So ... "I heard it through the grape vine" that some chipmunks are hording CDLC songs and stashing them all away into the Rocksmith 2014 root directory "dlc" folder.  What a mess chipmunks make.  Every CDLC song, and for that matter, every official DLC song that is installed in the game "dlc" folder once it has been played one time gets logged to the game save profile database.  This can slow down game load times and may eventually lead to a corrupt game save.  You say, "What?"  Think about it for a minute, do you have more CDLC installed than there are official DLC releases?  Then you may want to read on if you do.

I have been doing custom repairs of game saves for users for a while now so that I could train the Game Save Gigbox repair tool AI.  One large game save profile database that I repaired was 699 KB.  This player was experiencing regular game crashes and game save corruption.  At this point there were over 600,000 lines of data in the game save user profile database.  More interesting is that this save contained over 1500 DLC/CDLC arrangements, or roughly 750 songs.  It is hard to say if the game developers envisioned or ever intended that many songs be loaded into the DLC library.   Put all this in perspective by taking a look at the size of a newly created profile database which is only about 4 KB.

My suggestion to the player with the big game save was to create a CDLC playlist loading system.  Here's how (read these steps a couple of times and familiarize yourself before attempting):

1.          You will be splitting up your CDLC song library collection into smaller playlist subsets.  So think about how you would like to do this and write it down.  The object is to split your CDLC library up into relatively equal groups of songs.  This will reduce the size of the game save user profile database and CDLC song folder that are loaded when the game is played.  If you have your playlist subsets written down you can continue. 

2.         Run Rocksmith 2014 and create a new user profile for each playlist that you will split your CDLC library into from Step 1.  This example shows playlist by genre:

• MyUserProfile  <==  this is your current user profile (do not change)
• User_SoftRock <== add one user profile for each playlist
• User_HardRock
• User_Jazz
• User_Pop

Note: After creating a new user profile the game will load and you will be presented with the screen “Have you played Rocksmith before … Yes/No”.  Simply press Escape and then ENTER (Begin) which will return you to the User Profile Menu so you can keep adding new user profiles.  There is no need to go through game setup steps for the new profiles.  You will actually be deleting these in Step 5 below. 

3.       Save, and exit the game when you are done creating the new user profiles for your playlists.   

4.       Run Custom Game Tool (CGT) program, Game Save Gigbox (GSG) menu tab and select BACKUP for your game save user profile and databases.  The localprofile.json and *_prfldb files that you need to backup are stored in: DRIVE_LETTER:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\YOUR_USER_ID\221680\remote 

After you press "Go" ... a GSG message window will pop up. “Information: Prompt Open Message”, telling you the backup is complete.  Click “Yes” at the prompt.  Open the file “ProfileId.txt” in the folder that popped up and leave the file and folder open.  You will need this information in Step 5, and again in Step 8.  It shows which user profile goes with each profile database. 

5.       Now comes a tricky part:

• Open the folder where your user profiles (localprofile.json and *_prfldb files) are stored.  You should still have it open from Step 4.  Files named *.bak are your game save backups.  Always save these in case something goes wrong.
• Delete the new *_prfldb files associated with the User_Playlist profiles (you will find the cross reference to these in the ProfileId.txt file).
• Create duplicate copies (copy/paste) of your original game save profile database file (*_prfldb).  Make as many copies of your original game save profile database as you made user profiles (User_Playlist) in Step 2. 
•  Now for the fun part … one file at a time, copy one of the new *_prfldb file names from ProfileId.txt file and rename one of the *_prfldb duplicate copies.  (Repeat this step until all duplicate *_prfldb files have been renamed.)  Each file should have a unique *_prfldb name when you are finished.  The localprofile.json file and one original *_prfldb file name do not get changed.

6.       Open up the Rocksmith 2014 root directory (where Rocksmith2014.exe is stored). Create a new matching CDLC playlist folder in the game root directory for each User_Playlist profile you created in Step 2.  (See image at left for an example.)

7.       Now for some real work and why you did planning in Step 1. 

•  Move (drag) your master CDLC folder into the game root directory.   This is your CDLC backup in case something goes wrong.
•  Now copy/paste each CDLC file into one of the playlist folders that you created in Step 6.  It is ok if you put copies of your favorite CDLC songs into multiple playlist folders.

Try using the CDLC_Renamer Droplet/App if you are not sure of which songs you have in the master CDLC folder.  This app will give your CDLC user friendly names.   (Special thanks to Darrken for initial C# project which was found here.)

8.       Fire up the CGT program, Game Save Gigbox menu tab, and select the Sync option.   Leave the program open. 

9.       This step is also a little tricky, so follow closely. 

• Open the game root directory.
• Move (drag/drop) only one of the CDLC playlist folders into the “dlc” folder.
• This is critical step … you want to sync the profile database that goes with the CDLC playlist folder that you just moved into the “dlc” folder.  Open the file “ProfileId.txt” and determine which profile database goes with this user profile (playlist folder).
• In Game Save Gigbox select the “Game Save Files” profile database that was found above and the localprofile.json file.  Only these two files should be selected.
• Select the game root directory “dlc” folder as the “CDLC Folder”.  Leave the “Output Folder” set to the default.
• Press Go.  After Game Save Gigbox is finished syncing the profile database with the “dlc” and playlist folder, be sure to click “Yes” to both of the prompts to “Overwrite the existing file”.
• Now back in the “dlc” folder, move (drag/drop) the CDLC playlist folder back to the game root directory.
• Repeat Step 9 until you have synced all playlist profile databases with the “dlc” and corresponding playlist folders.

10.   You are almost done.  To make it all work you need a menu driven batch file (download) that:

• Allows you to choose which cdlc playlist folder you want to load and play in the game
• Removes the existing "dlc\cdlc” folder
• Copies the user selected playlist folder and contents to the game root directory "dlc\cdlc" folder
• Starts the Rocksmith 2014 game

Remember to play (select) the user profile in the game that matches the playlist folder that was loaded by the batch file.

Why do all this work?  Each playlist profile database and corresponding CDLC playlist folder will contain fewer songs thus the game will load faster and run smoother.  Also if one playlist profile database should get corrupted the other playlist user profiles will continue to work.  If you had game crashing problems before you should have fewer or no crashes after implementing the CDLC playlist system.

Please report back with your successes and ideas.