Relinking large amount of files / libraries

Forgive me if theres an obvious solution to this that I’m not aware of…
If you have a project all based on links to a file system , perhaps across different timelines , libraries and lots of folders with individual shot media…
If some of the file system links break / get renamed… What is the smartest way of relinking without just using the conform tool because that would take forever… Please say theres a better way to do it?

@Mark_Epstein - that’s a big question with a thousand answers but the first stop would be path translation.

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Path Translation

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Agreed with @philm on the path translation approach. I’ve had slightly strange behavior when performing this operation with material that is being restored from an archive, and I’ve actually never done this with material that isn’t being restored from an archive, but in theory it should be exactly what you need if you can manage to set up the paths correctly.

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I think there are a couple of Flame Feedback requests for a different solution to this (so media is completely repointed to the new location, not translated) but Path Translation is the best option in the current situation.

I quite Like how Resolve handles this issue but unfortunately Flame doesn’t have that exact same functionality (Where you can change the filepath on a whole bunch of selected clip simultaneously) but I have used Path Translation to the same effect,

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@AdamArcher - yep.
on top of everything else is the rabbithole of editing .mio files… (brrrr)
buckle up - that road is not paved.
sed
awk
even vs code could do it, but it’s very fragile and undocumented.

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Without know exactly what happened, if a root folder or some sub-folders were renamed or moved somewhere else, a symbolic link might also be a quick and easy solution. Again, it really depends on exactly what happened.

As far as I know, path translation only works when restoring archives. I don’t know of any way to use this for existing footage in a project.

Nothing big has happened , we were just building a basic file structure for a small job and changed our minds about a coupe things which unlinked a few shots. This was no big deal to fix but got me thinking about how this would play out when much bigger amount of data / shots need relinking

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the sky is falling, the sky is falling…
oh wait i’m in a building with a low ceiling…
:rofl:

This is not true. Path Translation should work immediately when you swap a path from one to another.

I am not an expert but I have only used it this way :point_up_2: and I have never used the archive method.

This video is a bit old now https://youtu.be/aDsOAl_Fskg?si=dzN0cquQji35xCcz

I have found the results to be inconsistent unfortunately.

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Ok. I’ll try. My firsts tries when this feature was released failed completely trying to make a bulk changing path. It worked only with archives (for me)

same only on achrives i think

the easiest method is to create a symlink, if the pathing is the same and only parts of it have changed you can create a symlink to /Volumes/lacie from /Volumes/server or whatever then flame thinks the files are still there and all is well

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Path Translation is the way to go if mountpoints have changed but if files or folders have been renamed or moved then manual work will be required.

Path Translation works out of the box when a rule has been created. It is aso used in Conform so if you bring in AAF, XML, etc and defined a rule then you are good to go if you have access to the meda files.

As far as archiving, when you restore content, the default use the original media location BUT you can change it prior restoring in MediaHub/Archive/Archive Options/Linked Archive options and select Convert to Local Path.

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