Copied Project from Backup Drive - PPro Hangs Trying to Locate Media

Report · Nov 13, 2020

I backed up a very simple Premiere Pro CC project folder, with all of its media and assets to a backup drive (actually, it's on OneDrive).

The folder was organized into a folder for the media, another for some assets, and the project was in the top level folder.

I downloaded project folder and all of the media and assets onto another computer.

I double clicked the project file and it showed a dialog box saying it was locating the media. It then froze there for well over 10 minutes, before I fianlly clicked the Cancel button. It's now been another 10 minutes with the spinning cursor on a blank Premiere Pro screen... I finally killed Premiere Pro.

However... if I start Premiere Pro AND THEN open the same project from within PPro, the project opens successfully.

I assume this is a bug, not a feature? 🙂

Report · Nov 13, 2020

onedrive is a cloud based storage solution which is not a good idea to use for media storate. Store your media on a local drive!

Report · Nov 13, 2020

sorry, I didn't clearly read your post. I have no idea why this happened, but glad you figured out how to make things work...

Report · Nov 13, 2020

Hahaha! I was just about to lambast you for not reading the post closely! 🙂 No problem... but I think there is a bug somewhere in PPro CC that causes this. I tried it on 2 computers, one with a fresh PPro installation.

Report · Nov 13, 2020

ya know, this could be a onedrive issue. It's possible that some metadata on the files gets screwed up when copying to or from onedrive... Try using a physical hard drive to move the files and see if the problem persists. I suspect not... Another thing to try is to rename the new drive to match that of the old drive and make sure the path to the media, etc is identical to that of the original drive. Theoretically then, premiere won't need to relink at all... (famous last words). I gotta say that Premiere does a pretty good job of keeping track of the connections between clips and source files. Besides my own editing, I also provide support for a number of clients who do editing. I try and have an exact copy of their media drive so the I can open the project without issues. However, there are sometimes a few files that need to be manually located.

Report · Nov 13, 2020

Interesting. I don't see how OneDrive could mess up metadata, when it's a direct copy of the file. The folder on the C: drive was copied to a OneDrive folder, and then copied back to the new computer's C: drive. The project never referenced OneDrive at all, as it was created on the first computer's C: drive, using assets on the C: drive. Further, since the project opens fine when going the "File - Open Project" route, but not when simply double-clicking on the project file, this suggests to me a problem with PPro. After all, it's the SAME project, whether it's opened by double-clicking the project file, or opening it from within PPro once it's running. If there was a problem with the project file, or its metadata, PPro would barf no matter how you tried to open it.

Copying the folder to and external drive, and then copying it to the new computer yields the identical results: It hangs PPro when you double click on the project file, but opens fine when inside PPro and using "File - Open Project".