-
Files marked “offline” will not reconnect (after making backup)
A cautionary tale.
I backed my project folder which includes the project file and a subfolder containing all captured media files to an attached firewire drive. Then moving the firewire drive to another computer, I tried opening the project: the media files were marked as Offline. That’s more or less expected since the file path information kept in the project file referenced the original file location path (including volume name) and these paths can’t resolve on the backup drive.
BUT, when I try to “reconnect” I get the “Some attributes … do not match.” For example, an audio WAV file would not reconnect due to a difference of “-Rate”. I copied the WAV file back to the original computer, from the backup, and in my original project changed the connected asset from the original (still in its original place) to this downloaded duplicate. No problem doing the reconnect. Evidently my WAV backup file was not corrupted. So I copied the backup project file back down to the original computer – again, the reconnection worked with no complaints! – the project file was not corrupt.
In doing these experiments and noticing various path references in the project file, it appears that paths are remembered using Apple’s file alias mechanism. Before backing up my entire project folder, I had renamed the subfolder that contained the media assets. This change did not require any reconnecting of the assets – presumably because Apple aliases include several clues on how to link to the original. When you move an aliased file, often the alias does not break. But when the project file was backed up to the firewire drive and used on another computer, the alias references did break – not surprising since the volume name was different, but still surprising (and perhaps devastating) that all attempts to heal the file references in the project file failed ! (backup copy running on a different computer).
Since I had not deleted my original project folder, I was able to move the source media to different location in such a way that the aliases were broken so I was required to reconnect. Then I reorganized my folder names and reconnected. Now apparently the alias references are resolving in the simplest way – no renaming of subfolders after the aliases were created. Copy the newly fiddled project file up to may backup (no need recopy the media files, they are already there, but make sure subfolder names match the original location names). Now the backup folder and project file is usable from either computer.
Moral of the story: test a backup copy of a project to make sure its file references can be reconnected before assuming it will be of any use later. My conclusions about aliases and how they might be responsible for this problem should be taken as conjecture. Since all the files involved in backup and original were exactly the same, perhaps renaming the disk to agree with its original name and renaming the subfolder to its original name may have fixed things without even reconnecting. But what if the original was long gone and I had forgotten original names?
-
1 Reply
-
Did you try using Media Manager to copy the project to the other drive? Also I would never rename a folder. Call me old fashioned.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up