offline media - help!

[edargie]

Oh, I hope somebody can help me...

I've been working on a movie for my littlest grandson and things have been going along very well -- until yesterday. That's when all the stills I was using in a particular project went offline. They are all still showing - with a green check beside each in the media panel. So I reimported them and replaced one of the stills on the scene line. That worked fine, so I saved the file and shut down PEl and restarted it. The media was again offline. Is there a simple fix for this or do I need to start from scratch (aaarghhh! I hope not)? And if I do need to start from scratch, what can I do to stop this happening again. (whimper)

[Chuck Engels]

Where are the files located? Are they on an external drive?

[edargie]

Hi Chuck,

No the files are on my internal drive. I had worked on this particular project without any problems for about a week. I don't know why PEl suddenly started reading the stills as offline. I guess I'll have to start the project all over again, but I sure wish I knew what I did to make things go wonky.

Betty (edargie)

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Betty,

First thing to try is to clear the cache and preferences;
Hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys while you start Premiere Elements
Be sure to hold them down until the splash screen comes up.

Let us know if that fixes the problem, if not there are other things we can try.

[edargie]

Hi Chuck,

I tried the ctrl-shift thing twice, but unfortunately the media are still offline. drat! 'nother idea?
Betty

[Chuck Engels]

You didn't move the images to another folder or rename them did you?
It isn't normal for the project file to lose connection with the media like this.
Just want to be sure before we move on

[edargie]

I did move the pix, come to think of it. But I re-imported from the new location...wait a sec. I didn't delete the originals from the project, maybe PEl is still trying to access the wrong location. I'll try that .. be back in a bit...

[Chuck Engels]

Betty, Here is another topic with the same problem I believe
viewtopic.php?p=25852#p25852

Check out all of the posts and what solutions were arrived at. It seems to possibly have something to do with the Narration track at times.
That might not be the only cause or even the cause of the offline media at all but there are some solutions if the read the topic.

[Chuck Engels]

I did move the pix, come to think of it. But I re-imported from the new location...wait a sec. I didn't delete the originals from the project, maybe PEl is still trying to access the wrong location. I'll try that .. be back in a bit...

If that doesn't work then see my post above

[edargie]

Oh rats! I was so sure that was the solution. 'Twasn't. I deleted the original stills, reimported from the new location. Played with the clips -- they worked fine -- saved them, shut down PEl, restarted and -- the media is offline. Again. Double rats!!

[Chuck Engels]

You can check the link I posted above to another post with a similar issue, that might not help.

You can relink all of your images and then archive the project. That will create a new project with all of the same media and hopefully will not lose track of the media anymore.

When you start the project does it ask you to locate the missing media? Once you locate one file does it find all the rest automatically?

[edargie]

Thanks for the archiving suggestion, Chuck. Unfortunately it didn't seem to work. Still getting the media offline thing. And no, oddly, PEl hasn't been asking where missing files are. I have encountered that message in the past, usually when opening an old project, and it's usually easy to relink the missing bits.

Maybe I've been working ol' PEl too hard and its having a meltdown. Or my computer is. Or maybe the universe is just out to get me... I really want to get this project done by Friday because I promised a very special little boy "his" movie would be ready for his birthday.

Oh, and I did check the post you linked. It was informative, but none of the suggestions seem to work for me. The enable-disable trick actually did work, but only on the first file on the time line. It had absolutely no effect on any of the others.

[Chuck Engels]

This is way to strange Betty, I don't ever remember hearing about this problem before.

One more try; move all of the images to another folder (be sure to move them, not copy, so the old ones are completely missing from the old folder).
Then open Premiere Elements and it should ask you to find them, once you locate one it should find the rest automatically. Then the project should be back in order and work correctly after closing and reopening. Do not add the new images to your project, let Premiere Elements ask you where they are

[edargie]

Aha! That worked -- at least for the pictures. But now I find I'm still getting the media offline graphic wherever I have an animated title that's in two parts -- most of the time. If I remove the second part, everything plays fine. If I replace the second part -- aha! I say again -- I get the media offline graphic.

Okay, I just went back and looked at things again. The problem seems to crop up when the two title files are NOT on adjacent video tracks, e.g., if they are on video 2 and 4 I get the media offline message. If they are on video 2 and 3 all is well. (though there are a couple on non adjacent tracks that DO work okay???!!) The weird thing is that last week they were all working just fine on non-adjacent tracks. (my head hurts!)

Hmm. I just checked something else -- if I do that enable/disable trick with the titles that also solves the problem. Until I shut down and restart. Then I have to do it all over again.

But at least I am hopeful I can now carry on and finish by Friday. So thank you, thank you, thank you very much.

(now-slightly-less-frazzled) Betty

[Chuck Engels]

Glad we got that far Betty

I am very happy that you will be able to finish your project on time

After this if you want to try and figure out what it going on I will be happy to help you further.
For now just push ahead and get the project completed for your Grandson, that is the most important thing