Can't import any files after update After Effects

Question

Hi, I work locally from Dropbox folders. Always works fine. Now Dropbox had some update and deleted all offline files. I forgot to download all source links for a project and opened the project. I got a lot of errors, don’t remember which ones, but probably the same as I still get now.

I downloaded all files and opened the project again and got this message for certain files:

‘Could not open source file…86::!’ Followed by ‘File XXX cannot be imported…damaged or unsupported’

I tried to replace the files which won’t import, empty cache and data base, restart app, restart computer, removed AE and reinstalled. No clue what to do, also there’s no answer on the internet. Saw a lot of the same issues from years before. I hope there is a solution now.

The AE version is 22.6.0 (build 64)

This is my system report:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro16,1
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2,6 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 6
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 12 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 32 GB
System Firmware Version: 1731.140.2.0.0 (iBridge: 19.16.16066.0.0,0)
OS Loader Version: 540.120.3~19
Serial Number (system): C02DC65ZMD6R
Hardware UUID: 7B66719D-345D-5169-86FD-F6535E510CF9
Provisioning UDID: 7B66719D-345D-5169-86FD-F6535E510CF9
Activation Lock Status: Enabled

Andrew Yoole · Answer

The Dropbox process that automatically downloads assets requested from applications like After Effects is currently not working. It's been like it for months and Dropbox are being resolutely silent about when the function will be fixed.

I've found in AE and in Premiere Pro that, if the application looks for the asset/footage item and it's not already downloaded from Dropbox, it considers the asset broken and won't reconsider, even if you re-open the project.

The fix is to make certain all your assets are downloaded locally in Dropbox, then restart the Adobe application before trying to reconnect. This seems to reset the Adobe application's expectation that the file is accessible or not.

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