Premiere Connecting to the Wrong Media after using Replace Footage

[DarrenManden]

Hey there,

We are running into a really frustrating bug.

The basic problem is this: When working in one OS, if you replace an asset, save the project, and open the same project in another OS, the "replace footage" command will have been forgotten, and you will have reverted back to the old asset. Pretty scary if you're working in a team, and all of a sudden the next person dealing with the edit is inadvertently working with incorrect media.

I've posted this to UserVoice here:

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/38734459-premiere-connectin...

A bit more detail on the issue:

In our office environment, we edit off of a server, and have done so for a long time now, without issue.

All systems used to be Macs, but we've started introducing some PC systems into the mix, and now we're starting to run into complications.

This is one of the more gnarly complications. To recreate the bug, we just follow this simple procedure:

1) Create a project in OS A (could be Mac or Windows), and then edit something.
2) Replace an asset in the timeline.
3) Save the project.
4) Open the same project in OS B (the opposite of whichever you chose in Step 1).
5) Marvel as your clip (replaced in Step 2) is linked to the old media.

Please note that the file name for the new media is completely different to the original, and often the codec is different as well.

A typical edit sees us using watermarked music in the early stages, and then once the client has approved the music, we will license the track, and replace the watermarked asset. So, it's not uncommon for the file names to change like this:

"demo_music.mp3" changes to "final_music.wav".

This only seems to happen with media that has undergone the "Replace Footage" treatment, and this never used to happen when we were only using the single OS.

Update (19/10/10):

One thing which I haven't previously mentioned is that this wasn't happening before the most recent update.

We've tried testing with Shared Projects as we were advised that this could help, but we had no luck, and ran into the same issues.

We also tried brute forcing our way around the issue, but unfortunately failed again. I'll explain, using the music example again.

When replacing demo music, instead of putting the licensed file into the same folder as the demo track, create a new folder, and put the licensed track in there. Within Premiere, use the replace footage command to link to the licensed track in the new folder. This should make Premiere look for 1) a new filename, and 2) a new folder.

No luck, unfortunately.

System Information:

All systems are running the latest Premiere release (13.1.5)

PC:
Windows 10 (1903)
Intel i9-9900X
64 GB RAM
Nvidia RTX 2070 (431.36)

Mac:
OS 10.14.6
iMac Retina 5k, 27-inch, late 2014
4 GHz i7
32 GB RAM
AMD Radeon R9 4GB

If you need any further information, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm happy to provide whatever might be needed. This is definitely something that is concerning us.

Cheers,

Darren

[Mat_TTM]

Hi All,

So wow, i have read alllll the comments on this thread and it was enlightening and also made me feel like i wasn't going crazy.

I am also running into this same issue however its all on one machine connected to a NAS (synology).

To summarise:

I have an edit that uses "Footage_Watermark.mov". I then finish the edit and want to replace all instances of "Footage_Watermark.mov".

From here I then reveal the file in Premiere, click on replace footage, choose "Footage_high res.mov". It has now instantly replaced all instances of this file with the watermark in my project, with the high res version. Everyone is happy.

A few weeks later, i need to come back to the project. Open up, and i find that the file in Premiere is still named "Footage_high res.mov" but it has linked to "Footage_Watermark.mov".

Now this has been happening to me FOR YEARS. And no solution has ever come.

My new way around this is to do the following:

When i go to replace the footage, instead i unlink the media first and choose "media files are deleted". Now I link that clip in premiere to the high res footage file, then (just for good measure) i do a "Replace footage" with the same high res footage file.

Now tell me thats not ridiculous....


So my system is:

Windows 10

Intel i9-9940x CPU

64bg Ram

Quadro RTX 5000

All updated.

Files all on a NAS (synology)
Cache on internal SSD

Prem 22.1.2 (but has been happening over multiple versions)

Many thanks

Mat

[PreProPro]

I thought I had searched this forum before posting a new topic, but it seems like this post fits the description of the issue I'm having on Premiere Productions:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/productions-real-time-collaboration-on-mac-a...

Premiere not being able to translate absolute to relative paths and visa versa, meaning you'll always have to relink media when collaborating and switching between Mac OS and Windows systems.

