FAQ: What do I do when I see diagonal lines on clip(s) after moving media?

[Kevin-Monahan]

When you have moved media from one computer or hard drive to another, one may see diagonal lines (sometimes referred to as "danger stripes") on clips in the Timeline.

What does this mean and how do you fix this issue? Hopefully, this FAQ will help you solve this issue.

• What do the diagonal lines mean?
  • This means that Premiere Pro cannot locate the the proper clip, even though the media exists on your hard drive.
  • The correct information that is required by Premiere Pro to identify the correct clip is on another computer or hard drive, and the application cannot find or reconcile it.
  • A different piece of media with the same clip name is substituted by Premiere Pro.
  • Stripes in a clip indicate the sections of the clip where no media can be found according to Timecode info.
    
    
• How did they get there?
  • When you see diagonal lines after moving media to another computer for a project, this means that clips are not carrying essential metadata from one machine to the next. 
  • If a clip does not have a unique name, Premiere Pro cannot locate the corresponding media if it does not contain other metadata that was associated with the clip on the original machine.
    
    
• How do I prevent this issue in the future?
  • Before the shoot: set any camera menus to shoot a "Series" of clips - so that each one is uniquely named.
    • Tip: Sony has this option in its current line of cameras, and most people having this issue are Sony owners.
  • If you didn't set up your menus accordingly, when it's time to edit, import clips via Media Browser and not File > Import.
    • It is the only way to ensure that the metadata is attached to identically named clips when moving from one hard drive or computer to another.
      
      
• Can't I just import clips from the folders containing clips?
  • You can, but the clips won't have the metadata associated with them that was captured during the shoot. Therefore, they can't be carried over from one computer without incidents like getting "danger stripes" if you need to move the media.
    
    
• How do I fix the issue?
  • If the clips have diagonal lines, you must relink or replace the offending danger stripes clip with the original clip.
  • To do so, please try to first make the "danger stripes" clip in the timeline offline by first locating it in the bin.
  • If the clip is in the Timeline, right click (WIN), Ctrl Click (macOS) > Reveal in Project.
  • After locating the clip do the following:
    
    

1. Select it, and then choose File > Make Offline (important: choose to allow media files to remain on disk).
2. Choose File > Link Media
3. Deselect "Align Timecode"
4. Click the Locate button and locate (find) the original file.
5. Select the proper file and click OK.
6. Media is now relinked to the proper file. Danger stripes should no longer appear.

• Note: this process can be tedious, as each clip will need to be addressed individually.

We will leave this FAQ unlocked for now so that the community can weigh in if these steps helped them reconnect media properly, especially when moving a project to a new system and experiencing this confusing anomaly.

Let us know if we need to add any more info to make these steps more clear.

Thank you!

[Kevin-Monahan]

• User indicates that slipping the clip into place is something that can work.
• User indicates that importing the misaligned project into a new project, then relinking, can work.
• I indicate that making the clip offline and relinking the clip can work. Steps are in this post.

[Kevin-Monahan]

• It seems that some users get into this situation after updating a project from one version to the next.
  • Professional editors advise caution in this case: do not update complex projects from one version to the next, unless it cannot be avoided.
  • The editor's classic "rule of thumb" is to finish all projects in the same version the project was started in.
    • If this rule of thumb cannot be adhered to, try creating a project in the new version and then import the legacy project into it.
      • A bug fixed in 13.0.2 has surfaced in this workflow with MXF footage, particularly Sony footage.
      • Make sure you are importing to a 13.0.2 version project.
  • Another rule of thumb:
    • Begin only new projects in new versions of Premiere Pro.
  • An update to 13.1 has fixed this issue for a good number of users.

[Etoile888]

Hello, I am having the same issue. I upgraded to Premiere 14 but I need to open a file that I built in Premiere CC 2017.  Even after relinking all media I am getting diagonal lines in some of the clips. I have emptied my cache, restarted by computer and tried to import the old project into a new project. Eact time it needs to locate the media, it seems to find it, but certain clips still have these lines --  even though the status says online and they are in the same bin as all the other clips. Is there anything else I am not thinking of?

