Why does removing an animation from my timeline delete the animation file from my computer?


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By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
This doesn't seem like the way this should work.  Am I doing something wrong?
I have attached images of the steps involved.  Sorry for the large images, but I thought that this would be the clearest way to communicate the problem.

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/4a48d209-f8d7-40f0-a6a5-a16e.jpg
https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/9682a900-a1a1-4cc7-9066-68c8.jpghttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/e8993f35-5c35-412c-8488-d138.jpghttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/4e7dad07-cdbe-4207-87d5-abff.jpghttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/946c97e7-6713-4f20-90e4-bff8.jpg
By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago
because your cursor was still on the library file -  it's happened to me too.  Next time before deleting,  make sure you click on the item you want deleted else the last item you clicked will be deleted,  in this case,  you had the file selected and not the animation on the timeline. 
- you can see it on the 2nd image where the file is highlighted in green - meaning it was the current selection.
By 4u2ges - 4 Years Ago
Hmm, I do not know how you managed to do that. Items from Smart Gallery cannot be deleted.
Beside the context menu you have shown is a timeline menu. Cutting from there should not do anything to the item regardless whether it is still selected or not.
If you can replicate it (I cannot), make a video and send it to Reallusion Feedback tracker. It is a bug as it seems.
By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
I explicitly tried to deselect the item from my smart gallery in several different ways.  It is impossible to deselect.

After applying the animation to the character I click on the timeline to select it.  I then click on the timeline item to cut it.  I would think that the content item should be deselected when I click on the timeline item.
By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
Ok, new information.  I don't even have to delete the timeline animation.  The moment I apply the animation from the smart gallery, it is removed.  As soon as I click away it is no longer accesable.
By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
Sequence of events for clarity.
https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/cce6b7c8-17a4-4f8e-86bc-b940.jpg
https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/dd9e8c36-4852-462e-8fea-e917.jpghttps://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/71794962-3e3a-4484-94c0-bb8b.jpg
By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago
wow,  ok...that's different ( and scary ), and 4u2 is right,  it is unusual behavior -  I've seen how files can get accidentally deleted by having an incorrect selection but I've never seen the software delete files like that before, it's either a bug,  or possibly even something happening outside iclone altogether.   I can see several scenarios where files simply go missing that had nothing to do with iclone and everything to do with things ranging from security software,  to a failing drive to windows 10 updates being windows 10  -  if that's your operating system.
4u2ges is right,  this is something you want to present to the support staff - preferably with something they can recreate and see for themselves ....or maybe give them the project to see if it happens to them.

The only thing I'll suggest at this point is make sure you have a backup of at least your custom files and other things that can't be replaced from the RL store,  if it's windows 10 acting up - they have a history of wiping files with bugs.
Too many variables here to make any other suggestions and the Staff needs to see and confirm whats going on.
By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
Ok, i'll do that.  Maybe this is related to my other problem with save files.  The computer and hard drive are brand new, only had it built about a week ago.  I haven't noticed any strange disk problems anywhere else yet, but i'll keep an eye out.
By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago
ironically enough failing drives on new computers  are not uncommon,  u never know if they are using refurbished parts,  or stocks of drives they bought in bulk that got smacked around in storage.    - Usually the 3 month mark is what gives you an idea if a drive is dependable. for example,  if your drive has bad sectors,  it makes sense that this is only happening to iclone if iclone is saving to damaged areas of the drive.  

You may want to rule this out by having your os fully check your drive for bad sectors - it takes a few hours so something like this you can do before going to sleep and wake up to see the results. - but also caution,  back up any important files before you do this, I've seen those drive tests reveal errors and delete a bunch of files in an attempt to fix those errors -  so you recover what you can while you still can before doing tests and repairs...i once had a friends drive completely crash on me while simply doing a checkdisk to see if it had problems,  the horror!!

