Participant

Answered

Premier suddenly only locating one file at a time, no auto locating after first clip located

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 12, 2023
11 replies
19501 views

Hi all, this seems like a stupid issue but its driving me crazy. I work such that I fairly frequently need to relink files due to file path changes and it used to be I simply located the first clip for Premiere and it would then automatically link all the files in that same folder that matched. The files are always in one folder so this made relinking a non-issue. All of a sudden now, Premiere won't link more than one file at a time no matter what I do. I've tried removing and reinstalling Premiere and updating everything on my Mac to the lastest version of everything but its still linking one at a time.

I hope this is just a dumb issue that I did something but whatever the solution, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

Error or problem

Correct answer jof93454657

Thank you! This solved the exact problem I was having too. Unticking the File Extension box under Match File Properties let it find all of the other clips too - honestly thought I was about to sit for half an hour matching each one!

Premiere had the extensions as .mp4 and the files were .MP4 - on raw footage clips.

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aftab_Khan2470

Participant

Maybe it is too late but yeah i was having the same problem and managed to relink all media at once by just unchecking one setting.

ucheck the file extension checkbox under match file properties and you will have all files relinked automatically after one.

hope it will help you too

thank you

K

KevinQualls

Participant

Not sure if anyone ever answered this. Had the same issue, deselected "File Extension" and it now links all files.

smashkirk

Inspiring

Thank you, Kevin. Deselecting File Extension fixed my issue as well. I lost hours of time on this. We should send Adobe our invoices, lol.

G

guthrief59491301

Participant

I had the same issue and tried all the fixes outlined and nothing worked and I stumbled on this. In project manager select all the offending clips before clicking Link Media then Locate files select one and bingo. Works without anything alse

M

MVP ernula

Participant

Heya!

I just had this exact issue and managed to solve it.
SOME files managed to relink without any trouble, but over 100 files wouldn't for whatever reason - I had to do them manually one by one.

Someone else here realized that the extensions had been altered. (.MOV instead of .mov.)
For me it was MP4 - mp4. Strange that it should stop syncing becuase of it, but it was pretty straight forward.

The solution for me was to uncheck file extension under match file properties when relinking media.
So when the upper/lower case letters in the file extension had been altered it simply just searched for the file name instead.
Premiere simply wanted everything to match, which it didn't with an "incorrect" file extension.

This happened to us when we changed the location of our files from an external harddrive to a NAS.

Hope this helps anyone else who stumbles upon this issue.

LIDBKLYN

Participating Frequently

Brilliant! Bump this answer up so people can see it. To recap: UNCHECK 'file extension' option before locating the first file.

D

defaultq7qnhzzpgk9f

Participating Frequently

I am having the same issue, it's extremely frustrating. Just using one single connected Thunderbolt drive, nothing more. I feel like I need to go to another NLE to avoid the bugs, since there isn't a solution.

lehestro

Inspiring

Did you check your file extensions? Does the case (upper or lower) of the files on disk match the case of how Premiere lists the files?

D

defaultq7qnhzzpgk9f

Participating Frequently

It all looks the same to me. Why would PP change the case anyhow? My issue is that sometimes it works--it connects all the clips, but lately as soon as it doesn't find a clip, it forces me to singularly connect all the rest of them one by one.

Orf

Known Participant

Did you ever find a fix? I'm having the same issue.

F

FrankTheOne

Participating Frequently

I don't think there is a fix. Every single "adjusting options" in System Preferences does exaclty zero. I gave up, there must be some OS-level way to manage file names and folders structure that is so different from MacOS to Windows (and vice-versa) which is preventing Premiere to automatically find some files. In my case, this happens the most when accented letters are inside filenames. But nobody will fix or find some solutions to this

lehestro

Inspiring

I'm using Premiere 24.5.0 on macOS 14.5. I just encountered this problem, moving files from the cloud (I use the Lucid platform) to local, because Lucid was lagging, and had this issue. Another editor is using files he downloaded from Lucid, but isn't having this problem when he switched over to a relinking to local files because he had downloaded the files from Lucid, that I had uploaded from a local drive. (the pipeline went like this: My local hard drive ––> I upload to Lucid --> Lucid changes file extension to upper case -–> Editor 2 downloads files.