[Sergio Izquirrdo]

Still not working 😞  this is so frustrating, why upgrade then if you can not edit your previous projects... why you dont fix this in the next update? is there other option to fix it?  I have the latest premiere file and I can not load those clips even with all these suggestions

[Kevin-Monahan]

Sergio,

As I understand it, you have the "danger stripes" problem. What kind of camera were you using? Did you import via Media Browser? If you need to import via Media Browser and did not, then the metadata needed is not present when you moved that media. Do you think that's what happened?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Sergio Izquirrdo]

The clips are only from the sony alpha 7Riii camera... there are some clips of the same camera that does have the problem and some that doesn´t.  Thank you for replying

[dimitardrew]

exact same camera, exact same situation

[DMDI]

Here's how I fixed it:

Right-click on faulty media in sequence - Reveal in Project - Highlight the respective material in the project bin - right click to make the material offline - relink the material in the project bin to the correct source and viola, sequence looks yummy again.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Didn't I just write that? Ah, OK. I see I missed the steps on how to get from the clip in the Timeline to the corresponding clip in the Project panel. I'll tap on that step a little. Thank you!

Looks like I also missed out on on using a French expression and the word "yummy" too. 🙂

Kevin

[Plano_marina]

I've run into this problem a few times and usually making the media offline and relinking it would work, but this time it hasn't. I was working on a desktop with a slightly older version of premiere (14.something) and I brought all medias and project into a laptop with premiere 14.9, there was no need to update the project or anything. But some clips show the diagonal lines and nothing has worked so far, importing to another project, relinking from bin, downgrading my program, I didn't get the "slipping solution, but either way the in and out markers seem to be out of place on the source monitor.
I'm lost here and the clips have so much effects and changes applied to them that I wouldn't know how to just re do it.
They are from a Sony A7sII and now I'm working on a macbook pro 13' with the new apple chip

[DMDI]

My guess is you have multiple clips with the same title. The relinking needs to be handled in the project window.

dbhK

[Kevin-Monahan]

Did you ever solve this one, Plano?

Kevin

[NemoRoman]

Thanks for attending to this so frequently! I'm having the same issue as Plano—nope it didn't resolve the issue.

Here's a few more details:

1) When I right-click to "reveal in finder" Premier's able to execute the task. So, it would seem that Premier does still "know" where the file is.

2) The clip plays in the sequence, but it's not the in and out points I'd selected.

3) I haven't moved this project or its media around. What I've found—and can't make sense of—is the longer I go without opening a project the  more problems Premier has with it. It doesn't matter if there's been a software update between the last opening or not. It's as if Premier forgets and has to be reminded...it happens 99% of the time if it's been past a few weeks since the project was last open, possibly 100% of the time.

[Plano_marina]

There were no clips with the same title... 

I asked for help from Adobe Support and even gave remote control to the person on the other side of the line but nothing worked. We tried re-interpreting the footage and a lot of other things. I went back to the desktop computer in wich I started the project, worked a little more and some days later I decided to try again opening the project on my laptop and for my great surprise it openned perfectly hahaha 
I guess it was a problem using keyframes to change the clips speed + laptop with nem apple chip M1, some bug between that, dont know, just guessing 

[Santiago26730962prz3]

Hey, i'm having this same issue. In fact, all my clips that are missing are ones that I changed the speed and put in keyframes, the other untouched clips got found when I relocated the media

[dc-dc-dc]

Ich habe gestern ein Projekt geschnitten, es waren bereits aus unerklärlichen Gründen teilweise schraffierte Clips dabei. Ich habe diese Clips gekürzt, bis sie passten und damit 10 Stunden gearbeitet. Nachdem ich das projekt heute erneut geöffnet habe, ist alles durcheinander. Der entstandene Schaden beziffert sich aktuell auf ca. 10.000 EUR - Ich muss mit dem Projekt komplett neu beginnen, da von Anfang an einem korrupten Projekt gearbeitet wurde. Das gesamte Problem ergibt überhaupt keinen Sinn. Ich bin absolut enttäuscht. 

[SeimK]

If you re-interpret footage to conform to your desired framerate, these lines can appear after re-linking lost media clips. I solved this by selecting every clip at once and re-interpreting once again.  Lines dissappeared and all my markers were in the right places again.   I hope this helps someone going through this now. 

