Missing assets in Motion Graphics Template

Report · Mar 05, 2024

This has been bogging me down for a while now. I made some motion graphic templates in After Effects and exported them in Essential Graphics for use in Premiere. When I go to import them in Premiere, the templates came in with the color bars, claiming missing assets. I don't see why that would be the case though. Opening up the .aegraphic file in the folder it places locally near my Premiere project, the files are plenty large and the source PSD it's referencing is in there as well. It's just not reading it in Premiere for some reason.

I've tried re-exporting the graphics to no avail.

Only when I renamed the project folder and PSD file to be a little shorter in file name did some of my templates start working, but not all of them.

Has anyone else had this happen? Is there perhaps a maximum file name length limit I'm hitting and am just not aware of? I am on Windows 10 Enterprise 22H2. I had this happen on both of my computers and I am on the latest version of Premiere at the time of writing on both (24.2.1).

Report · Mar 05, 2024

Hi @Wabber_HM

Sorry you're running into trouble. Considering you're on Windows, there is a Windows filepath limit of 256 characters. Depending on how deeply nested your assets and/or aep is can cause trouble.

If you collect your AEP to less nested folder, like the Desktop, open that AEP and export the mogrt, are the assets online or color bars?

Cheers,

Theresa

Report · Mar 05, 2024

My project actually began on the desktop, so perhaps I went over that limit even from there. Our company naming scheme can be long and verbose. I'm aware of the file path limit in Windows and I've seen it happen in more nested folders, so in this case, I have no problem accessing it with the file browser, but Premiere doesn't seem to like that.

When I renamed files and comps within AE to be a little shorter, it did finally import correctly, even the last one in my screenshot. However, on export to Media Encoder, they all appeared with color bars. But exporting from within Premiere rendered them all just fine.

Report · Mar 05, 2024

Okay that's super interesting about Media Encoder. I wonder if AME isn't getting the updated information once things are changed.

Because I don't have the exact thing you're looking at, could you check the following for me?

Collect your AEP to the Desktop, open that AEP, export the mogrt to Local Templates Folder. Apply that mogrt to the timeline. Render via AME.

Are the assets still rendered as color bars?

Edit-> Also, did you change all the filenames of all the assets? And are they all one filetypes?

Thanks!
Theresa

Report · Mar 05, 2024

Also also

Another reason media in a Mogrt will show up as missing on Windows (and not Mac) is if there are any "illegal" characters in the media file, project or comp name.
Windows OS does not support the following characters
< (less than)
> (greater than)
: (colon - sometimes works, but is actually NTFS Alternate Data Streams)
" (double quote)
/ (forward slash)
\ (backslash)
| (vertical bar or pipe)
? (question mark)
* (asterisk)

If any of these appear in the file, project, or comp name, then Windows OS will invalidate them and the media will show up as missing.

Report · Mar 05, 2024

Okay, so collecting the files to the desktop and exporting the mogrt files into the Local Templates folder produces the same issue as before. If anything, it might have made things worse since I let it collect the files into a folder which had a really long name. Our naming convention uses periods, which, while are not illegal characters, can cause problems. None of the names have the listed characters though.

In an attempt to fix the template from here, I renamed the comp and folders, which were previously auto-named based on the source file's name (which was really long) and after exporting that, the template appeared correctly in Premiere. This also rendered correctly when exporting through Media Encoder. So maybe it just doesn't like really long comp or group names in the After Effects file the mogrt was generated from?

Report · Mar 06, 2024

Thanks for those tests! So what I think is happening is due to the Windows filepath limits. By changing the folder names to be something shorter, you're creating a shorter filepath for the project structure. When mogrts are added to your Premiere Pro sequence, they are extracted to a hidden directory:

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\com.adobe.ae.cap\Premiere Pro\[Unique ID]\[Mogrt Name]\(Footage)\[Folder Names in AE]\[Asset name]

You can see how if you're using long folder & filenames names and deeply nested folders, coupled with the ~75 characters necessary for that hidden directory, this can hit the 256 character limit pretty easily. The reason why you may not see this issue in Premiere Pro but see it in AME is that there is a 7 character difference that could be tipping you into 256 territory.

Since you're already seeing that it resolves when you shorten foldernames & filenames, I recommend starting there. The only workaround with this workflow is by using Mac, which doesn't have the same OS limitation. If you'd like to DM me the collected project file to take a look to ensure that it is Windows and not a bug, please feel free to send it over.

If you're still seeing the same issue even after shortening everything, please send an update!

Cheers,

Theresa

Report · Mar 06, 2024

Yeah, that sounds about right. I don't have a MacOS system to test these finds on. The conclusion I came up with was that if I had the folder inside the AE file with a name of 55 characters, it would stop working in Premiere.

I can send the test files to you privately to look over and verify this.

Thanks!