Heartbreaking. Worse, the most common reasons for files being missing won’t be helped by the Automatically Find & Relink option!
There’s nothing more dispiriting than opening a session only to see the Missing Files error. We show you how to find your audio again!
Opening a Pro Tools session and encountering the Missing Files dialogue box can be alarming, but there’s no need to panic. This situation can occur if you’ve moved to a different computer, disconnected a hard drive or reorganised your sample library, causing Pro Tools to lose track of where certain files are located. The default option Pro Tools offers is to automatically find and relink those missing files, but in my experience this isn’t the best choice. It depends on why the files are absent, but for the kind of work I do, when a file is reported missing, it’s probably not on the system any more. Automatic relinking can be a very slow way of confirming what I already suspect. A more targeted approach is often better.
Missing In Action
The first thing I do when faced with the dreaded Missing Files message is to select Skip All and check out the session to see exactly what’s missing. If all you’re missing is an alternative take that isn’t being used anyway, then you’re probably good to go. If you can’t see anything obviously missing on the timeline, the first place to look is in the toolbar. At the bottom of the Main Counter section, you’ll see the Timeline Data Online Status and the Session Data Online Status indicators. If anything is missing then one or both of these will be red. If the Timeline status indicator is red, you have a missing clip on the timeline; if the Session indicator is red, you have a missing clip in your Clips List.
The two red icons underneath the Main Counter indicate that a file is missing from both the timeline and the session data.
Assuming you have a missing clip on the timeline, look at the Clips List in the right‑hand sidebar of the Edit window. Be aware that audio files on your drives, as opposed to sub‑clips of those files, appear in bold. Any missing files will appear in italics. If you’re wondering how they can have gone astray, one of my most helpful pieces of advice is to avoid doing anything to your session folders outside of Pro Tools. For example, don’t tidy up your Audio Files folders using Finder or Windows Explorer; do it from within Pro Tools, or you’ll be doing the equivalent of putting the washing up away in someone else’s house — they won’t be able to find anything!
If you have reason to think that the file is mislaid rather than unavailable, and you have a good idea where it’s going to be, a manual relink will be faster than the automatic option.
Clicking on Show / Full Path in the Clips List will tell you where Pro Tools is looking for the missing media. This can be a quick way to confirm that the drive your audio was on is no longer connected.If you click on a missing file in the Clips List, you can quickly diagnose the problem. Go to the Clips List drop‑down menu and select Show / Full Path to see exactly where Pro Tools is looking for the missing media. Often this confirms to me that searching for the missing file is going to be pointless. For example, the file might be on an external drive which isn’t connected to your computer, or (a favourite amongst students I have taught) it’s on the desktop of another computer! However, if you have reason to think that the file is mislaid rather than unavailable, and you have a good idea where it’s going to be, a manual relink will be faster than the automatic option.
A Link To The Past
When the Missing Files dialogue appears, select the option to Manually Find & Relink, then click OK to proceed. If you’ve already skipped the relinking process, or if you’ve selected automatic relinking and want to revisit the manual options, you can easily access them from within Pro Tools. Navigate to the top menu, click on Window and select New Workspace (or use the shortcut Option/Alt+;). This will bring up a Workspace Browser from which you can manage your files.
Within the Workspace Browser, you’ll see a list of locations on the left, such as sound libraries and hard drives. Locate your active project folder here and double‑click on the session’s Audio Files folder. This will display all the audio files associated with your project. If some files are missing, they’ll be marked as offline.
To relink these offline files, right‑click on one of them and choose Relink Offline. This will automatically select all missing files and open the Relink window. At this point, you need to point Pro Tools to the actual location of the missing files. Navigate to the folder where you know the files are located and tick the box next to it.
Next, select the missing files by clicking on the first one and then pressing Command+A (or Ctrl+A on Windows) to select them all. Click Find Links to bring up the linking options. By default, Pro Tools will search for files using both the name and File ID, which usually gives the most accurate results. If the File ID has changed, you can opt to search by name only. After setting your preferences, click OK.
If Pro Tools successfully locates the missing files, you’ll see a link icon appear next to them. To finalise the process, go up to Commit Links and confirm by clicking Yes. Your files should now be properly relinked and visible within your session, allowing you to continue working without further interruptions.
If you’re unfamiliar with the File ID, this is a useful feature of Pro Tools whereby it allocates a unique identifying number to every audio file. This means it can distinguish ‘Kick_01.wav’ in your blastbeat metal track from the ‘Kick_01.wav’ in your smooth jazz instrumental, even though they share the same name. This also applies to ‘Audio_01.wav’ if you’re lazy about naming things...
Riding The Waveform
If the waveforms don’t match what you’re hearing, you can have Pro Tools redraw them.While missing files means we lose audio data, it is also possible to have the right audio but incorrect waveforms in your Pro Tools sessions. Thankfully this is simpler to fix than missing files, but it can cause just as much confusion. This waveform issue is caused by a problem with caching. Pro Tools calculates waveform data in advance and stores it in cache files. The Session Wavecache file is stored in the session folder, and can travel with the session, in order that there is no need to recalculate if it’s opened on another system. If the cache file is deleted or missing, Pro Tools will recalculate and build a new one. Like any file it can become corrupted or become out of sync with the files in the session. This isn’t common, but it can be fixed easily.
I find I sometimes encounter this problem when exporting audio from my video editing software for editing in Pro Tools. If I have made a mistake when exporting (forgetting to unmute a track or selecting the wrong timeline length, say), I’ll sometimes find that if I re‑export using the same file name, Pro Tools uses the waveform overview from the previous file. Re‑exporting with a different file name avoids this but there are also ways to fix this in Pro Tools.
If what you are seeing doesn’t match what you are hearing, then this waveform cache issue is probably at the root of it, and it’s extremely disruptive to the process of editing. Deleting the waveform cache file from your session folder will force Pro Tools to recalculate the waveforms next time you open the session, but there is a more precise way. Select the clip in question in the Clips List, click on the disclosure triangle at the top of the Clips List to open the Clips List menu, and select Recalculate Waveform Display.
Be aware that Wavecache files are also generated in the Workspace Browser and stored in a separate file. This is where the cache of the mini waveform overviews found in the Workspace Browser is stored. It’s very common for lots of files that haven’t yet been previewed in the browser to lack these waveforms. To calculate these waveforms, select multiple files or folders in the Workspace Browser, right‑click and select Calculate Waveforms.
Missing files and missing or incorrect waveforms can be an irritating barrier between opening Pro Tools and actually getting to work, rather than scratching your head and wondering why Pro Tools is being difficult today! Hopefully these tips and ideas help minimise these issues in the future.
Better Than Cure
Ideally, we wouldn’t see the Missing Files message at all, and two top tips for avoiding it (beyond the aforementioned rule about not messing with your session folders outside of Pro Tools) are to check that you have Automatically Copy Files On Import ticked in the Pro Tools Preferences, and to always use Save a Copy In... and to tick the Audio Files in the Items to Copy box. This will make absolutely sure that you don’t have any stray media currently outside your session folder when it’s time to archive.
Cache Rich
Missing files can sneak up on you, and one reason for this is that you can delete an audio file from your drive while it’s in use, and Pro Tools will continue to play back quite happily. You’ll only find out you have an issue when you next open the session. This is because of Pro Tools’ Disk Playback Cache. This setting in the Playback Engine Window caches audio data into available RAM to improve read/write speeds from your drives.