Missing Audio Files have session need help fast

[Nightflight]

Hi


I can NOT believe I worked on this song yesterday. Today my bass guitar and organ tracks are missing though I see them in audio folder and see them on CLIPS but greyed out.


I have a session tomorrow, and I have not heard back from avid yet.


I cant believe this is happening again. Avid has NEVER fixed this catastrophe!

[Darryl Ramm]

Unfortunately if they are gone, and you really can't find them, they are gone and there is nothing other users can do.

If usual relinking attempts don't work and you know the file names (filename.ext as an example here), you can do a force search for the file like this in terminal...

$ sudo find / -name "filename.ext" -print

And that will find any file named that on every mounted drive. Do this using find, not trying to use spotlight.

If you had a removable drives connected then reattach them before running this find.

You can also manually find say every .wav file on your system.

$ sudo find / -name "*.wav" -print

.. if you want to save that to a file and manually look though line by line.

But these only look for problems where content is misplaced... if you are having a problem where Pro Tools actually removes/never fully saves content then this won't help.

---

And rethink your backups. Check the session is OK and make a nightly backup. If you are working/on the run, you can do that to a quality USB stick.

[leftalive]

Originally Posted by Nightflight

Hi


...missing though I see them in audio folder and see them on CLIPS but greyed out.

Sounds like you either moved or renamed the audio files folder (or something else in the folder chain) which changed the path to the files, and now the program can't link to them.

If they really are still in the audio folder, then you simply need to relink to them manually, or just re-import them and manually pull them back into the timeline.

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by Nightflight

Hi
...my bass guitar and organ tracks are missing though I see them in audio folder and see them on CLIPS but greyed out...

You haven't provided much information for us to help you, but: when you say you see them "on Clips but greyed out" do you mean you see a placeholder icon in the timeline with no content or that it's greyed out meaning muted?

Assuming you're getting a "missing files" dialog: I have very occasionally (maybe twice in 10 years of daily use) seen a case where the audio files are indeed in the audio files folder but Pro Tools will not find them automatically using either file ID or Name (probably due to some system corruption) - in those cases selecting the missing files one by one in the relink window and using the "find all candidates" option with the audio files folder checked will bring it back.


If you're getting this problem often, there's clearly something going on with your system at the file storage level.

[albee1952]

and, if you CAN find the files(and they will play in any other media program), then a manual re-link should do it. There are some decent videos on youtube for that(highly recommended). Moving forward, some things to consider:

#1-take note of any and every drive that is connected while recording(even a lowly USB stick) as sometimes audio doesn't go where you think its going(user error about 99.9% of the time, and I speak from experience)

#2-sometimes, when you import audio into a session, it doesn't actually get copied into the Audio Files folder(even if you DO have that option checked in Prefs). My "solution" is that I copy/paste the audio into the session folder and import from there(if it doesn't get copied, at least I know exactly where the files are, even if they came from a drive that is now not connected). Overkill? You bet. Will I regret it? No way

#3-(for newbies), if you open a session(or template) and then save it as a new song, the audio will likely get recorded to the folder in the original session(or template) and NOT into the Audio Files folder of your newly saved session. The solution for this one comes in 2 forms;
#1-if you did it wrong, open the session and make sure it PLAYS all the audio files, then go to File>Save Copy>check the box to include audio files and save onto your recording drive. This copy version will have all the audio files included within that session folder(which by default, will be named "Copy of Song Name".
#2-so you DON'T do it wrong, either Create from Template(which takes all the templates attributes but puts everything in a new session folder). Or, Create a blank session and then Import Session Data from the template(which might have audio files, but you can choose to not import that audio). Its worth watching some tutorials on Import Session Data(often referred to as ISD) to see some of the options