Question
FAQ: What do I do when I see diagonal lines on clip(s) after moving media?
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.
- 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.
- Before the shoot: set any camera menus to shoot a "Series" of clips - so that each one is uniquely named.
- 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.
- 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:
- Select it, and then choose File > Make Offline (important: choose to allow media files to remain on disk).
- Choose File > Link Media
- Deselect "Align Timecode"
- Click the Locate button and locate (find) the original file.
- Select the proper file and click OK.
- 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!
AdChoices