Path translation

hey all. I’ve had to shift a job to a new SSD. using path translation cant get it to see the new stuff. im sure I’ve made this work before. so I was on say driveA/Aprojects/project and now im on driveB/Bprojects/project. so im never sure what’s the source and what’s the destination. so I’ve tried it both ways round and its not finding the new footage. I assumed the source was the original clips path and the deistination is the new clips path. so I did a translation that said. driveA/Aprojects to destination driveB/Bprojects. I’ve even tried the specific project name as well. I thought it was smart enough that you just had to point it in the right direction.

Source is driveA/Aprojects/ and destination driveB/Bprojects/ . I assume that you are talking about archive/restore project, aren’t you?

hi. no everything is non cached. just trying to point the clips to a different destination. the menu is in the storage menu in preferences - autodesk very bad implementation of a relink function!

I´ve only used translation path restoring non-cached projects by using archive. No idea how translation path can work with clips already imported. I would say that change paths in conform tab (it can be edited) should be enough, but it never worked to me. In addition, it would only be useful for sequences not for individual clips. Indeed, I agree with that relink footage is unnecessarily obscure in flame.

For lack of anything better, I would suggest archive/restore the project. It’s works to me for move uncached projects among flames:
If you can connect the original SSD again and open the project in its original state, archive (without caching, sure) the project, and restore a copy having set the translation path. The new project will point its footage using new path.

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I’ve had it in the past where the new drive was mounted differently and no matter what I did the path translation wouldn’t work. Ended up reconforming instead.

Hey there @Jonhollis. I recently had to figure out path translation and I’m with you that there some aspects of it that are a little strange.

Where I landed is that in order for path translation to work I discovered that I needed to do an archive restore and ensure the setting “convert to local path” was enabled during the restore. Once I did that, I found path translation was finally working but wouldn’t work if I didn’t restore it this way.

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thanks for that - I think I’m going to try this. it is a truly woeful part of the software to be honest. every other NLE on the planet can auto relink search and replace etc etc.

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and thanks for the amazing flame tutorials by the way

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its also super annoying that its not stored on a project by project basis

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It sucks. It works for us in one location (Auckland) but not at all in another (Sydney). Super infuriating.

Probably not it: but I spent forever with a path that didn’t work. The entire time I was missing a slash at the start of the path name.

I’ve recently used it successfully. What I would try is rebooting your compute, mount each drive if they dont already and when you go to the flame prefs/storage, use the browse source and destination buttons.

Source = original path as seen when you alt-click on a file
Destination is the new path.

*** paths ARE case sensative

If that doesnt work try defining a path 1 level back

I just tried this with and without Pattern Browsing and it seems to work, maybe other versions have issues:

Import clips from the old and new locations.
Splice those 2 clips, then unlink. Open the two unlinked clips as a sequence, in the conform list select each file location name from the file location column to get the paths into the name buffer.

In Prefs-Storage-Path Translation, enter the old location as source, new location as destination, press refresh. Also on the Desktop maybe try Refresh Thumbnails.

If you wish to make the path changes permanent, unlinking the clips, open as sequence,
choose “Link to Media File”, then the path translation isn’t needed for that media

Instead of path translation, you can also edit the paths of unlinked clips in the conform list “file Location”.

Other times it may be easier to add a symlink (ln -s source destination) from the terminal with Mac OS.

Yes! was going to say to try this!