Lost targets when opening old files, and the File Target Search Tool

[Rich Walsh]

I need some help updating my understanding of best practice.

For years I have happily thrown workspaces backwards and forwards between machines without breaking any file targets because all my media is housed in folders next to the workspace, or subfolders of those. This is based on the file structure of the old bundling mechanism, and means that all the relevant files share a common path prefix with the workspace: /path/to/project/workspace.qlab4 & /path/to/project/audio/dog.wav, etc.

Obviously the first thing I’m going to do with v5 is open the show I currently have out on tour and see what happens… all the audio is missing! I thought this might be because all the files are in subfolders of “audio”, but recreating a similar file structure with a new v4 workspace before opening it in v5 did not cause any issues. So, the mechanism of first hunting by file UUID is probably kicking in this time – as interrogating the show file it appears that last time it was actually saved was on the hire shop computer (testing was on just this computer). Although v4 can deduce where the files now are, v5 can’t. This is a shame, but maybe the workaround is to first save the workspace in v4 on the computer you’re going to open it in v5 on?

There are two ways I could fix the show – given that v5 could not automatically locate the files from a v4 show last saved on another machine despite the common path – save the show in v4 locally first (worked perfectly), or relink all the files. There’s not much about the “File Target Search Tool” in the documentation –  just a reference under “Tools for Audio and Video Cues” on https://qlab.app/docs/v5/tools/tools-menu – and I was initially confused by the lack of a button to select all 85 files at once (plus the message “Locate replacement targets for N cues”), but once you select a search folder it all makes sense. It would be nice if the pane could default to full screen width as the narrow columns don’t give much space for the path details, especially once candidates are found! It’s impressive and intuitive to use, but feels like an extra step when you already have a well-organised workspace folder.

Is that the choice: save in v4 locally first or manually relink, or can v5 locate files automatically still in the style of v4 (v3, v2)? Do I need to test moving the working v5 show between machines now, or will opening it on another machine also require relinking each time? What is the current strategy for how QLab finds files if it can’t locate the file UUID? I hope it doesn’t give up and expect you to do it…

Also, can you purge unused files from a workspace folder?

(An aside: how do you link to a subsection of a documentation webpage? There’s a 🔗 link icon that becomes a tick next to them when clicked, but I can’t figure out what it does!)

(Another minor niggle is that once you have successfully opened an old show in v5, when you go to save it the name resets to “Untitled Workspace” in the save dialogue instead of sticking with the existing name and updating the extension.)

Thanks.

Rich

[Chris Ashworth]

Hi Rich,

Hm, the v5 file finding mechanisms are should be (are at least intended to be) identical to v4, with the exception of the new ability to re-find the files if they can’t be find in all the old ways.

Would definitely be interested to follow up with you over at the support inbox to see if we can track down what happened.

Regarding purging unused files, the current way to do that is to do another save-as of the workspace, copying all the used files into a new project folder (and leaving the unused ones behind).

Regarding linking to a subsection, once you’ve clicked that link icon, it has been copied and you can paste it.

-C

[Rich Walsh]

Ticket raised.

I checked two other shows too, from archive. Same behaviour on all of them. I have changed Mac since they were last opened, but nonetheless v4 is unperturbed while v5 does not find the content.

It took me a while to work out to click on the search folder path area before selecting “Search” by the way (cf: the yellow text in an unset Audio Cue file target), and it would be great if that chosen folder could persist when you next open the File Target Search Tool from the same workspace – so if you click on the magnifying glass in another broken Audio Cue you don’t have to choose the folder again (if for some bizarre reason you didn’t fix everything from the Warnings window first).

By the way, the save as is brilliant: it didn’t flatten my folder structure the way bundle used to! Hoopla!

Thanks.

Rich