Premiere thinks my source media file extensions are now lower case?

[lehestro]

A lot of my media has gone offline, because premiere is now (for some unknown reason) expecting my footage to have lower case file extensions. 

I have never touched the file extensions, or the source media at all. Not moved it, not switched drives, not changed the name of the drive (heck, not even unplugged the drive!). This is a production, and there is another editor, but the same goes for them on their end.

Why would it do this? I now have to relink a bunch of clips one by one. This just started today after months of work. Not sure if this is a bug or not. 

It's not even for all clips, just some. 

Left side, upper case file extensions (as it should be), Right side – how Premiere thinks they ought to be for some reason

[Kevin-Monahan]

That's unusual @lehestro. When did this start happening? Does the same thing occur in a new project? I hope we can help you find a solution because that is odd. What kind of codec is inside these .mov wrappers? I have found Bridge can help you rename things. If it occurs in other projects too, see if that workaround might help. Sorry for the hassle.

Cheers,
Kevin

[lehestro]

Hey Kevin, 

I'm not 100% sure of the codec. Let me look it up, as it's a camera I've not dealt with before – the Panasonic S1.

It seems to be an H264 codec in an .mov wrapper. 150mb/s, 10-bit V-log. 

I just went ahead and reconnected things one by one – I didn't want to rename the files, as they would be mismatched with the ones that didn't need to reconnect.

Thinking back, I have had this happen once before, about 6 months ago, when sharing a project with another editor, but it affected every file, so I figured his computer read the file extensions in upper case for some reason. Both mine and the other editor's computers were macOS with Apple silicon (m1 Max, m2 Max respectively), so I renamed all my files with lower case file extensions.

This time we are both running Apple Silicon macs as well – M1 Max and M1, but it's not happening to all files. I also asked the other editor if she has had issues and she has not, so I don't know. The main drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and all the Proxies are on a speedier SSD that is APFS. No issues with proxies becoming unattached.

Both times, it must be said, lucidlink was involved – the project files all live(d) on there, so maybe their file system is part of the issue? 

[R Neil Haugen]

Wow! Premiere has never cared whether file extension are capitalized or not on my machine ... so that's really bizarre to me. Wonder what is going on?

[MyerPj]

I'm sorry to say, no, I can't believe that. Windows is a non-case sensitive OS. Is that on a Mac? I just went into a larger project into the a main video folder, in Explorer you can type 'cmd' <enter> in the address field and it will drop you into a DOS/command window. Then:

"ren *.mp4 *.MP4" and all the files are renamed. Then I open my project and all is well still. 

[lehestro]

I'm on a Mac, so perhaps that's it. I don't know what to say. The screenshot doesn't lie. Perhaps it's a lucidlink issue, as described in my response to Kevin.

It's not the first time, and I even posted about it here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/premier-suddenly-only-locating-one-file-at-a...

What's different this time is my media doesn't live on lucidlink, but local drives only. Only the Production/Project Files live on LucidLink. But maybe that's enough.

Still, it only happened that one time so far. It's not consistent behavior. But maybe it's more a Lucid issue than a Premiere issue 🤷🏻‍:male_sign:

[MyerPj]

So that reply means you can easily rename all your files with an upper case extention if you like, very simply and easily. But I don't think that's the issue. But do rename them all at once and you should have your files back if that's the problem.

[lehestro]

I appreciate the advice, but I don't want to change my files at all. That would invite more problems, I think. The issue is that Premiere suddenly sees them differently. But I think it might have to do with LucidLink's handling of file information, possibly. 

[MyerPj]

Well, I'm glad you are up and running. Could you have renamed one of the files with an upper case extension and then see if the one disappeared from the list, if not, rename it back. I always prefer lower case .ext. Cheers! 🙂

[R Neil Haugen]

I've used LucidLink extensively for several years now. I know many others that do.

While I'm not saying LucidLink couldn't cause issues, it's rare. You can check by asking on their Slack. Amazing help.