Missing Files

[Ep1TapH]

Aloha, I have been working on an album for a client for the last 2 weeks. I originally downloaded the files from my Dropbox. I haved opened and re-saved these files dozens of times to my document folder on my hd and all has been perfect, just like all the other recordings I've done in Pro Tools. However, 2 days ago I go to open my file to make a revision and I get missing files. I let it search and it can't find them. Relink not working, loading the bak files are the same. It happened to all 10 songs I was workin on. All ten songs are there own files. I can see it thinks the files are still in dropbox, yet those are the original files before I did endless editing,mixing. I assume the files are on my puter as I havent deleted anything or changed anything. I see that it looks like all my edits, plugins and things are all there and still set correctly. Is it possible to drag those original tracks back into the song file and the wav cache will adjust them to my final edits again? Thanks in advance for any help or advice. Mahalo

Lenovo I7
Win10
16 gigs ram
Pro Tools 12
Roland Octa-Capture interface

[lesbrunn]

[QUOTE=Ep1TapH;2406548]Aloha, I have been working on an album for a client for the last 2 weeks. I originally downloaded the files from my Dropbox. I haved opened and re-saved these files dozens of times to my document folder on my hd and all has been perfect, just like all the other recordings I've done in Pro Tools. However, 2 days ago I go to open my file to make a revision and I get missing files. I let it search and it can't find them. Relink not working, loading the bak files are the same. It happened to all 10 songs I was workin on. All ten songs are there own files. I can see it thinks the files are still in dropbox, yet those are the original files before I did endless editing,mixing. I assume the files are on my puter as I havent deleted anything or changed anything. I see that it looks like all my edits, plugins and things are all there and still set correctly. Is it possible to drag those original tracks back into the song file and the wav cache will adjust them to my final edits again? Thanks in advance for any help or advice. Mahalo/QUOTE]

Hi Ep1TapH,

Sorry about your missing files. I would suggest not putting your session files on your system drive for many reasons. It can mess with Pro Tools. Also, if you run into problems with your system, your session files could be endangered. Most users have dedicated drives for audio, and it's a good idea to back up regularly.

Hope you are able to retrieve the files. If your session files are intact, putting the audio into your 'Audio Files' folder within your Pro Tools session folder should do the trick, enabling PT to see the files when the songs are opened.

[Ep1TapH]

Thanks for the reply. I noticed that my Audio Files folders are missing now. Can I just make a new folder and add them? (where can they be?) They were there... Thanks for your help.

[Ep1TapH]

ok so I opened the song file and pro tools created a new Audio folder. I copied the files into there and still nothing. saved and reopened the file. I can see the files in the audio folder now but they still dont show up.

[The Weed]

You have to Import the files into Pro Tools, even thought they are already in the Audio Folder. PT won't "see" them just because they're there.

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by The Weed

You have to Import the files into Pro Tools, even thought they are already in the Audio Folder. PT won't "see" them just because they're there.

If PT saw them in the Audio Files folder and was saved before losing the files,
it should see them on opening. Unless of course they were in another location. In that case the OP would have to do import them and do his edits all over again.

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by Ep1TapH

ok so I opened the song file and pro tools created a new Audio folder. I copied the files into there and still nothing. saved and reopened the file. I can see the files in the audio folder now but they still dont show up.

Does PT give you a 'missing files' message on opening the songs? If it does, you'll have the option to relink them. It works sometimes, but there are scenarios where you'll just have to import the files like The Weed said.

[Ep1TapH]

Thanks for the info guys. Will try to import them. Relink is not working at all. Will try that now. Mahalo! My only concern is how did this happen? 10 songs, all different files, all did the same thing. Not feeling like its safe to record in Pro Tools without understanding what happened.

[Ben Jenssen]

Epitaph, are the missing files on elastic audio tracks?
This sounds very much like a problem that was solved, in a way, in a thread on the duc not long ago:
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=266531
The clue is in post no. 14.