It seems Lucid (and other cloud platforms – someone mentioned frame.io) like to write file extensions in all caps. Going from lower case, to cloud, and back to local changed my file extensions' cases.

I solved my issue by changing the file extension back to lower case, and now things reconnect as they should. I'm fortunate in that I use an app called Path Finder that allows me to easily batch alter filenames and extensions. I don't know if you can do that with the system Finder.

I hope this helps. I'm sorry if it's convoluted. I've been up way too late staring at screens way too long.

F

FrankTheOne

Participating Frequently

Hi. I have the exact same issues on a brand new Mac Studio, M2 Max, and Premiere 2024. I'm relinking files from a QNAP NAS connected via SMB and it's madness... I have to go one file at a time, the "search" function doesn't find anything but when I manually point to the correct folder, the file is there. Never had such a problem on Windows, even on Premiere 2024. Please fix this ASAP, it's an incredible waste of time for people like me who often move projects from desktops to laptops.

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

HI @FrankTheOne,

Have you tried the other potential solutions on the thread? Have you ensured that any clocks are in sync between your computer and the network device? Have you tried adjusting options in System Preferences > Privacy & Security? Does the NAS have correct R/W permissions? Let us know.

Thanks.

Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio

scotty42

Participant

I'm hitting this same issue all of a sudden too. It's a M2 Max laptop running macOS 13.5, and Premiere Pro 23.6.0. Sometimes when I locate one file, it'll link as many as 15 other files, sometimes one other, and sometimes none. All the files are in the same bin and filesystem folder, and filenames match exactly. This is in a production, in case that matters. I tried all the suggestions in https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/premier-suddenly-only-locating-one-file-at-a-time-no-auto-locating-after-first-clip-located/m-p/14183421#M479690 except for a full reinstall, with no luck.

scotty42

Participant

The footage I'm trying to link is on a Synology NAS, btw, connected via a SMB network share over 10gig ethernet.

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

Hey there, @scotty42,

Sorry for the frustration. There is always an added layer of complexity with network drives. Does the Synology have an internal clock? Is it aligned with the clock in your Mac or PC? Small thing, but besides the permissions and security settings I mentioned earlier, it is the only other thing I can think of. I hope we can help you solve this problem. Let us know.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio

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Ryan2475837977vl

Known Participant

I'm having this issue now as well. Started last week and now happens on every project regardless of media type, or where the media is stored. I've tried using both the "link media" prompt that pops up when you open the project as well as selecting all offline clips (all saved within the same folder) and trying to reconnect that way. Premiere will only connect each individual clip and when I move on to the next clip, it's right there in the correct folder, with the correct name, and Premiere sees it, it just will not connect more than one clip at a time. Another day, another obnoxious bug in CC 2023, gotta love it.

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

@Ryan2475837977vl,

This sounds like a problem you can have with new versions of applications on macOS. See if these steps help your situation: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/premiere-pro-hangs-on-launch-on-macos.html

If not, you can also try the following: https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/preferences-folder-read-only-error.html.

Let us know if either of these troubleshooting docs helped, or if you need more assistance. I sure hope we can help.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio

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Andy Adkins

Known Participant

Quick update. So this is bonkers...

TLDR: check the case of the extensions of the files you are trying to link or attach.

I had a folder of DJI files that I had made proxies for, and they would only connect one at a time. So I looked at the files in question to make sure # of audio channels were the same and nothing else looked off about them. To be clear, I can search to find the first, but it won't find the others in the same folder and I have to pick them one at a time.

But I noticed the proxies had a lowercase .mov extension, while originals were uppercase .MOV. (btw having the match based on file extension box checked or unchecked had not mattered up to this point - as in I tried it both ways).

I capitolized the extension on a couple of the proxies in that folder, to see if it would auto locate them if the extensions were exactly the same.