[defaultyljfau7vnk4d]

Omg thank you ❤️

[Scrambler87]

I've come across the same problem here, even opened a new discussion in Adobe Community, and someone pointed me this thread. It's a big bummer for me, since this has never happened before. Really, Adobe has absolutely let me down, and it does that over and over. The only reason why I keep insisting is because I use After Effects and there's no viable replacement in the market for that. Every update I do I lose my export presets, my workspaces, and sync is always turned on (and triple checked). Every update behaves differently and something breaks. Import, scrubbing, playback, come on guys! Feels like we, the users, are just lab rats while the programmers play around building different paths for us to get lost in. And come on (2nd time)...why would Media Browser work any differently than the simple drag-drop from Finder? Who programmed theses to behave differently? Oh, just to conclude, none if the workarounds worked for me. Still have the 'danger stripes' on.

[Chaditor]

Just chiming in as another editor frustrated by this issue. Tried all the recommendations to no avail. The only thing that kind of works for me is manually slipping clips back into position, but this isn't feasible on a timeline with hundreds of clips across numerous sequences.

I echo annoyance over the fact that Adobe constantly pushes updates to its products that risk breaking things. I don't archive my projects, I keep them active so they can be revisited. Is that really such an unusual thing? It's already painstaking enough updating each of my hundreds of project files every time there's a new version of Premiere, but having to deal with stuff like this pushes me further and further away from Adobe and toward other options.

Granted, my current experience with this issue is probably more complex given the fact that my sequence (created 3 years ago) utilizes the Blackmagic BRAW plugin...

Nevertheless, I'm taking this as a sign that it's time to switch over to Davinci Resolve.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Sorry about that Chaditor. As an editor, I'd say that is one of those cases where it isn't wise to update a project that is in progress and to remain on the same version the project was created in until a new project can be started. This is more of "editor advice" than that an Adobe tech might otherwise give.

We in support have warned people for a long time how ingesting CF based media via File > Import over the Media Browser can cause such issues when moving media around after import and for updating complex projects across major versions, sorry that warning didn't get to you.

This won't occur to others in the future, as this workflow has now changed to be more forgiving to people needing to move and easily reconnect media. Sorry this had to cause so much pain.

The advice is to move back to the previous version, where you could finish the work that needs finishing. Is that possible?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Chaditor]

Thanks for the quick response on this Kevin!

Yes, I understand that rule of thumb about updating. I do refrain from updating during the most intensive and important stages of the process and do so after delivery/distribution. However, I also often return to projects months and years down the road.

I suppose it would be possible to move back to a previous version but to be honest I'm not even sure which version it was (it was created over 3 years ago) and also am not confident that would even solve the issue. Additionally, reverting to a previous version will definitely cause problems with my hundreds of other projects.

I'm more concerned about the longevity and long-term accessibility of my projects in general than I am this one instance.

It's good to hear that Adobe has changed this workflow to make it more intuitive as I don't think it can be assumed that most users will be proactively seeking out info about the idiosyncracies of Premiere.

[Michael Grenadier]

Premiere allows you to keep multiple versions on your system. and never a good idea to delete older versions when updating  Adobe is no longer allowing downloads of versions older than 1 iteration back.    Not sure if this website still has older versions available for download but worth a shot https://prodesigntools.com/tag/ddl.  May take some digging.  If you are able to download the previous versions.  When you open a project in a newer version of premiere, it always forces you to do a save as, so you should be able to work backwards til you find the version that is still working...    I've got premiere going back to CS5.5 on one system or other and CC back to 2017...  and I never delete older project files.  Can't tell you how many times I've had to at least reference a project that's many years old.  Just doing a consult for someone who's actually still working in FCP7... So it happens...and best to be prepared.

And if you wanted to send me the original project, I should be able to figure out what version it was created in just by attempting to open it in earlier versions til it works without updating...  you can send me a direct message by clicking on my username at the beginning of my posts

Michael

[Chaditor]

I appreciate the help! Moving forward I will make sure to keep older versions on my system. Just when I thought I had my system perfected, I learn something fundamental that forces me to the adapt. But I'm happy to do so if it means saving myself time and frustration in the future!