Which cost a lot of time (the relinking on Windows after a Mac OS save can take several minutes) and I keep feeling it isn't very stable for how Premiere Productions copes with project ID's, linking between multiple projects etc.

If it's only 10 people in this post that are struggling with this, I understand why it's not a priority for Adobe to fix this.

As of a recent update, Premiere is able to automatically find a file that was moved up or down a folder. This 'backward searching' seems to be the solution to the issue we're all having. Right now Premiere is still struggling with backslashes and front slashes.

[R Neil Haugen]

Even the main Adobe DVA teams constantly work with both Macs & PCs in their shop when working on the programs. I know they run shared storage systems for doing so.

I just hope someone who knows can pop in ... maybe @Bruce Bullis might be able to help?

Neil

[Bruce Bullis]

I see lots of speculation above and in the referenced discussion, but I have yet to see either a concise definition of the problem being encountered ("When I do xyz, the following thing happens"), or a step-by-step explanation of how to reliably reproduce the problem...?

[davidt13450554]

Hi Bruce, 

The original post described the issue like this:

To recreate the bug, we just follow this simple procedure:

1) Create a project in OS A (could be Mac or Windows), and then edit something.
2) Replace an asset in the timeline.
3) Save the project.
4) Open the same project in OS B (the opposite of whichever you chose in Step 1).
5) Marvel as your clip (replaced in Step 2) is linked to the old media.

Please note that the file name for the new media is completely different to the original, and often the codec is different as well.

I would add that I've encountered the same issue with replaced clips on only Macs (one linked to a QNAP, one a mac-formatted external drive. From my earlier reply:

SystemA (a MacPro connected to a QNAP shared storage system) imports a NTSC archive footage file into a project (called, say, "archivefilm_NTSC.mov"), and sends premiere project file and media to SystemB, operating remotely on a iMac.

On SystemB, a Pal version of the archive file is obtained, with a different file name (say "archivefilm_PAL.mov"). In the premiere project, the clip is unlinked and relinked to the Pal file. The project shows the correct frame rate (25fps) and filename ("archivefilm_PAL.mov"). 

The project and Pal media is sent back to SystemA. But when the project file is opened, it automatically reconnects to the original NTSC file ("archivefilm_NTSC.mov").

This happens even after cache is deleted on both systems.

Is there a fix for this, as it seems a very serious bug. Connecting (without any warning) to a file with the wrong filename and a different framerate could cause a lot of issues.

It seems to me to be an issue to do with Premiere Pro 'remembering' attributes of the originally imported file, and assuming it is linking to the correct file if these match even if the film name and framerate have subsequently been changed by linking to different media.

Many thanks for taking a look at this,

David

[jay.m.slater]

The main problem seems to be with 'replace media' when opening between Mac and PC> 

Best exanples - Stock footage:

Use a watermarked clip and put it in an edit for client review
Use the 'Replace media' function with the purchased clip, save on PC.

Open on a Mac - and you're back to watermarked clip. 

Same vice versa with PC/Mac. 

It just makes working on a NAS drive betwene PC and Mac impossible. 

[Michael Grenadier]

rather than using the "replace media" function, assuming the clean clip has the same timecode and duration as the watermarked clip, you simply unlinked (made offline)  the clip and relinked it to the clean clip...     I used to have to replace window dub stock footage with clean footage back in the day and timecode never matched and you had to visually match the footage.   A nightmare compared to this...

[Bruce Bullis]

Helpful, thanks!

[FbF_DK]

Just wanted to say that this bug is still present. One of the guys in our office coded his own "replace footage" plugin for Premiere, which has solved the problem. Not sure why the Adobe team can't fix the problem if he's quickly able to write a plugin that does exactly what the original feature is supposed to do.

[Nir5C98]

Same exact problem here.
Its make premeire useless for high scale project.

[PreProPro]

Hi @FbF_DK,

Not sure if your colleague would be willing to share his findings (or even te plugin itself), but I'm interested in hearing more about it.

Is it a pluging you install into Premiere (or any Adobe app) and it kind of 'converts' the path structure during relinking (in other words: it forces Adobe to read differently) or is it a plugin that runs outside of Premiere? And is it limited to Windows or Mac or both?

I'm very curious!