Problem with relinking files in Pro Tools 7.3

[the riff]

Posted this on the digi board, but thought i would try here as well....

I just received a drive in the mail for a mix session I'm about to start. When I open up the session, it's telling me I have over 2000 audio files missing. When I try to have pro tools automatically find them, it takes forever and doesn't seem to be doing anything. When I do it manually and try to relink them, it's finding the files ok, but only lets me do it one at a time. When you have over 2000 files in a session you could imagine this will take me forever! I know and hope there must be a quicker way to do this. I could have swore I've run into this problem before and there was an easier fix. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Brian]

Tell it to "blow it off" or "ignore" as PT says, and then don't bother to re-link them yourself. If you aren't going to use them (since they are probably old versions of the tracks) you shouldn't need them, however, if you do, just relink the one you immediately need.
It probably found the latest versions of each track, it just wants to give you every option, but it takes time, our commodity.
Think about how long it takes just to load a song in PT, then multiply that by every take of every track you have saved.
it doesn't seem like a buggar when you're creating them, but, when you move them to another rig, well, PT ain't so great. I'm not sayin there's anything better just that process is slow.

[the riff]

thanks for the response, but it's actually ALL of the files. There isn't anything in the session now.

[Brian]

Wow! Ouch! Can you bill for that?
Anything on the digi board yet?
I'd love to know the answer to that problem.
You did hit the ignore button?
That usually does it for me. It gives me that same question every time I open one up. I hit ignore and it loads it's thing and I'm mixin.
Mac or Windows?

[the riff]

Some ehlp on the digi board, but nothing has worked yet. The only thing that is a for sure thing is doing it one file at a time. For that many files it would take FOREVER. I did hit the ignore button and that doesn't work, since it doesn't load ANY files..

[Brian]

Sounds like a problem. Really should be loading at least the last few tracks.
OK, you may already have tried these, but, :
Did you record this or was it shipped in from another :
a) engineer,
b) musician posing as an engineer who exceeded the track count or plugin memory requirement, or
c) they sent the track with no session file, or OMF,
d) it was created in another program?
Anyway, is there some way you can reget the session file without tracks over the net like an email attachment or download?
Mac or Windows?
If it's a mac, which system?
Also if it's a mac, are you in the client account or superuser account?
Mac remedies:
rebuild the preferences on the main HD in Disk utility and re-start,
Install PT in the superuser acct, but, NEVER open it in that acct, only open it in a client account. If you open it in superuser you wil have to remove it and reinstall it after you repair your hard drive then NEVER open it in superuser.
I made the mistake once and boy will it screw you up.

[the riff]

Oh yeah I'm on a MAC. No other problems opening up any other sessions at all. This drive came from Italy from another engineer who recorded the session. I've heard this happens from time to time in pro tools. One mistake he made before sending this drive off, is he should have disconnected the other drive from which this was copied from and tried to open up these sessions on this drive to make sure they opened correctly...

I have already done the usual, trashing prefs, etc.... disk utility, etc...

Not the problem in this case....

Thanks for your help!

[knobtwirler]

e client account or superuser account?
Mac remedies:
rebuild the preferences on the main HD in Disk utility and re-start,
Install PT in the superuser acct, but, NEVER open it in that acct, only open it in a client account. If you open it in superuser you wil have to remove it and reinstall it after you repair your hard drive then NEVER open it in superuser.

Do you mean repair permissions? And what is a superuser? Do you mean root or admin?

[Brian]

I get your plight now, other guy did it.
Sounds like you need to send it back and have him do it again or its a coupla all niters.



Yes, repair preferences and root admin.

[stinkpot]

sounds like the other guy didn't consolodate his tracks and then discard the unused bits and pieces from the session/ audio files folder.

he should consolodate all that stuff, and then clear everything from the region list (preferable delete the audio files completely that aren't used). that should clean up at least the amount of relinking that has to be done. get it down from 2000 files to however many tracks there are in the song so far.

nightmare, man. i feel your pain.

[Rodgre]

Here's what I would suggest.

First, copy everything to another drive, preferably a secondary internal drive, but if you don't have that, then read on.

If opening the session from a new location gives you the "can't find files" issue, tell it to ignore them, and open the session anyway. You'll see all the files grayed out.

Then go into your Disk Allocation preference under the Setup menu and make sure everything is set for the folder where these files actually are.

Close the session, saving it as a new name...."song version 2" or something like that.

Then try to reopen the session and see if it finds the files.


Plan B is to start a fresh session. Then try importing session data from the session you're trying to work on, and see if the files show up that way.

Hopefully one of those ways to "trick" your computer will work.

Roger

[the riff]

Here's what I would suggest.

First, copy everything to another drive, preferably a secondary internal drive, but if you don't have that, then read on.

If opening the session from a new location gives you the "can't find files" issue, tell it to ignore them, and open the session anyway. You'll see all the files grayed out.

Then go into your Disk Allocation preference under the Setup menu and make sure everything is set for the folder where these files actually are.

Close the session, saving it as a new name...."song version 2" or something like that.

Then try to reopen the session and see if it finds the files.


Plan B is to start a fresh session. Then try importing session data from the session you're trying to work on, and see if the files show up that way.

Hopefully one of those ways to "trick" your computer will work.

Roger

Good suggestions. Thanks for that. Unfortunately, I've tried them all . First thing I did was transfer to my drive that I work off. The drive they sent was actually USB . For some reason no matter what I did, it still wanted to link them from some drive that I'm assuming was the drive they originally tracked the project on. I mean literally, when you opened up the session and hit "ignore" there wasn't one file in the session, just a bunch of empty blocks...

I ended up doing the "find candidates" way, one by one... Man does my click hand hurt right now..

Cheers fellas..

[Brian]

Well, would that you could, open the session with an ignore while on a mac, go to the left side of the window column of active tracks (which will be empty?) and drag and drop from a finder window full of your audio files, then, activate them. That is worth trying. It might give you an import dialog, hit yes and see if that "could" have saved you time.
OH yeah, Ibuprofen for the click hand,