Relinking files is incredibly slow. Sometimes freezes.

[garrettb20873522]

Hello all,

I'm currently bringing sequences from one project edited by another person into my current project, and I'm trying to relink the content to the sources on my local drive.  This has become a painful process.  I have to relink one file at a time and it can take 5-10 minutes to do so for each.  If I automatically link to save time, the program becomes unresponsive with the mac wonder wheel turning indefinitely until I Force Quit. 

Am I doing something wrong? I've not had this issue in the past, though I have seen past issues in this forum regarding MTS files.  The only other variable I can think of is that my drive is formatted exFAT.

Any suggestions? Let me know if you need more details.

Thanks!

[Vidya Sagar]

Hi garrettb20873522,

Sorry for the issue. Let try to optimize the performance of Premiere Pro by resetting the permissions: fixing permissions problem that impedes start of Adobe applications | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

Please let us know the status after trying the steps.

Thanks,

Vidya

[garrettb20873522]

Thanks for the suggestion, this is the kind of solution I'm hoping for.  Unfortunately the permissions we're already set to "read and write".

I will say this issue is sort of inconsistent.  When I wrote this it took forever per linked clip, and auto relinking would cause it to freeze with "Application not responding", but by the end of the day things were running smoother for seemingly no reason.  Everything ran pretty smooth today but I also haven't had a need to relink any files .  These issues are difficult because they seem to come and go.  Same with exports not reaching Media Composer.  Last week Prelude wouldn't open any saved project files but would start a new project file.  I've essentially been having a plethora of issues with various programs intermittently, this is just the one that absolutely had to work at the time I was doing it.

I know this isn't helpful to finding a specific solution, but I've become incredibly wary as to how Adobe has been releasing software that has a complex relationship with other software and doesn't seem ready.  Obviously releasing it is the best test but it also puts a lot of professionals in an ugly position at what is always the wrong time.  Media software has to be tried and true, people's careers depend on it. I vote that Adobe slows their releases down and spends more time working with their new features and finding the little (or big) problems before handing it out to the public, or whatever has to happen to ensure the quality of their updates.

Thanks,

[Vidya Sagar]

Hi garrettb20873522,

I understand your frustration. Please share your feedback here: Feature Request/Bug Report Form

It will reach the team directly.

Thanks,

Vidya

[Francisco Ramon5E48]

Same exact issue here. Just trying to attach a proxy to a single clip. Clicking on auto link files freezes premiere. Really frustrating when swimming among deadlines. I pay for my software and get such poor software. I'm not talking about handling effects of video playback stuff. Here we are talking about file management issues, one of the very all time / all software abilities of dealing with a file system. Please move fast on that. As a former software developer I find this issue an offense to us suscribed users.

[Michael Grenadier]

there are many things that could be causing this sort of problem some
of them premiere issues some OS or hardware issues. Please tell us
what your system specs, including os, cpu, ram, hard drive
configuration and connection and graphics card. And your source
properties. If by any chance your source is from a screen recording
program or shot on a smart phone, the issue may be that your sources
have a variable frame rate. And make sure you have adequate empty
space on your startup drive media drives. you should have a minimum
of 20% free space on your startup drive and 10% on all other drives.

[Francisco Ramon5E48]

System specs: MSI GS75 Stealth 10SE-045ES Intel Core i7-10750H/32GB DDR 4
2666MHz/1TB SSD/RTX 2060

Under W10 Home Advanced.

Proxies at 1920p. Project with +5k items imported. Smoothless editing
experience for a +60m with 3+ video tracks and 4+ audio tracks.

Just the "Vincular automaticamente otros medios" checkbox on proxy assign
pop up is, as any file related action/change on imported clips, as
replacing footage, are giving me headaches with long waiting times for a
single clip.

Can't screenshot for product privacy issues. Steps to follow:
1) import a couple of network raw footage clips.
2) select some for proxy attachment.
3) check (if unchecked) the "auto link others" box.

At that point, premiere process first starts retrieving the footage file
contents from network, one by one, with a time gap between each file read,
of a duration that goes in proportion of the amount of clips in the
project; the duration of the gap is one thing. The other is that it takes
place as much times as the amount of clips selected for proxy attachment.

Please don't tend to drive it by office level users. I talk not as an
editor, but also as a software developer engineer.

Once again, it is a file system routine that lacks efficiency on Premiere
Pro. Is a matter of you checking the code of that very simlple popup, and
not a try-catch-with-user-screenshots. For us is losing time for our
deadlined projects while paying you for just rebounding balls till we give
up.

