How Do I Get Offline Files Back In Premiere Elements Project?

[Rickster213]

I just tried to open a Premiere Elements 12 project I had been working on a few months ago and never finished.  The Assets are MTS files extrapolated from an AVCHD file.  I can find all of the files in Finder.  They have not been removed.

However, when I open my project, I get a totally meaningless window that comes up with a lot of unselectable project files, including the one I am trying to open, and four choices at the bottom that say "skip", "skip all", "offline", "offline all".  No mention of any file names.

I have no clue what I'm supposed to do.  When I just "cancel", the project opens, but some - not all - of the clips have an "offline" message in the player window.  Even though they are in the same folder as other clips that are found OK. 

Upon further examination I see in the Finder window that some of my file names have "check" in front of them.  Did Premiere do that?  I can click on them and they play, although the first few frames seem corrupted somehow.  Not at all in focus.  But once the clip starts playing it becomes sharp like it should be.

Any guidance would be appreciated, both in what to do and what caused this situation.  Thanks.

Rick

[Steve Grisetti]

Which operating system are you using?

It sounds like you may be a on a Mac, which did have a bug in one version of the software where it would not identify the file you were supposed to link to. I thought it was version 15 -- but I suppose it's possibly a problem for version 12 too.

I'm assuming you started the project in version 12 and you're continuing to work on it in version 12, right? Premiere Elements is not backwards compatible. So if you opened a version 12 project in a newer version of the software, you could be seeing a symptom of a corrupted file.

[Rickster213]

Thanks for the reply.  Yes, I am on an iMac.  Should have mentioned that.  And yes, version 12 of Elements.  I did discover that if I go into my project assets, and click on one of the offline videos, I can re-select it in Finder, and it loads back in.  So I have all of my video clips back in my project.

I just wonder what it was that caused them to be offline since the files never changed location.  And I wonder what caused a file to be created called "check" in front of the MTS name?  Maybe it's been there since the last time I worked on the project a few months ago but never noticed it because I had no reason to go into the Finder.

I'm surprised about the compatibility comment you made, though.  I have video files from a camera that I am using as a project asset.  What difference would it make what version of Elements I am using?  The video file is the same.

Rick