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If you have only used manual install, then the only other plausible explanation that I can think of justifying the presence of metadata in your CMS, is through the invocation of re-import metadata function of the database maintenance. That could have imported the metadata from the product's .DSX file present in Runtime/Support folder into the CMS.
Here's a discussion https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/575591/broken-references-in-smart-content that can guide you further. Even though the discussion is in context of smart content, the underlying issue remains the same.
Manual installation (simple unzipping) cannot affect your CMS database, and subsequent database searches. So the issue you described only implies that you may have used DIM/Connect or any other tools to install those products or the metadata was added later using tools like the Content Wizard, since you were able to use database search for those items. Database maintenance is generally used for backing up and restoring custom categories, custom metadata, tags etc which probably do not apply in your case.
None of the database tools, except for the reset database option, provided by Daz are destructive i.e. cause removal of data. Afaik, even DIM or Connect does not remove product or item metadata from the CMS DB once a product is installed, but resetting can remove any custom database records such as custom categories. Upon proper uninstallation through DIM/Connect, it probably just disables the relationships at the database records so that the orphaned user facing item data no longer shows up in search results when using database based search.
Resetting the database will probably not work in your case, because you never told DIM/Connect about the uninstallation, so the CMS still considers the product or items as installed.
In your case, since you manually deleted the files from the filesystem, the database entries for the product and it's associated user facing items were not removed/disabled, assuming you had those installed via DIM or some other tools. So a database search for items would still fetch the metadata for the user facing files but their icons and links would be broken since you removed those files manually.
The safest and easiest option would be to reinstall those products using DIM and again uninstall them through DIM only, and then verify the absence of those items in search results. You can try it for a sample product to see if it works. I don't have access to my PC so I can't verify this from my end.
Also, afaik, DIM and Connect store the metadata of the same product independently, which can complicate this if you are unsure which method was used for installation in the first place.
The other option would be to use an independent PostgreSQL DB client/browser and surgically query and modify/delete the unwanted rows. But that would require some familiarity of SQL and relational database concepts.
The Mad Librarian sounds eerily similar to the EZFinder product in the Daz store, sans the repulsive UI and price tag (and a few features that I couldn't care less about). The similarities are mainly in terms of the overall schematics of being an independent app that manages and 'injects' content into DS, 'compartmentalization' of the content, how both handles the indexing of content in proprietary 'caches' outside the CMS or official DS provided files, choice of .Net framework in the implementation, just to begin with. Also, a lot of knowledge that was used to build the product would have been hard to acquire outside the internal Daz PA discussion forums or without Daz's technicians. Which brings me to the obvious question - Do these two products share a common ancestory? Is that EZFinder still being maintained?
Also, I am curious about the statement - "Marks items you own but have never downloaded, and hands them to Install Manager on request." How does the librarian achieve that without collecting Daz store credentials?
You can. Just ask any of the free AIs (such as the one from Google search) to guide you with step by step instructions and handhold you in case of issues. You can even create a shortcut in the menus to invoke the script on demand.
Are the seams appearing on the default A-pose or after posing a character?
If they are appearing after posing, then it could be triggered by character specific JCMs or other morphs that cannot propagate/influence the geograft.
If they are appearing before posing, then gradually dial the character's body morph dial, starting from 0, to isolate the offending morph.
There is "PropertyController.dsa" script that you can find from the links here that can show all loaded morphs on a figure. If you cannot find the script there, then try searching with the script name. Run it both before and after posing the figure.
I haven't used the sculpt tool so can't say for sure what's happening in the background. But there a few instances where the vendor has resorted to their own proprietary activation mechanism instead of just using Daz serial numbers. For example, see this old product called Look At My Hair where the vendor handled the activation on their own site. It is possible that something similar was planned here as well, or may be just a scaffolding for a yet to be implemented feature, or just a remnant of an abandoned idea, that only the author can say.
Or, it could be just be collecting and sending benign analytics data on feature usage, or worse, auditing unique installations to check piracy by comparing against reported sales numbers.
Most of the reputed marketplaces like app stores and plugin stores have rules requiring the developers to disclose what information they collect. Not sure if Daz mandates the vendors to disclose such information.
For the debug port check, I think it's trying to check if a memory scanner/injector is trying to interfere with it, probably as an anti-piracy measure. All I can suggest is to monitor the traffic using a network/packet sniffer and report any transmission of suspicious/encrypted data.
A more relevant question to ask, or approaching the concern from a different perspective would be to discuss the cost of producing comparable 2D content catering to the same market/audience using Daz vs AI workflows.
Would a professional artist proficient in Daz and owning licensed copies of content be able to charge less than someone proficient in AI tools workflows for generating similar professional quality output for the same consumer?
IMO, the economy of production at scale (once the quality threshold is surpassed) is going to be a major factor that will shape the market moving forward.
Also, the fact that there are plenty of requests here for converting G9 characters to G8, by itself proves that it is possible to achieve the same level of quality, may be even surpass the bar of G8. I get that some folks here are too consumed with their sunken cost fallacy and would go to great lengths at criticizing the limitations of G9. Let it be known to those folks, that each time someone makes a request/post for a G9 to G8 conversion here, they are being proven wrong.
G9 has both male and female base morphs. It's a different issue why some PAs ignore using them as base. Old workflow habits or reluctance to adapt, perhaps.
Ah yes, 7 years ago, someone indulged in the ultimate “guilty pleasure” of eating a bat, and naturally, the entire world had to shut down.
C O N S E Q U E N C E S
Iirc, SickleYield's hat and hair helpers are available since Genesis 2. In the past, I have had decent success by fitting G8 hair onto her G3 wearable prop and then using the prop's morphs to adjust any unwanted clippings or gaps. Since I do not use dforce, I cannot confirm if dforce would function properly when backported using this method. Note that while this may work for short hairs, long hairs that have morphs or additional bones may cause issues.
There were some earlier efforts in a similar direction. For example, https://github.com/edolstra/dhdm .
@eelgoo I suggest creating a pinned thread for Open Source Tools and Utilities. It would go a long way in preserving these efforts and make it easier for those who intend to build upon these.Google (or cloudflare) triggers additional verifications depending upon the trust and reputation of the IP address and location (besides other factors) from where the request is being made. Github, for example, goes as far as to check the location of the students to verify if they are applying from inside their campus, while attempting to avail student discounted offers. There is, of course, more to it, but you get the idea.
If you are working in the offices of a major company, chances are that the IP subnet leased to them by their ISP (or ASN) are trusted, at least better than residential IPs, and far better than the ones VPN providers use. I use uceprotect to check reputation. Then there are methods that can easily detect whether the originating IP is being used as VPN.
There are also phone number providers that can provide you a temporary phone number for a fee for the purpose of receiving SMS, but chances are, those phone numbers are already black listed. This could be a reason why Google is requiring the QR scan instead of just the SMS OTP.
In short, you need to create your account using the internet service provided by a reputed institution, then may be, you stand a chance to avoid being 'challenged'.
The AI may have some better examples in the ecosystems of Qt, cloud computing and JavaScript frameworks, but those are not the hills I wanna die on 😉 Also, I cited the examples of Eclipse and Azureus, since Azureus is built on top of Eclipse SWT to provide consistent look-n-feel across multiple platforms, like Qt, but using Java.
