OpenToonz Missing Files

[DukeThe1st]

Hello!  I'm having trouble loading a scene in OpenToonz 1.1.1.  When I click File, Load Scene, then the scene I want to load, a screen pops up that says, "There were problems loading the scene C:\Users\lucia\Documents\Dolphoon Intro.tnz.  Some files may be missing."

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Rodney]

This is something that can happen when the scene file is saved (or moved) to a location where it no longer points to the drawings/levels referenced in the Project.

The worst case scenario is that the drawings/levels were not saved and do not exist to reference.  We will assume (and hope) that is not the case with your Project.

The most likely place for the files to be would be in the Toonz stuff folder located (for Windows users) at the follow locations:

C:\Opentoonz 1.1 stuff\sandbox\scenes

C:\Opentonnz 1.1 stuff\Projects\ your project file name here

C:\Opentoonz 1.1 stuff\sandbox\drawings

Look in the various folders at this general location for your files.

If you Right Click in the xsheet on the name/cell that is missing you should see a Level Settings option.

You can point that reference to the proper location... if you know the location of the file.

Another approach to resolving the problem of broken references would be to move the Scene (.tnz file) to a location where it automatically will resolve the broken links.

This is a good approach to take if you recently manually moved a project or scene file to another folder.

Think of this like working with hypertext markup (html) where we might have a webpage that looks great but then we move the images folder (and all of its contents) to a different location.  At the point we move the files... the link is broken and our webpage no longer can find the files to display them properly.

A good way to trouble shoot missing files would be to examine where the missing file reference is currently expecting to find the file.

Hopefully that will give a clue as to where the files use to reside so they can be relocated.

Good luck!

 

[DukeThe1st]

Thank you for your answer.  Where should I move the Scene for it to resolve the broken links?

[Rodney]

I think I responded to your message privately.

I gave a few examples of where you might look but basically I can't tell without seeing the links.

Those links are on the xsheet and point to locations on your harddrive (red letters indicate missing files... white indicate active links)

In either case those links can give you information about where your current (and former) Levels/drawing may be.

Assuming the files that are missing are all drawings/levels you can also look for those via the Browser tab in OpenToonz.

Open the Browser and then use it to open the files at C:\OpenToonz 1.1 stuff\

You are looking for images that look familar... like they belong to your current project.

If you see them they can be reattached by either pointing the xsheet to them or moving your Scene file (which by your screenshot appears to be in your Documents folder)... not a standard location for OpenToonz which suggests you might have moved it there manually  Not sure...too many variables at this point to consider.

Perhaps you can provide more information on where your xsheet points to for the missing files.

Right click on a cell that has a missing drawing/level and select "Level Settings..."

There you will find the name and path where OpenToonz is currently looking for the Level/drawing.

Without knowing more I must assume that drawing (likely a .pli file) is not at that location.

But that would give us a clue as to where the file is (or is not) currently located.

[DukeThe1st]

When I right-clicked on one of the cells, "Level Settings" did not come up.  I did find the drawings, however, at C:\Opentoonz 1.1 stuff\sandbox\drawings.  I should have mentioned earlier that the scene was not opening at all after the pop-up about missing files appeared.  The drawings are .pli files and they have names that are one to two capital letters.  Should I drag the drawings into the xsheet of a new scene, or is there another method that would be better?

[Rodney]

Should I drag the drawings into the xsheet of a new scene, or is there another method that would be better?

You could do that and if that is the only file you will need to do that with.... drag/drop... done.

If you have several you could Right Click (command click on a Mac) a cell in the xsheet and choose "Replace Level"

Hey!  That's success!

If you've found your drawings you are well on your way.

In the attached image you can see where that option is.

You can also see "Level Settings..." there near the top... I have no idea why you don't get that in your menu.

If you have a whole lot of files at that location it would be worth your time to determine where to save the Scene file you are opening.

At a guess... and this is purely a guess... I'd say you could copy (don't move... use a copy instead)... copy the scene file at C:\Users\lucia\Documents\Dolpoon Intro.tnz into the scene folder at C:\Opentoonz 1.1 stuff\sandbox\

Not the sandbox folder but the scene folder (C:\Opentoonz 1.1 stuff\sandbox\scenes). 

Once in place... open the scene and see if any other errors occur.

If/when everything is in place I would then "Save Scene As" and name it something appropriate.  Then Save All.

[DukeThe1st]

Hello.  Thank you so much for all of your help.  I wasn't able to fix the error with the scene, and when I dragged the drawings into a new scene, OpenToonz crashed.  I'm going to redraw the animation.  Where should I save the new scene to ensure I don't get this error again?

[Rodney]

In my estimation the single most important thing we can do to prevent lost files is make sure we have first established our Project.

This can be done via the File Menu via New Project.

In current nightly builds there is a popup that appears upon starting OpenToonz that allows for quick creation of a Project and the location of previous Projects.

When we open a Scene this automatically opens the associated project.

If a user hasn't specified a Project the Scenes are likely maintained in the 'sandbox' which is basically the default Project when none is specified.

[Sparky El]

Hi, It may be a long shot. But I have the same problem. It just happened. I didn't moved anything. I saved every progress I made. And today I opened opentoonz and had the same message. Would you help me? I don't know what to do. It looks like it is broken. Everything on xsheet is gone. So I can't even specify location. Is there anything I can do at all?

[Rodney]

The prior discussion was from back in 2016 so unless you are using a really old release of Opentoonz you are likely experiencing a slightly different problem.

But...

Right Click on the exposed level in the xsheet and go to the place where the location of the file is given.  That will tell you where Opentoonz thinks the file should be.  Then you can determine by that where to look to reconnect.

Also, if you haven't upgraded to a current release that is highly recommended.

https://github.com/opentoonz/opentoonz_nightlies/releases