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Ovidius9000
Known Participant
November 29, 2024
Question

Why does Premiere spend so much time "relinking media" when opening a project?

  • November 29, 2024
  • 12 replies
  • 8927 views

When I open a large-ish project, the Progress Dashboard on Premiere spends minutes doing what it say is "relinking media".   What is it doing?  Why is this necessary?  It is technically a "background" process, but nothing really works until it is finished.

 

After a few mins, or 5-6 mins on really big project, it finishes "relinking" and then I can edit normally.  But my question is why can't Premiere just save the state it is when it's done and then just open quickly the next time?  Nothing has changed in my media files, why "relink"? 

 

NOTE: I am not talking about when Premiere cannot find the correct location and you have to point it to the right place. I'm talking about normal everyday automated stuff that happens when I open a project.

    12 replies

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    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    November 29, 2024

    I'm surprised you've never had issues with external drives. Yes, they are heavily used. And for many workflows, absolutely necessary. But they come with problems inherent in being external. (And this doesn't include external RAID arrays connected via specific hardware bits.)

     

    1) Data transfer is just never as good as an internal "directly on the motherboard" connection drive. USB and Thunderbolt sustained speeds don't match that with internal SSDs.

     

    2) Drive names are an issue ... sometimes drives have a 'name' that is recognized and used by the OS, but often they get assigned a drive name when connected or the computer is booted again.  And that can throw things for a loop.

     

    3) Premiere runs totally on metadata ... that's all Project files are, massive bits of metadata and text information. And if it needs to re-sort the drive name/files used in that project, it will have to do so for every file used. And that process involves replacing the last stored data with the 'new' data for the file, all written in the Project file's metadata ... stored between RAM/cache and data files.

     

    And if you have preview files and such ... as is probable ... it has multiple files per clip to reestablish the link to.

     

    So if Premiere is having to deal with a newly assigned drive name at launch, it will take some time to get all that sorted. 

     

    BUT ... if  ... the drive has a name that the OS recognizes and uses on launch, much of that time is not necessary.

     

    Now, there is a separate issue where Premiere doesn't remember it already has preview files and such, and recreates those every launch of the project. THAT ... is very annoying, but again, not the same issue as the above.

     

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      R
      Ross3888292368fh
      Participating Frequently
      November 29, 2024

      The drive is not changing, the media is not changing.  My question is: what is it doing when it says "relinking" everytime i open the project.

       

      Other NLEs have no problem working off external drives.  Metadata is tiny in terms of bandwidth.  My question, again, is why/what is Premiere doing every single time the project starts up?  And why can't it save it's "post linking" state, you know what I mean?

        R Neil Haugen
        R Neil Haugen
        Legend
        November 29, 2024

        I answered that above.

         

        If Premiere sees any part of the "name" as different, it has to rewrite all the internal Premiere metadata to that new name. Because your project is nothing but metadata.

         

        So, as I said, it's not rewriting the original files. It's having to rebuild it's own internal directions ... (file-name locations) to all the original files/previews/whatever. And if you have hundreds of files, that can take awhile.

        Everyone's mileage always varies ...
        S
        Community Manager
        Sumeet Kumar ChoubeyCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        November 29, 2024

        Hi Ovidius9000,

         

        We're sorry about the poor experience. Where are the media files used in the project saved? Are these saved on an internal drive or external/network drives? Is this happening with any specific project or all of them? We're here to help, just need more info.

         

        Thanks,

        Sumeet

        O
        Ovidius9000Author
        Known Participant
        November 29, 2024

        External drive.  It's about 50TB of footage. 

         

        Why would it mattter if it's internal or external?  In 25 years working in editing and sound-for-film I have literally never been asked if something is on an "internal drive".   In professional settings we all use external drives so projects can be easily moved to a new system, or across the country etc, to fit the needs of the production.

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