Audio files missing in project bug?!?

[Dizzi45Z]

I got a Pro Tools session from somebody today that was originally recorded in Pro Tools 6.4 LE PC. He has upgraded to 7.3 and everything opens up just fine for him. He brought the project to my studio (MAC) and when we opened it, the top half of the tracks are blank. No audio files on them at all. The bottom half are perfectly fine. The files that existed in the top half are all in the Region list. There was no dialogue that said that any files were missing and the Session letters are green. It is almost as if he accidentally deleted the top half of his project. He does not have a sessions backup folder to check older sessions. He went back home to check his session and it opened exactly as expected for him. Any ideas on what could be causing this?

[Andre Knecht]

Try creating a new session and bring in the material by way of “Import Session Data.” (Do this from a copy of the original client session that hasn’t yet been opened by your system.)

IHTH.


PS: Tell your client to enable the Automatic Session Backup feature.

[Dizzi45Z]

Thank you for your response. I just tried importing the session from the original file the client brought and I selected to import everything. I get the same results. The first 4-6 tracks are blank, the rest of the tracks are exactly how they should be.

P.S. You are right about the session backup thing. I told him that he needed to have that enabled and I'll cross my fingers that he does.

[Andre Knecht]

If the relevant audio files are positively all present on your drive(s) (be sure to disconnect any client-owned drives — or dismount any optical media — after you transferred files), then it’ s quite possible that something is squirrelly with your own drives’ directories. Start by deleting the DigiBase folders on your drives and have PT rebuild those. If that fails, take the time to follow the other steps outlined in the sticky “Troubleshooting” thread found at the top of this forum.

IHTH.

[DigiTechSupt]

To add to what Andre said - if the audio files are in the regions bin, but the regions are missing from the Edit window, it sounds to me more like session corruption, though why they could open it fine on the original system is a bit of a mystery.

Are the regions actually missing or are they just blank in the Edit window? If you open the Tasks window - is there anything happening there?

If you 'Show full path names' in the Regions bin and look at the regions that are missing from the Edit window - are they italicized to indicate they're missing/offline? If you look at the actual path name, are the audio files located where Pro Tools is expecting to see them?

[Dizzi45Z]

Thank you for the response. To further troubleshoot the problem, I sent the Pro Tools file session file that he had brought to me to him in an email and I asked him to open that exact session file on his system. When he did this, the same tracks were missing the audio files. He then sent me what I think is an older Pro Tools version Session file of the same project (the project Icon had the old Pro Tools look to it) and everything opened up exactly how it should.

The regions are actually missing in the edit window on the other project file. The task window has nothing going on and none of the region files are italicized. The actual path is all correct for all of the files. Everything seems to act as if the regions on those tracks were simply deleted.

I wasn't there when he saved the file before he brought it. So I can't be certain that he didn't accidentally delete the audio regions without knowing it (he swears he didn't). If there is an issue at all, it must have come after he had saved the project in 7.3 from 6.4 and brought it to a 7.4 system. However, everything is working great now for the project file he sent me and if this happens again with another one of his projects, I will post here again.

Thanks again for all of your posts!