Why can't I save a project or even move an after effects folder to and external hard drive?

[jeffm31724173]

Older projects were saved to the same hard drive but now I suddenly can't save anything for safe keeping. I don't want to save everything on my desktop.

I might have been using the 2015 version before but not totally sure. Does that really make a difference, if so? I've been trying to figure this out for hours now...I also wish there was someone you could actually talk to at adobe. It's prob something simple but any answer that might have passed under my eyes is embedded in so much convoluted discussion here in these forums, there's no point in even scanning the often snarky replies (that I can detect).

So, yeah, help me if you can please.

Thanks,

J

[Mylenium]

You have not provided any technical information, so we can't tell you what might be going on. Sorry, but blathering on in vague and generic descriptions is of no use to anyone. You have not told us your system info, no details about your actual drive layout, storage capacities, what version of Ae you actually use, what's going on in the projects and so on.

Mylenium

[jeffm31724173]

Thanks, sir, I like abuse, so this helps a lot. And thanks for underscoring my point.

[Szalam]

Mylenium may have been a bit...harsh in his post, but he's right; we don't know enough to help you at all.

After Effects should be able to save to any location you have write access to and space. If you're using Windows Explorer and can't move an AE file, that's not an AE problem; that's a problem on the OS level.

[jeffm31724173]

Yeah, sorry, this problem seems so fundamental that I guess I assumed every aspect of my computer and AE set-up would be moot.

My computer is a MacBook Pro OS 10.13.4. I installed AE 2018 before I realized it was about to collapse in on itself so then I re-installed 2017.

As I mentioned in my previous "blather" the last time I used After Effects a couple of years ago, for a class, we used the 2015 version. I don't remember having difficulty saving my files and folders to an external hard drive especially when the instructor suggested we used one, in the first place.

When I do try to save things it just says

[jeffm31724173]

Man this thing is clunky. Adobe, can you employ some UX designers please. Here's my original message:

Yeah, sorry, this problem seems so fundamental that I guess I assumed every aspect of my computer and AE set-up would be moot.

My computer is a MacBook Pro OS 10.13.4. I installed AE 2018 before I realized it was about to collapse in on itself so then I re-installed 2017.

As I mentioned in my previous "blather" the last time I used After Effects a couple of years ago, for a class, we used the 2015 version. I don't remember having difficulty saving my files and folders to an external hard drive especially when the instructor suggested we used one, in the first place. 

When I do try to save things to the hard drive it just says "After Effects warning: Could not open the file /Volumes/External Brain/AEtemp-5b4612-untitled project.aep".

I'll probably just go back to 2015 at this rate but it nevertheless bothers me and I'd like to solve it. Could be simple, I'm no expert (ask the douche semi-troll Mylenium).

Is this enough info?

Jeff

PS-I'm part of the working class so sometimes it's hard to respond immediately. Forgive the pause.

[Rick Gerard]

There is no bug or UI that prevents you from saving projects or using files that are on any drive attached to your system as long as the file format and the naming format meets the requirements of your OS. There have been some network sharing issues in the past, but if you can find a drive in your finder you should be able to save a file to it.

My first suggestion is to just plug in a thumb drive and see if you can save to that device. AEP files are pretty small most of the time. If that works, open up Disk Utility and check the file system of your drive. If that doesn't work, start a new AE project, add a new comp, and before you do anything else save it as test.aep on the drive that is giving you problems. If that file saves without errors then you have done something to your AEtemp-5b4612-untitled project.aep that is causing the problem. I have no idea what that problem is because I have no idea what you are doing in the project.

[jeffm31724173]

UX upgrade was in reference to this site.

I cannot even save an ae file to my desktop put into a folder (or not) and then hand deliver/drag the file/folder to my external hard drive icon.

I think really what I have to do is go back to 2015, when love was in my heart, and the sun was shining and technology wasn't the sole dominion of trolls (seemingly). I should be able to save to any external hard drive. Period. I can't find any reason why when googling either. Maybe there's just something wrong with my computer.

I did find one other person with the same problem as me on this accursed forum, but it boiled down to her asking for someone to talk to over the phone or via chat about this problem. Ahem. 

[Rick Gerard]

If you can't save a file to an external drive then there is a 99% chance that there is something wrong with the way that drive is formatted.

Try downloading this file and saving it to an external drive.

Dropbox - 2DMoonOrbit_CS6.aep

Then here's a file to try that is from the latest version of AE:

Dropbox - Extruded Text with shadows.aep

Your browser may add a .txt extension to the file. Just remove it. There are no file saving bugs in the latest version of AE. I have an almost identical system and it works just fine.

[Roland Kahlenberg]

What happens when you try to Save to an external HD? Does an error message appear? Do you have sufficient space on this external drive? Is you current AEP saved within a network setup? Is there anything specific to your network setup that prevents you from saving anything (not just AEPs) onto an external drive?

[jeffm31724173 · Accepted solution]

The error message appears. Yes, have tons of space. Yep, to network, too.

I forget what error message said verbatim because I got it working again awhile ago. When I updated my computer I had to reset my external hard drives, too, and switch it from "read only" in Disk Utility for the hard drives to "Read and Write". I'm being a little vague, some would say I'm blathering, but that's because I did this awhile ago. I've mentioned before I work a lot so sometimes I can't respond right away. But yeah, problem solved, though I can't believe no one has come across this before.

I should also point out that the screen on my computer cracked at one point, so I had to back up the hard drive when I sent the computer back. All these things may have a prompted the external hard drives not to recognize my computer after it was reset/rebooted etc. So that's it. Took me forever to find this out. Thanks for giving a shit, y'all!

[P.M.B]

So your post wasn't clear about what the problem was.  Was it that your disks were set to read only?

[Byron Cortez]

Ey Jeffm

Give us a little more information, for example on what file system your hard drive is formatted, if you changed last from Mac to Windows, what version of Ae are you using, things like that in order to have a better overview of your issue.