Audio files not found every time I open a session from someone else?

[zboy2854]

As the title suggests, I've been having an issue pretty much every time I open a PT session sent to me from someone else, where as I open the session for the first time I get the dialog window saying that Pro Tools can't locate the audio files, despite the fact that they're all there in the Audio Files folder associated with the master session folder.


I then manually navigate to and put a check next to the associated Audio Files folder, hit the find links button and then it finds and links them all up and I can commit and run the session normally thereafter, including any time I re-open the session after that.



But I have to do this every single time I open a session from someone else the first time, which is something I never had to do in previous versions of PT. Is there a setting I need to change in the preferences somewhere, or is this some sort of bug with PT 2019?

[albee1952]

Hmmm, This is something I almost never see so I'm as confused as you.
How are these sessions delivered to you?
Are you dragging(or copying) these sessions to your recording drive?
How are you opening(IOW, do you open Pro Tools and then go to File>Open, or are you just double-clicking the session file in the session folder)? I always open PT and then open the session
Could it be the drive letter(of your recording drive vs the other user's recording drive)?
When you open these sessions, are you not seeing the option to automatically relink(or is that not finding the audio files)?

[zboy2854]

Pretty much all of the sessions I get are delivered online via Wetransfer/Dropbox/Google Drive, etc. I download and unzip them and open normally via the Open command from Pro Tools. And everything is on the same drive, as I run all my sessions on my system drive.


I do see the option to automatically relink when the problem happens, but my experience has been that it either takes a long time to find the files or doesn't find them for some reason, hence the reason I always just opt to find and relink manually.

[Darryl Ramm]

Just some guesses, but strange characters in the file paths, or there is mixing up case-dependent and independent filesystems. What exact OSes and filesystem and filesystem options are they and you using? Make sure the sender does a Save Copy In and sends you the new copy. Where does the session think the files are to start with? Look at things like the case of names. You will need to investigate all this, nobody will guess a magic setting to change.

Do simple testing, start by having somebody create a new clean session and send you with just a few content files. Try testing sessions in the top level directory of the drive. Etc. Make things stupidly simple. And as always start by trashing prefs, just because...

Where/how you download a zip file from will be irrelevant, it’s what/where exactly the zip file was made on that might be interesting.

[musicman691]

To the OP:

As others have said we need more info - your operating system, exact PT version, etc. It could be that somehow the folder hierarchy is getting bunged-up. Also if on a Mac check folder permissions. Do you have any idea of what operating system and PT version are being used by the senders? If this is a cross operating system thing like Win to Mac or vice versa it might be the expansion of the zipped files is the problem.

[zboy2854]

OS 10.14.6
PT Ultimate 2019.10.0


I feel it has to be something with this version of Pro Tools, since I didn't have the same problem when I was on PT 10HD getting the same type of zipped sessions from the same client using the same system he still uses.


That said, I found another clue. During the relinking dialog, if I set the option to find links by Name and File ID, it doesn't find them, but if I set it to find by Name only it does. So something with the Audio Files' File IDs is not translating.

[Darryl Ramm]

All the same questions apply as asked before, file system types etc. and specs on where these files are coming from.

That UFIDs don't match, and that content is missing to start with, may be a sign that somebody is doing a save copy In (which will update UFIDs) and then either giving you the save copy in content with the old session or the new session with the old content. Or maybe they included both session files and you are opening the wrong one. You need to work out *exactly* what they are doing. “Creating a zip file” is nowhere near a useful description.

This is much more likely to be user related issues than a problem in Pro Tools. I would get the person sending these sessions on the phone or better a video call and go through exactly where things are and how they are packaging them.