I first bring P8 up, I get the library folders with the ? marks. It takes about 4 minutes before the check mark/double check marks appear.

When I finally load it to 10.5.8, I'll let you know if I have similar prblems.

I've got P8 SR1 running on 10.5.8, but haven't seen this myself.  But then I don't have a lot of external runtimes or very large ones, so that may have something to do with it.  Contact the Smith Micro tech support and tell them about it.  http://support.smithmicro.com

Thanks all,

I have been working with Smith Micro on the issue. My original problem was the loss of the library functions after renders and the only way to get them back was to quit and restart poser. When I discovered the "Content" tab quirk, they seem to think it is related to some system calls and I am trying to generate error logs for them (excellent support!).  I just wondered if any other mac users had seen this. I do have several runtimes and it does take a few moments for the initial library loads. It is just odd that everything works great for a while, then all the ? marks come back and no amount of time will restore things, but it is instantaneous when I toggle the "Content" tab.

The P8 library is quite quirky, dare I say buggy, under Mac OS 10.5 and 10.6, even after SR1. The library function buttons on the bottom can vanish at seemingly random intervals, though they can usually be reacquired by going into another category and back again. For me, rendering doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

Adding an item to the library won't show up there until you go out and into that category again. Sometimes you have to select the category again to make sure you are still there (the library forgets where you are and may not save the item even though it goes through the steps without complaint). This is heartbreaker if you close P8 without saving, thinking you have put your in the library but actually haven't. 

I don't know how much of this is due to the fact that the library is now Flash-driven and no longer constantly polls the drive (which I suppose is the reason for the refresh buttons). BBill could answer this more intelligently.

Poser never "constantly" polled the drive, so it isn't accurate to say it "no longer constantly polls the drive" since it never did so.

It used to scan a folder everytime you switched what the current folder was in the old library GUI. It had to, because it didn't remember anything. So you were able to reload an item list by switching which list you were looking at - either by switching categories, or by navigating between folders within a category.

The new GUI tries to remember everything, so that switching between categories does not require going back to the disk. This is especially important when a runtime is located on a relatively slow network-mounted drive, and the folders you've opened already contain hundreds or even thousands of items. As a consequence, if a new file is created, or an existing file is deleted, from outside Poser, then you have to refresh the folder where that change happened, or refresh one of its parent folders. This is an important optimization - it is why you can now switch between runtimes instantly - or at least most people can.

As for needing to flip categories or refresh when doing an addition or deletion from within Poser, that is not supposed to happen. I am on Windows and have never seen that problem. When you save a prop or figure to the library, it adds the new file into the tree immediately, or at least it is supposed to. Some users who reported that it did not show the new item actually were not paying attention to the selected folder at the time they saved a new item. As a consequence, the item did get added both to disk and to the tree listing, but in a folder that was not the one they thought they were saving to. So they were looking at the listing of some unrelated folder and reporting that the file did not show up. But it did show up in the folder they had selected before saving. They just weren't looking at that folder.

Operator error aside, I do believe there were some problems like that even in SR1 on Mac only. It is, as far as I know, a problem inside Poser's file management, and not the GUI itself. I say this because I saw lots of SR2 bug-fix entries for missing/incomplete library listings and updates on the Mac only, and furthermore, none of these bug fixes involved any changes to the Flex GUI.

I defer to BBill's explanation above, but will add the point that in the new library tree it is very easy to no longer be where you think you are, even though the folders and items in the tree view have not changed. In the old library, you could only see the contents of one folder at a time, so you knew where your save would take place. It couldn't be anywhere else.

It's true that in P8 you can save to a folder other than the one you THINK you're in, but I maintain you can also save to nowhere at all. That is, somehow the folder has become de-selected, yet you can still click on the + button and name the saved item as if it is really being saved. This is true on Mac, anyway. I have saved items and not been able to find them anywhere in my runtime. If I actively re-select the folder and save again, this time it will show up there (sometimes not instantly, but if I go out and back in again to check).

That's what I mean when I say P8 forgets where you are in the library even if you have done nothing to change location. It needs the folder to be selected again. This is not consistent behavior in my case.

I think there may be a memory leak, because sometimes most or all of the menu items will be grayed out and the shortcuts stop working until a relaunch of P8. I don't know if this could affect library behavior.

As long as there are no ? marks displayed with accompanying loss of the add/replace character check mark buttons, the library system works for me. I can add poses, props and figures and they are immediately available in the selected folder, no refresh needed. When it works, it is much faster than poser 7 with large and multiple runtimes. I just can't seem to find what exactly triggers the temporary loss of functionally.