Media Offline? What You Can Do About It

Report · Feb 12, 2011

Have you gotten a Media Offline message? Do your Assets show this screen?

Chances are that when you last did a Save of your Project, the Path to those Assets no longer exists. Has the Path changed in any way? Have you Moved, Renamed, or Deleted any of the Assets? Is there an external, or networked HDD in the mix anywhere, that might now have a different drive letter? The Path in the XML code of the PRPROJ/PREL file links to the Assets is absolute - it must match from the drive letter, to the folder structure, to the file name, and match 100%. Change one thing, and the link via that Path is broken, and must be restored.

When you first Opened your Project, did PrPro/PrE ask, "Where is file ______.avi?" Were you able to use the Find function, to re-establish the link to that, and any other missing files?

Now, most people will ask, “how do I relink my Assets easily and quickly?” The answer to this question is "it depends."

First, it depends on whether you first accepted to Offline the media, and then did a Save, which overwrote your existing PRPROJ/PREL file. If you did do a Save (a Save_As, or a Save_As_a_Copy will be OK, as you would just go back to the original, and Find the missing files - more below). The next consideration is where the files reside, and the folder structure.

If you did NOT Save the Project, overwriting the original PRPROJ/PREL file, I would do things in this order:

Locate where the files are now, and make note of the full Path.
Open that Project, and when you get the "Where is file _____?" navigate to the new location, and choose that file. PrPro/PrE are pretty smart, and will look in that folder, linking automatically to all other Assets in that folder. If you have many folders, you will have to repeat for each folder.

If you did Save, overwriting the PRPROJ/PREL file, and have accepted the media being Offline, you will then need to do one of two things:

Manually relink each of the Offline Assets in the Project Panel
Go to the last AutoSave PRPROJ/PREL file (note: check the time/date, and do not just rely on the file name, as 003 might be newer than 005), and Open that, following the steps above to let PrPro/PrE relink to the assets. You will loose any editing that you did from the time of that last AutoSave.

Note: PrPro uses the file extension PRPROJ, and PrElements uses the file extension PREL

Good luck,

Hunt

Report · Mar 21, 2011

For some more background on using external HDD's and their unique issues, see this ARTICLE.

Hunt

Report · Aug 07, 2011

Along the same lines, if one has Deleted, Moved or Renamed any Assets, or changed their Absolute Paths in any way, they should first get a dialog screen asking, "Where is file _____ ?" This tells us that a change has been made. It could be that one Renamed a file, or a folder, or perhaps moved things from theri C:\ to their F:\ drive. If the Assets are on an external HDD, it could well be that that same external has been assigned a new drive letter by the OS. For externals, I recommend assigning a permanent drive letter in the OS of any computer, where the Project might be used, so that drive Y:\ is always seen as drive Y:\. Remember, the Asset's Path is Absolute from the drive letter, to the folder hierarchy, to the file's name.

When one gets that "Where is file ____ ?" dialog, if they Offline Media, or Skip/Skip All, and then do a Save, the links are broken. I recommend NOT doing a Save here, but instead a Save_As, since if you Save (overwriting your original Project), the media will all be Offline, and can only be relinked manually, one file at a time.

To re-establish the Absolute Path links to the Assets, one would let Premiere help. When one gets the "Where is file _____ ?" dialog, there is the file name at the top of that screen, and then a Finder to help navigate to the new location. When that first file is located, Premiere surveys that folder, and will relink to all Assets in it, that are used in that Project. If Assets are located in several folders, then one must repeat this process for each folder/sub-folder. Only after ALL Assets have been located and relinked would I ever do a Save.

Hope that this helps,

Hunt

Report · Aug 07, 2011

For more info on Project Files and different forms of Save, plus some of their uses, see this ARTICLE.

Good luck,

Hunt

Report · Oct 30, 2011

Thanks for pointing me to that article Bill, but my problem is slightly different in as much that I have definitely not altered any of the asset file locations , I never get "Where is file ______.avi?" messages at start up, and the assets in the project media panel are always "good" in as much as they open in the preview panel despite being "Media Offline in the monitor!

Well I seem to have encountered a rather unique set of problems, but, have discovered a way round which may be of assistance to others. I thought I'd cut my losses and start the project again, and to save time, archived the project using the Project Archiver facility. To my utter amazement, once I'd done the archive, the project which was littered with "Media Offline" screens, all came good and I was able to continue with the project.

I expect one of you will recognise what this means, but for me it saved me from near despair. John Mathias

Report · Feb 14, 2013

For more information on the "Where is file ____ ?" message, see this article: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/990503?tstart=30

Hunt