When I have created new projects I have set my media cache to my internal RAID, /mnt/StorageMedia. Once I have done that, however, it assigns it to a further sub-directory with a LONG name. I wouldn’t care, except that when I grab a clip from a different project it wants to copy it, rather than just link. I frequently share material between project. How do I keep this from making a new copy every time?
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soft-imports are a partial solution
I think I figured it out: Background Wire needs to be turned off. Some one chime in if they think I’m wrong. And if I’m right, perhaps it should be one of those “tips” in the manual.
Are you sure its making a copy of the media and you are losing space. The dialogue that comes up looks as if its copying but I believe that it making links to the media as long as the media is on the same volume.
I think I’m sure. It was a huge clip and it was going through all the motions of being copied.
EDIT: I just did a test. I am absolutely sure. As an aside, I really like the new project management window.
For all I know, it’s always had this behavior, but the Background Wire box defaulted to off. Now it defaults to on, which would sort of make sense with the new Media Cache.
I’ve not done to much testing of this, but I think you are correct. BG Wire makes a copy, FG Wire makes a link.
You’d think a salient fact like that would make it into the manual, particularly since so much has changed in this version and there is a whole new page devoted to importing between projects.
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The button state for Background Wire is persistent for me.
If I go to the MediaHub->Projects tab, then Enable or Disable the button, the state is preserved when quitting and restarting flame.
In the log I can see the activity/event:
[notice] 2166632448 menu.C:5236 06/26/25:15:53:16.757 BUTTON : [Background Wire] MediaProjectsBackgroundWire(ON)
So i searched for an ENV_VAR
$ strings /opt/Autodesk/<$FLAME_VERSION>/bin/flame | grep MediaProjectsBackgroundWire
You can get to it.
Mess around with this at your own risk.
I was actually hoping that it would be in my user prefs, but TBH, I’m kind of ok with the single activation/deactivation action and a state persistence.
YMMV
I can live with it, but it’s one of those irritating things that for 20 years it worked on way, I never had to toggle it, and then suddenly it’s the opposite.
@ytf - it’s those pesky alternative facts…
In Flame 2026, if the Media Cache for your source and destination project are located on the same file system AND that the Cache Formats are the same between the two projects, then Foreground / Background Wire will create Hard Links, meaning no media will be copied between projects.
If you want to validate a cached frame is a copy or a hard link, using a console, navigate to the location of your cached media and type this command:
stat <file name>
Then you will see information about the file and look at the Links value: if it is 1 then it is a new file but if it is 2 (or more) then it is a Hard Link.
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I get a 2 for both instances. A new import results in 1.
So why does one setting (Background) run a progress line in the lower left, and the other is instant?
And the full command is stat <file name>, for those with a dangerous amount of command line knowledge like myself who struggled for a bit.
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I did not notice that filename between bracket in my post was not compatible with the site! I fixed that.
Background import tasks progress are shown in the console with other Backburner managed tasks (they are also visible in the Backburner monitor). Foreground task are managed by Flame and their progress is in a foreground dialog.