Pro Tools not seeing Google Drive in Workspaces...

[pjfolliard]

Has anyone received made progress here? This was my favorite workflow between my home studio and university studio, and it worked like a dream for the the last 3 years.

I ended up purchasing a month's worth of Avid Cloud and it's been user unfriendly.

There was a time when Workspace could recognize Google Drive, but I had to enable Recording permission. Whatever needs to happen, I would really appreciate this feature being restored.

[Darryl Ramm]

Which part of this is dangerous and a potential way to lose work did you not understand?

[armengol]

Just encountered this problem as well and I am happy to report I have a solution for you.


The issue, as best I can tell, has to do with an update to Google Drive (once upon a time called Google Drive File Stream) that changes the way the drive is mounted on Mac systems. Namely, the virtual drive is now mounted in a location that Pro Tools, being dumb, can no longer see.


The solution is to manually change where the root Google Drive folder is placed on your machine. Google Drive's settings offer you a way to do this:


1. Click on the Google Drive icon in the menu bar.
2. Click on the gear icon in the drop-down window.

3. In the Preferences pop-up window, click the gear icon at the top right.
4. The second setting from the top is "Google Drive folder location." By default it is set to "Volumes/gdrive." Select Change.
5. Change it to your Desktop -- that's what worked for me.


Google Drive will restart after you save this change, and a new drive icon will appear on your desktop. You should be able to open a PT session from any project in that drive now. If this doesn't work for you, let me know. I'd be curious to hear.


FINE PRINT: Ignore all the cloud naysayers. In a collaborate environment sharing files over the cloud is mission-critical. The cloud should never be used for archiving and backup. It's the other way around. Always archive and back up your files locally. For collaborating with fellow producers on Pro Tools I've found Google Drive to be the most robust and reliable service, with the exception of this recent update -- which by the way provides cool new functionality for syncing multiple Google accounts on the same desktop account. Always set the project you're currently working on (as you probably know) to be "Available offline" so that Pro Tools is never trying to stream audio files linked to a session. And to prevent clobbering, always duplicate and create new versions of sessions when handing them off to another user. On my team, producers have different roles and enter the workflow at different stages, so versioning sessions very easily prevents clobbering, even when users are working in parallel on the project -- because they are working on different sessions that are then merged at a later time (in yet another version) using PT's session-data-import feature. And, obviously, the audio and video files sit in their respective folders and, once synced, never have to be synced again.

[anne pope]

I was working off shared Google Drives with no problem before updating my OS from Mojave to Monterey, and Pro Tools from 2021 to Studio 2022. The computer is a MacBook Pro 2019.

The fix described above with updating the Google Drive app's preferences did not work for me. I got the following messages:

Google Drive cannot start
The current mount location, "/Users/annepope/Desktop", is not empty. Reset to the default location to continue?

Server connections interrupted:
GoogleDrive

[daeron80]

Originally Posted by armengol

Ignore all the cloud naysayers. In a collaborate environment sharing files over the cloud is mission-critical. The cloud should never be used for archiving and backup. It's the other way around. Always archive and back up your files locally.

THIS

We use GD to remote record talent. We create their tracking sessions in Google Drive in a useable directory that is shared with us. All they have to do is launch PT, open the session from the Dashboard or Open Recent menu, and start recording. We grab things from their Audio Files folders as needed and copy to our SAN. Works like a charm.

Just don't try it with Dropbox. I love Dropbox for some things, but it's not a good idea to use a session while it's stored in it.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by daeron80

THIS

We use GD to remote record talent. We create their tracking sessions in Google Drive in a useable directory that is shared with us. All they have to do is launch PT, open the session from the Dashboard or Open Recent menu, and start recording. We grab things from their Audio Files folders as needed and copy to our SAN. Works like a charm.

Just don't try it with Dropbox. I love Dropbox for some things, but it's not a good idea to use a session while it's stored in it.

If the audio file has been recorded into a session and you go grab that file and copy it locally that's great. Going to work, well with some potential risk whether all writes actually hit the cloud, but the serial nature of the writes means little risk. Totally fundamentally different than the ****show that can happen where people open a shared session with complex distributed state information with an application not designed to do that, running on a cloud platform not designed to do that (e.g. the standard file type writes layered on top of what looks like a filesystem on the cloud are inherently not designed to support coordinated access.). But good to see folks pointing out these limitations--it is folks diving in assuming shared session in the cloud will work that scare the bejesus out of me.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by armengol

The cloud should never be used for archiving and backup.

Uh wot?

The cloud can be a fantastic place to backup to. It immediately gets backups removed from the computer and off site and protects against computer and building loss. But nobody should be backing up to a single location or a single method. Rule of three seems a pretty good idea.

Appreciate you sharing the other tips.

[[email protected]]

Hi, I found the solution in other forum that works also for me after update to Mac OS 12.3.1.

Pro Tools doesn't seem to recognize the virtual drive as a real folder, so I decided I would try to nest it within a real folder and see what happens. I removed my drive folder from the computer (where it lived on the Mac root drive) and instead nested it within my Documents folder...lo and behold, I can now open my sessions!

[[email protected]]

Hi, I found a solution in other forum, it works for me!
https://www.reddit.com/r/protools/co..._pt_workspace/

Pro Tools doesn't seem to recognize the virtual drive as a real folder, so I decided I would try to nest it within a real folder and see what happens. I removed my drive folder from the computer (where it lived on the Mac root drive) and instead nested it within my Documents folder...lo and behold, I can now open my sessions!

[gicava001]

IT WORKED FOR ME! (here's how) Thanks [anne pope] and [armengol]
Updated to Monterrey 12.4 and PT Studio 22, so Google drive was gone.

As with [anne pope], I got the same "mount location "/.../Desktop is not empty" so then I:

1. cleared the desktop to be empty, then
1. from the preferences G Drive menu I disconnected the desktop from syncing,
2. then clicked on the gear (top right) changed again the location to /Desktop and
3. scrolled down to proxy settings, changed it to "direct connection", and
4. Clicked Done!

It works again! as easy and reliable as it has for the last 4 years. for the team of editors around the world.

Thanks [anne pope] and [armengol]!

Originally Posted by anne pope

I was working off shared Google Drives with no problem before updating my OS from Mojave to Monterey, and Pro Tools from 2021 to Studio 2022. The computer is a MacBook Pro 2019.

The fix described above with updating the Google Drive app's preferences did not work for me. I got the following messages:

Google Drive cannot start
The current mount location, "/Users/annepope/Desktop", is not empty. Reset to the default location to continue?

Server connections interrupted:
GoogleDrive