Default file locations

[tfatman]

Hi -

I have changed the default location for all output and temp directories to my preferred location - this seems to work BUT StreamFab is still creating log and temp folders in \user\documents\DVDFab\StreamFab

Am seeing \log, \RenderDump and \temp in this path. When I download content, files are being created in here. Some of which are open consantly so keep flagging errors with OneDrive. How to I change settings so that all StreamFab files are redirected somewhere else?

[BuddyJet]

I'm having the same issue.

[twhiting9275]

This is a known "issue" that has been reported to devs, multiple times, for the past 6 months. Unfortunately, I don't see this changing any time soon

[Mona]

Hi -

I have changed the default location for all output and temp directories to my preferred location - this seems to work BUT StreamFab is still creating log and temp folders in \user\documents\DVDFab\StreamFab

Am seeing \log, \RenderDump and \temp in this path. When I download content, files are being created in here. Some of which are open consantly so keep flagging errors with OneDrive. How to I change settings so that all StreamFab files are redirected somewhere else?

Please attach the drmDownloader and StreamFab log files, thank you

[Down2Earth]

Mona, what tfatman is referring to should be on everybody's log file that has already been sent in. Those default folders has always been working like that in C drive.

You can put/load DVDdownloader/StreamFab program app to another drive that you want other then your C drive but the default folders for 'Log',' RenderDump' and 'temp' folders are still generated and used under this path.....C:\Users\XXX\Documents\DVDFab\StreamFab, in the 'temp' folder there are four more folders that are generated and used...'Cache', 'Record', 'Update', and 'You Tube' and also the 'Log' folder has active working folders/files in it.

They're not big files but if you don't know that they are there it can add up to be a problem with some users as noted by using 'One Drive' for 'C'. What I do sometimes is go into 'File Explorer' right click on my C drive and do a 'Disk CleanUp' to get rid of the unwanted temp files that it generates, would be better if those files has to be used in the C drive that StreamFab wouldn't store them.

[twhiting9275]

Agreed, log files have already been sent in, and these really shouldn't be required.

What's happened here is the system is relying on hard coded locations for certain files (log and cache), instead of placing them where directed to by the user. It's not a per-user situation. Perhaps it's a per-os situation (haven't played with it on Mac yet).

This gets super ugly when dealing with OneDrive and two instances running at the same time (have the multiple pc license, since I'm frequently needing two or three networks of downloads going).

Even if you only have one instance with OneDrive, it's still ugly, because OneDrive syncs everything in Documents (as it should) to the cloud. So , that cache file is being written to and synced continuously. Same with the log file. Just a really ugly situation.

The purpose of the 'my documents' directory/folder/whateveryouwannacallit is to store documents, things which should not be modified continually. Not to store temporary things like caching and log files, which are, by nature, designed to be modified frequently.

The purpose of having a setting to modify where those are placed is in order to allow users to move those, so they're not problematic, or so in some cases they don't fill up a user's drive

[Mona]

Ah, thank you for helping me understand the problem. I will get the developer involved.

[MadMac89]

Just for others who may want to experiment... essentially I removed "Documents" from the directory path using a symbolic link.
Theoretically, you could make this work for concurrent installations, I just didn't try it.

For MacOS, a symbolic link to move the physical location of the DVDFab directory to a non-cloud synchronized location looks like:

ln -s /Volumes/[your volume]/Users/[your user name]/DVDFab /Volumes/[your volume name]/Users/[your user name]/Documents/DVDFab

Basic actions:

1. shut down StreamFab
2. use mv to put the DVDFab home directory in the place you want it.
3. create a symbolic link in place of the old home directory with the right substitutions as above
4. startup StreamFab. The download queue I had - did NOT come across, likely due to a bug which hangs StreamFab on close (5.0.1.3)

The "Volumes" path might look a bit odd to most of you - it is due to having moved my /Users folder to an external TB3 NVMe RAID enclosure. I use symlinks a great deal - even to mask the silly location of the iCloudDocs folder for iCloud. If you are using the standard MacOS setup - /Users will be the root path to your user homes.

No guarantees this works for everyone, I assume MKLink will work on Windows...
The right solution is for the application to support a logical [Home Dir] without hardwired path names.

USE THIS METHOD AT YOUR OWN RISK.