Point being this is so unusual,  the importance of backing up can not be overstated.
By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
Thank you very much.  I just ran chkdsk /r (which only took 20 minutes or so)
The issue I was having with save files seems to be resolved.  Maybe the others as well.

Going to have to do further tests to see what carnage has been wrought around my computer now.

Edit: it turns out that this problem is not resolved.  Items still deleted after applying them.
By animagic - 4 Years Ago
I'm curious, does this also happen when applying motions via the Content Manager? If so, it could be a strange Smart Gallery problem.
By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
It does seem specific to the smart panel.  Though, when I opened animations from the content browser, I would later find them deleted from the smart browser (but not the normal one).  I didn't do much to look at this in depth at the time, so I could be wrong about this.  Talk about strange.

However, I have uninstalled iclone and reinstalled to a different place.  initially Iclone was installed on my C drive and templates installed on my D drive, now I have them all on the C dive.  This seemed to fix the problem here, as well as my problem with save files being deleted.  Seems like a pretty strong sign that there is something wrong with my D drive.  Hopefully i'll know more soon.

Unfortunately, still unable to do renders with Iray without it crashing every 20-40 frames to a memory access error of some kind.  I thought it would be connected considering the nature of the error, but it seems not.  Even with everything on the C drive it's still happening.  I can't even be sure that the first two problems are actually working ok now since at least once I was able to save over a file without it deleting itself even before the uninstall.  Look like another full day of troubleshooting for me.
By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago
the memory access error is usually due to corrupt files. -  another thing common with new custom built computers is the software they install and sometimes even the way they install it -  i like building my pc now ....but when I have gotten prebuilt pc in the past,  my first few days were spent stripping down the extra software they installed that i didn't need that was eating up my resources and updating drivers and customizing settings to disable things I never use that take up ram, slow down the pc and protecting my privacy as much as allowed. 

I have a feeling the issue you are dealing with is just software related -  hardware errors tend to have a cascading effect ....they get worse the more you try to fix them, and often result in bluescreen errors (BSOD)  -  you haven't mentioned bluescreens and experienced improvement -  so this leads me to believe you just need to do a thorough clean up - maybe use ccleaner to clean up your registry of any garbage entries https://www.ccleaner.com/. Scan for malware - as it's not uncommon for pc's to have preinstalled apps that collect data and track you.....  - this is not something a computer manufacturer does,  but it's something that should be done. i've yet to see a new pre-built computer run great with all the extra stuff they install,  at least for the way we need computers to run for animation / cg software -  for people that just read email ...they wont notice it as much. 
By browne.dave2 - 4 Years Ago
This has become very confusing now.  Having run CHKDSK on both of my drives, I have found no errors or bad sectors.  This computer was set up professionally as a workstation for rendering and doing work with computer graphics in cinema 4D.  There was no junk installed, which i'm quite thankful for.  Being only about 2 weeks old i've barely had time to install anything on it beyond downloading content for Daz studio, Iclone, Character creator, maya and various other graphics applications.  I'm doubtful that malware would be a problem, but I will have a look.  A hardware issue does seem to be a good explanation for the collection of different problems I am having, but it doesn't seem like it's a disk problem.  In a way, I was hoping that I would find the disk did have an error.  I would have a clear path to solution.  Now I don't have a clue what was going on.

Corrupt install of Iclone I guess?  Not sure what else to think.

Looking at the logs using the event viewer - i'll put the details here (sorry for this info dump)

Checking file system on D:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Memory.

Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ...
  527088 files processed.                                                                
File data verification completed.
 Phase duration (User file recovery): 1.22 hours.

Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ...
  860139314 free clusters processed.                                                        
Free space verification is complete.
 Phase duration (Free space recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

   3815429 MB total disk space.
 465570432 KB in 467785 files.
    126516 KB in 55616 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    746111 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
   3359919 MB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 976750079 total allocation units on disk.
 860139315 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 1.24 hours (4492633 ms).