It did, but without any further prompting it also found THE REST of the non capitolized .mov proxies that it wasn't finding before. Attached them and dialog closed up - just like it should.

Even stranger, the proxy media file reported in premiere metadata has the proxy extension capitalized on files that are not. In other words it's wrong.

File name reported in Proxy Media File Path: DJI_0712.MOV

File in windows: DJI_0712.mov

I've done this three times now to make sure I'm not crazy or making it up. Same result each time. Once you point it to the first file with the right case, it will find the rest automatically even if they have the wrong case. And all those subsequent files show the wrong case extension in premiere metadata.

While I'm glad I found this little trick, this is complete madness. Clearly there is some flaw in how Premiere is handling extensions and upper/lower case. Again, media linking is foundational. This stuff really needs to work better.

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

Sorry about that, Andy. You can file a bug here. After searching around, it appears that other NLEs are having similar issues. I wonder if it is a flaw from the manufacturer. I'm not familiar with files that have an upper case .MOV extension. They are usually lower case, as most file extensions are, in my experience. As a workaround, you might try changing the extension of the source files to ".mov" in Bridge before importing them into Premiere Pro until the devs can address your issue.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio

A

Andy Adkins

Known Participant

Thanks @Kevin-Monahan for your attention to this. I've checked and all r/w permissions are fine.

I'll for sure file a bug. If I had to guess at what's going on under the hood, it seems like there is some logic that is trying to ignore extension case in paths (which makes sense), but just doing it wrong.

This particular DJI drone writes uppercase extension (.MOV), and the proxies created by Resolve are lowercase (.mov). I have not seen this issue when the proxy extensions are wholly different - ie .MP4 original and .mov proxy.

As to your workaround, I would be nervous about batch renaming originals, and in any case it may be too late for folks who are having this issue, having already imported everything. But when having this problem attaching to proxies (which is what I'm dealing with) I think that batch re-naming proxies to have uppercase extensions should work - at least in my specific case.

To re-iterate... I fix for this specific bug would be great, but knowing more detail about how this is supposed to work would be very helpful for us editors dealing with big projects and sprawling media. It's very much a mystery currently. So what are the chances of getting some more detailed documentation on the finding/relinking/attaching algorithms?

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Andy Adkins

Known Participant

I've been seeing this more lately too. I point it to the first file, with "re-link others" checked and it only finds that first one I pointed to. The rest are sitting right there in the same folder but premiere is oblivious.

A related problem... I just created a large number of external proxies (reslove) for a premiere project and 90% will attach in big chunks, but I have to go one file at a time for a few subfolders (still many dozens of files), which is obviously a massive waste of time (attach, find, ok, attach, find, ok x1000)

I've seen this with various types of media - haven't noticed any pattern in the file types that result in this problem. Currently dealing with some gopro footage where this is coming up. In the past I recall unchecking "tape name" can help but not in this case here. I am not using frame.io.

Other than making this just work better, what we could really use is some in-depth explanation of how the searching and linking process works so we can anticipate how to work with it, not just have it fail us inexplicably. It has always seemed very opaque - sometimes it magically works and sometimes it completely bombs without telling you why. This is a killer on complex long term projects, which will always depend on some media and proxy linking and re-linking. It's a big piece of some workflows but there is almost zero documentation of how it actually functions.

The only official documentation I found for this just says: "Premiere Pro automatically finds and links offline media where possible"

Ok, well devil is in the detail of that last part, "where possible." So let's have some details. Kevin, in lieu of this being functionally bulletproof (which it's far from, and I'm not holding my breath), is there any chance you or someone could just shed some light on how it works?

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

Hi @Andy Adkins,

I just updated an older Production and found I had the same relinking issue. Then, I noticed that the drive was not available in my Media Browser. I'm on Mac. You? Once I fixed the Security issue and gave permissions to my external drive, the disk mounted in Media Browser and everything linked as expected. Can you check that out?

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio

A

Andy Adkins

Known Participant

Oh hey thanks Kevin. I was writing that other post when you responded. I am on a PC. Windows 11 and latest version of PPro. I have had similar issues on Macs too though.

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