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Known Participant
March 26, 2018
Question

Proxy files need relinking every time I open a project

  • March 26, 2018
  • 6 replies
  • 5791 views

I have a project that I am working on that has proxies attached. It was originally on another machine and now I am working on a new machine. However, every time I open the project, It looks for the proxy files in the old location and opens the 'located media' windows. Even though when I save the project and then closed it I had relinked everything to the new location. This doesn't seem to happen with every project though, so not sure if it is totally reproducible as a problem.

    6 replies

    Inspiring
    October 22, 2025

    THIS. It is mind boggling how Premiere cannot remember proxy pathways. Every day it's the same. Open the project, the same batch of proxies need relinking. Yes, like others this is from a project that was originally on another drive, or the proxies were originally on another drive, and that seems to have something to do with it. But I have been relinking and saving and encountering the same problem since the previous presidency!

    Inspiring
    July 11, 2025

    Man, this is endless for me. I have a bunch of different projects, when I reopen them the same batch of proxies need to be relinked. Not ALL proxies, mind you, just the same ones every time. They all live on the same drive now - the only difference being they have all been moved from their original drive. But that goes for all of the proxies, no idea why these ones should be special and require attention every time. 

    Christian.Z
    Inspiring
    January 14, 2023

    Offline them, clear cache, close project, re-open, offline, re-attach from the projects window

    Participating Frequently
    February 9, 2024

    I hope Adobe is listening this is BS

    kit.kohler
    Known Participant
    November 24, 2021

    Ran into this problem and sorted out my own solution. Basically you just need to manually reattach your proxy files.

    1. Load up your project and just offline all your proxy files.
    2. Go to the files that have lost their proxies, highlight them, right click, select "Proxies" and select "Attach Proxies."
    3. Navigate to the appropriate folder and connect the first proxy file on the list. The rest that you've selected should be located through this process.
    4. Repeat for any other files that have lost their proxy files.

     

    This worked for me. When I open my project, I don't get any more offline proxy file complaints.

    rachelcenter
    Braniac
    January 18, 2022

    woof, if thats the fix, its gonna take a long time to reattach every single one if you have a ton of media like me

    kit.kohler
    Known Participant
    January 18, 2022

    Premiere Pro is actually fairly smart about finding proxies once you tell it where to look. Maybe just duplicate your project file and try it out.

    Known Participant
    March 28, 2018

    The Proxy files are localy on a media drive inside my computer, just not the same path as where they were previously. They are not on a network.

    The My Documents folder is still in the windows default location.

    One more point to add to this. When I open the project, it asks to relocate the files. But if I click 'offline all', the project opens and it knows where the proxies are in there new location as I had told it in the last time the project was opened. So it seems that maybe for any single clip it know various different file paths. So it was asking to find the old location, but already also new the new location. Is that a design feature? In the meta data (in the bin once the project is open) it is not possible to see this.

    Braniac
    March 28, 2018

    I'm not sure I follow that last.

    One thing I can suggest is that once proxies are created, don't do anything to them.  Don't move them, rename them, delete them, etc.  PP is a little fussy here.  If you've already done that, you could try creating new proxies in order to follow that guideline.

    Braniac
    March 26, 2018

    Start with Steps 3G and H below.  Report back.

    Unofficial Premiere Pro Troubleshooting Guide