hey all. so my system disk is suddenly full. after doing a bunch of projector motion analysis caches. in my project settings I noticed it defaulted the media cache to be in the opt/autodesk folder. isn’t this a bit dangerous. has this filled up my hard drive. all of my usual cache stone stuff was off on a thunderbolt drive. do I need to manually set this path every time?
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Yes, or you can change the default location on the config file
You can leave it set to /opt/Autodesk/project.
Back up the contents of this directory then delete the contents of this directory.
In a terminal/shell create a symbolic link from your new hard disk to this directory:
sudo ln -s /Volumes/MyNVMeDisk/project /opt/Autodesk/project
I don’t care about my framestore (now ‘Media Cache’ directory’) in the sense that I’ve always treated it as a black box that Flame manages, and the way I work I don’t ever have anything that exists nowhere else but in the framestore – such that if the entire thing vanished, it wouldn’t matter as I always have the original source elsewhere and can just re-render anything lost. I’ve never cached source media and then gotten rid of the original source.
So in 2026 I prefer to treat the Media Cache like the old framestore; I set the path to a new ‘flamestore’ directory I created on my main disk array, which for me happens to be /mnt/StorageMedia/flamestore - I have this set in sysconfig.cfg so it’s always set when I make a new project. And without giving it a separate subdirectory for each project, Flame automatically makes a directory using a UUID for the name. If for some reason I ever need to know, inside /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/PROJNAME there is a .uuid file which links to the UUID, or you can simply look at the ‘media’ directory which links to the location directly.
But that’s just what I do… use as food for thought, if you too want to pretend things are as they used to be 
@ManChicken - yep, 2026 helps to divert legacy workflows away from ‘flame as an island’ and toward considerate pipeline contributor.
“Unmanaged” media workflows can be simplified with the new 2026 methodology.
Also
Can we fix multi-part/multi-channel Openclip for precisely this reason?
Cached motion vectors are very heavy luggage, particularly when embedded in batch group iterations.
The other luggage is embedded action geometry.
If action can use linked files then there should be an option to write out native action geometry and link to it with another action, thereby preventing accretion through iteration, and unexpected filling up of system volumes.
Lastly, macOS has the ability to split the system disk into volumes or partitions.
It’s possible to divert all traffic away from the system volume.
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I would highly recommend utilizing a template for your projects moving forward. This would allow you to reuse settings like media cache location, etc.
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There’s a file called sysconfig.cfg .. if I’m not mistaken, initially it’s in a hidden dir in /opt/Autodesk/cfg/.flameversion .. (ls -la in terminal will show you..) .. if you copy that file to /opt/Autodesk/cfg/ it will take precedence over the others. There you can easily then set your preferred paths.. .. personnelly I wouldn’t mind seeing this file or paths in the setup app, but for now it’s there..
ive made a template - but doesn’t seem to include that media cache path
@Jon,
I’ve also been concerned about the possibility of “surprise, the system disk is full!” issues because of the new defaulting of the framestore to the system disk.
This led me to using a new simple, generic Project Template for Flame 2026 to keep everything elsewhere:
Template: ExternalStorage1
Project Home set to: /ExternalStorage1
Media Cache set to: //media
Setups set to: //setups
I’ve also made these the default in the configs, so that I cannot accidentally create a project that uses the system disk (thus filling it). Now all projects (both media and setups) are encapsulated off-system disk, with:
/ExternalStorage1 (an external NVME array)
/Project_One
/setups
/media
Project_Two
/setups
/media
…etc.
The Project Templates make it simple to have multiple, off-system storage for media and setups, keeping them together in “project” folders, but it is up to you to remember to select your desired Template each time. Setting the default yourself in the config file prevents you from accidentally using the Autodesk default of the system desk.
BTW, don’t try to use upper-case for “media” or “setups”. I had a bunch or errors when I tried that, and it appears that Flame makes some file links ‘underneath the hood’ of the new project stuff and uses those upper-case names elsewhere. So stick with lower-case for those two words if you use them.
I’ve already put in several product suggestions around the new Projects System and Project Templates, including being able to use those Templates in the archiving modules and the command line archiving tools, neither of which currently support them in the new release. I haven’t tested it yet, but since the command line archiver does not yet support these Templates (nor the ability to set a setups or media cache path), I’m assuming it will restore archives to the system disk no matter their previous location until that feature is added.
You can use file systems that are case-sensitive if necessary.
macOS does not default to case-sensitive file systems.
Good point, philm.
I probably should have mentioned that this was on MacOS.
thanks - im going to try this. I think the default way is pretty dangerous. we run all our Macs with minimal 1TB system drives as everything tends to be connected.
@Jonhollis,
Yes, that was my exact thinking (about it being dangerous) as the default when I first learned it.
As I thought more about about it, I realized that the cache had to default somewhere, and the system drive is the only location that the devs would know is present with certainty, hence that being chosen.
Perhaps a ‘safer’ option would have been for the first run of Flame to present a dialog with “Project Media path is currently unset: Where would you like it to be located?”, but essentially this is what the Project manager is doing with each new project creation…it just isn’t as obvious as some type of warning dialog.
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There is always the option to read the User Guide and What’s New sections before starting a new deployment. This is mentioned in the ‘Configure storage’ section of ‘Configure the application’ page.
It is recommended to store projects, setups and media on a drive other than the system drive such as a direct attached storage (DAS) device or a storage area network (SAN). Using the system disk may degrade performance.
Referencing the User Guide and will lead to fewer surprises. More information here to wet your whistle.
As for the statements above about the templates not working, please see this GIF below. For the values to be prepopulated in a new project, be sure to click the drop down for New and not clicking New (as demonstrated in this video).
I hope that helps. If it does not, you can always open a support case for assistance.
Thanks for your info about the manual.
Thats weird the template I made doesn’t recall the media path! I will try again
@motoronlysync - RTFM? WTF? 
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If the template doesn’t work after you retry, let’s get a remote session going through a case, and we can look into it for you.