Inspiring

Answered

Relinking the same media every time?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
December 14, 2021
9 replies
13391 views

Hi folks,

I recently had to move some media for an ongoing project to a different location. I know it's not optimal to move things mid-project but my client requested it because they manage the media drives. I made sure I had the exact new path and was able to relink it easily the next time I opened the project.

Problem is, now every time I reopen the project, it shows as missing media and makes me relink it again. I've relinked media many times on other projects, and usually once I've relinked it, it stays relinked and the project finds the media. For some reason, this project is requiring me to relink every single time I open it.
Since I know the path it's more of an annoyance than anything else, but I'd prefer it didn't happen.
Am I missing something obvious?

Correct answer Fishysois

I've been dealing with this intermittently for a while now as well (only on certain projects). I discovered that hitting "cancel" did work for me, but it still drove me nuts so I wanted to try something else. It fixed the problem completely.

1. I opened the project using "The Unarchiver" app (Right-click the project and chose "Open with...")

2. I opened the resulting file in TextEdit (Again, right click and choose "Open With". I'm on a Mac, but any text edit app should do)

3. I did a basic find/replace to find the old hard drive/directory lines Premiere is *trying* to link to, and changed those to the name of the drive the files now reside on (luckily I had used the exact same folder structure when I transferred my media onto a new SSD drive, so it was simple to just replace the root drive name rather than the entire file path)

4. Saved and close the text file.

5. Added ".prproj" as the extension.

6. Opened it up and everything was linked.

I hope this helps someone!

S

someone_0627

Participant

Hi there,

I had the same issue with a project folder I copied to a hard drive, I had to relink the same media every time I open the project file. I was going insane, tried a bunch of things and what worked is:

- I relinked everything one more time (I had to relink every file individually..)

- "save as" the project in the same location, different name

- and what made the biggest difference: I deleted the other project versions. Before doing that I kept having the same relink issue!

Hope that helps

F

FishysoisCorrect answer

Participant

I've been dealing with this intermittently for a while now as well (only on certain projects). I discovered that hitting "cancel" did work for me, but it still drove me nuts so I wanted to try something else. It fixed the problem completely.

1. I opened the project using "The Unarchiver" app (Right-click the project and chose "Open with...")

2. I opened the resulting file in TextEdit (Again, right click and choose "Open With". I'm on a Mac, but any text edit app should do)

3. I did a basic find/replace to find the old hard drive/directory lines Premiere is *trying* to link to, and changed those to the name of the drive the files now reside on (luckily I had used the exact same folder structure when I transferred my media onto a new SSD drive, so it was simple to just replace the root drive name rather than the entire file path)

4. Saved and close the text file.

5. Added ".prproj" as the extension.

6. Opened it up and everything was linked.

I hope this helps someone!

N

Neokay

Participant

Cette solution marche super bien ! Merci @Fishysois

E

Enrique5FF5

Participant

ok, I have the same problem, cant fix this, any updates? please help

P

Peter Reef

Inspiring

Similar issue here: I dont have to relink manually after relocating my source footage, but every time I open premiere, its busy "relinking files" in the background. Why? I tried 25.1. stable realease and 25.2. beate, its the same.

B

Bruce306x0

Participating Frequently

Same issue.

I did "cancel" then located the "missing" items in Project panel... where they were sitll linked! OFFLINED items then relink. Save. Close. Reopen. No errors... go figure.

(a community newbie, but editing for decades.)

J

Jeffrey P

Participating Frequently

Hit Cancel!! That is the solution. Do Not Hit Locate!

It works. I swear to god. After a lot of trying, it's that simple.

Just hit Cancel when you are asked to relocate.

So fracking weird!

kirstyc1092575 provided the answer, but it's burried down there and i want to make sure Kirsty's answer is seen

michaelcwelch

Known Participant

Sorry dude, that was the first thing I did. I tried everything. Cancel doesn't work. Infinite loop.

J

Jeffrey P

Participating Frequently

Awwww Maaaan. That sucks. I will edit my comment. Best of luck.

wait- What about just selecting everything, creating a new session, and pasting the whole thing in? That worked with me for another bug. And there is always the goto solution of completely reinstalling premiere lol.

Last guess. Render all of of the files as new ones, like in adobe media encoder, and locate those files. I'm sorry if you tried any of these and they didn't work. For me, it's the first time I have used GoPro footage, so i wonder if there is something up with GoPro that I need to know, like "Always convert GoPro files to ____ before using".?

Best of luck!

BTW - I am by no means an expert. Just grabbing at straws here. I feel bad for your situation

michaelcwelch

Known Participant

Bumping this up. I have the same problem. Have tried all of the tricks listed below (except copy the project - it's massive and I just get the spinning beach ball if I try to copy and paste). Has anybody figured out how to fix this?

michaelcwelch

Known Participant

So by creating a new project and copying and pasting the contents in it fixed it. It just took about 20 minutes of time staring at a spinning beach ball.

A

Anicca2321

Participating Frequently

For anyone having this problem in 2023: after I relinked, saved, closed, reopened, and got asked to relink again...I just clicked "Cancel" on the Link Media popup. All those files it listed as unlinked were actually linked fine in the timeline. Probably won't work for everyone but worth a try.

K

Kaibolt

Participating Frequently

Thanks for this! It works for me 🙂

Peru Bob

Community Expert

Does the location have a fixed drive letter?

spinachworldAuthor

Inspiring

The location is an external drive, and that hasn't changed. The media is just moved to a different subfolder on the same drive. I have full permissions for everything on the drive.

Jeff Bellune

Legend

I tried your test. I moved some of the media to a different drive, opened the project and pointed to the new location. It found the media, I saved the project and quit. When I reopened the project, same issue - media not found and the path showing was the old one.

I don't know if it matters but this started happening since I updated to Pr 2022. It's honestly been buggy as hell for me, and there have been quite a few instances where it just freezes and I have to force quit. I had to revert to 2021 in order to salvage another project I was working on because it simply wouldn't load in 2022.
I notice today that there's an update and I'm hoping it includes bug fixes. I'll wait and see.

Thanks for hanging with this as long as you have. Even though you haven't found a solution yet, the things you found that *didn't* work will surely help future users.

And I lied: I do have one more idea. Create a new blank project and import the old one into it.

*Now* I'm out of ideas. 😀

Jeff Bellune

Legend

Quick test:

Relink everything and immediately save the project. Close and reopen Pr and load the project. Are the links still intact?

spinachworldAuthor

Inspiring

No, this is the issue I'm having. The duration between times I open the project doesn't matter. It could be immediate or it could be a day. Every time I open the project it asks me to relink.

Jeff Bellune

Legend

Is the path that you know the exact same path that Premiere shows as the last known location?

Any differences may provide a clue.

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