Hashtag # symbol in Premiere project name causes AME issues.

[Ashley7]

I had a Premiere project with a hashtag symbol in the name, as in #MyProject.prproj. Everything was fine during Premiere editing, but when I queued the project to AME, while AME was able to begin encoding, I immediately saw the footage offline image in AME's encoding preview (shown during encoding). I did not root-cause this to be caused by use of # but when I removed it, renaming the project to MyProject.prproj, AME worked fine. I therefore assume something went awry due to use of the # in the file name. FYI and I will file a bug. Would like to know if someone knows anything on this. Thanks!

[davidarbor · Accepted solution]

Special characters are never a good idea inside file names, they're going to cause trouble eventually. The same goes for question marks or exclamation points. This is even more problematic if you're working on a network. It's best to name your files with only characters you can access on the keyboard ​without​ having to hit Shift.

[Ashley7]

Thanks guys! ...

Well, I've worked with computers from the PC side of things for many years and generally stick with shorter filenames and even avoid spaces. When I created this project I was going to avoid the # due to the rationale you outline but I said to myself "stop being stuck in the past with 8.3 filenames and all that, and move forward, and trust that you can use long file names, and all allowed characters, and that Adobe has it all covered."

So imagine I am sitting there adding # to the project, then removing it, stuck wondering if I should risk being "expressive" in that silly realm of naming a project before initially saving it... you know, that world where one welcomes procrastination and all. So obviously you know my vote was to use "#" and guess what? ... Well, you already know... I got burned!

So I won't go back to 8.3, and I will use long file names with spaces within, but I'll avoid other special characters and starting/trailing oddities as well. Maybe in another couple of decades I'll retry a project that starts with '#' ...

Thanks for confirming the same old decades-past cautiousness is still viable! I'd rather Adobe focus on cool features and fixes than allowing prefixed special characters technically allowed by the system.

Note, you both gave helpful answers that are similar so I'll  mark the first as Correct but thanks to you both!

[SAFEHARBOR11]

I must be getting old....for the majority of my life, # meant pound or number and was called the pound sign.

From WikiPedia -

     Mainstream use in the United States is as follows: when it prefixes a number, it is read as "number", as in "a #2 pencil" (indicating      "a number-two pencil"). When the symbol follows a number, the symbol indicates weight in pounds. (Five pounds are indicated as      5#.)

I had a customer call about an order this morning, and I asked him his order number and he replied, "Hashtag 12345678....." I kid you not. Apparently did not know that # preceeding a number...means number. Not everything is about Twitter 😉

Old Jeff

[Joost van der Hoeven]

For greatest compatibility across networks, platforms, drive formats etc, is to avoid using "special" non-alphanumeric characters — such as : / \ ¢ ™ $ ® € # . , [ ] { } ( ) ! ? | ; " ' * < > — in folder names and filenames. Also avoid using spaces at the end of a filename or folder name.