Sorry for talking that fard and angry, but as a freelance this is making me
working much more hours than one could reasonably expect. Asking for you to
do YOUR work, so you request ME to debug YOUR problems while I PAY for YOUR
sortware, well... excuse me if I say that is not only annoying but a lack
of respect for us subscribers.

[core787]

I’m having exactly the same problem. If it’s a project that hasn’t been moved it opens fine, but a project that has to relink all If it’s media either takes forever or just crashes Premiere. I’m on 2018 on a Windows 10 machine.

[Vidya Sagar]

Hi core787,

Just for a test, make a copy of the file that needs to be relinked in a different folder & try linking.

Thanks,

Vidya

[core787]

It's not one file, its a while edited sequence, most of the footage needs to be relinked because this is going from Mac to PC and the drive paths arent the same.

[natashaiii]

Still having this issue did anyone find a fix? Relinking crashes the entire application, or takes up to 5 minutes to relink one file. This is ridiculous.

[scottr37033885]

I have the same issue. I stupidly updated Premiere and tried opening a project that has 478 MTS files in it. I suppose I won't get to do real work until tomorrow, because Premiere needs to spend the next 18 hours relinking files that HAVE NOT MOVED. I'm convinced that Adobe software is just a DDOS attack on my productivity. Coming from a FCPX background, I've never expereienced anything so pitiful. Because of this, I've lost a whole day of work. To whom do I send the invoice?

[engine_99]

Adobe software is just a DDOS attack on my productivity.

😂😂😂 FML. This is what I'm sitting through right now. 

Still. Years later. On a brand new MacBook Pro.

your friend in time

kc

[Jared Isham]

I've got the same problem - I am moving from a Mac to a Windows 10 PC.  My project is on an external HDD and attempting to relink the files takes forever.  I got to the point of uninstalling all the programs, running the Adobe CC Cleaner Tool and reinstalling with the latest version (Premiere Pro 2020 14.3).  It took roughly 12 hours just to open the project and relink the files.  I don't have the option of jumping to the old system since it is at a different location.  Most of the files were connected via a NAS and now it has been 3 hours trying to get the Link Media window to close -- I attempted to offline a single file.

I've been attempting to get the project loaded for the past day.  The total media size for the project is around 1.2 TB and the project has about 3,000-4,000 clips it needs to load (so not crazy big but also not small).  The current status of the program in Task Manager is 232.1 MB for the program and the Not Responding process is using 176.8 MB and they are both very  slowly climbing...almost seems as though Premiere took a break and is only working when it feels like it (currently using only 0.5 - 1.5% of the CPU.

Seems like the Link Media is having trouble when the old drive location is not attached. Almost like it freaks out then just gives up.  It would be great to have an option to clear last file path so that it doesn't got searching for a drive that is no longer attached.

[iStormIt]

Yes it's very interesting in that way, when premiere links media, it's not really using any of the available resources to make it go faster. Super low utilization of CPU, RAM and SATA/Ethernet connections. And still it lags like crazy. 

[Michael Grenadier]

I gotta say that the relinking process works great for me.  I can tell you horror stories about complex projects in fcp7 that would lose their links to the media and the reconnection process was a nightmare.  I've been truly amazed at how well I can bring a project I started on the mac over to windows.  Generally if I'm working on the same platform but need to run the project on more than one computer, I clone my media drive so that the folder structure and drive name are identical and most of the time, premiere just connects to the media without any input from me.   

[iStormIt]

That's nice to hear! I find that linking works OK-ish whenever I'm in a project with below 5000 files in it. But when it goes above that, then everything becomes real laggy even if I only try to link like 5 files at a time. It's as if those other 15 000 files in the project somehow affect the linking of those 5 alone.

I also find that it's less laggy if media is stored on small drives rather than on ethernet connected servers. Even if the speeds are the same or even faster through the ethernet connected server. I would guess this is because servers usually have more content on them and therefore gives premiere a whole lot more to index compared to, let's say, an internal storage solution. But still, it's a mystery why premiere isn't allowing itself to utilize more of the systems resources when linking media like this.

[Michael Grenadier]

using shared storage via ethernet cable is not recommended (afaik).   are you actually searching for the files?  I usually know where to point to find the first file and if the folder structure is the same as it was when the files were previously linked, it's pretty fast.   I'm pretty organized with my media and so if I see the previous path was from a shoot on 7_15_2020. cause it's in a folder  within a folder path within a folder with that name, I can quickly locate the file and link it and since all the other media is in the same place relative to the original path it does the rest relatively quickly..  make sense?  even though english is my first language, I'm still having issues...