Dropbox Smart Sync doesn't work for image sequences in After Effects

[lennartl]

Hi,

whenever I open an After Effects project from coworkers which uses linked image sequences that I haven't yet synchronized locally, the Dropbox smart sync feature fails to sync the whole image sequence automatically. It detects the first image in the sequence but doesn't download the rest, resulting in an After Effects error "Can't import as sequence. Found no matches for the selected file name. (39::44)".

For projects with multiple sequences, this is a very annoying bug. Especially because relinking the files isn't easy since you first have to find the file locations and sync the files manually. We have been using OneDrive before and there it wasn't an issue.

Any plans to fix this issue?

Best,

Lennart

[Walter]

Thanks for the nudge on this one @lennartl

It seems that the issue is that the files you're working on need some time to become local on your machine in order for the After Effects to retrieve them. 

All I can suggest in this case would be keeping the files you're working on often locally on your device -instead of online only- to ensure that After Effects can retrieve the whole file when trying to edit it. 

Once you're done with your edits, you can set it to be online only again, if needed. 

I hope this helps.

[smoore90]

I just ran into this exact same issue on our studio's Dropbox. It's actually happening on both my home computer and work computer (both PC) with the same files.

It's even happening when I manually chose Smart Sync > Local. The only way I was able to fix was copy and pasting the files to another directory.

It seems this issues isn't fixed. Please can you look into it again.

Thank you,

Sam

[lennartl]

The problem is definitely not fixed. Just a few workarounds have been mentioned by the support team, but nothing that actually solves the bug.

As I said before, there are cloud storage tools like OneDrive where we haven't had that problem. So, there should be a way..

Our workaround now is to not work with image sequences but with QuickTime files as often as possible.

[Megan]

Hi @smoore90, how are you today?

Have you by any chance tried fixing the permissions of the files on your devices, following these steps? 

Also, @lennartl can you let me know if the files you're working with are available locally on the computer when this happens? If they are, do you notice this behavior. 

Keep me posted. 

[lennartl]

Hi @Megan 

no, the files that are linked inside the After Effects project are not yet local as i am opening the project. But that is what smart sync is for right? It detects what files are linked to the project and automatically syncs these files locally in order for the project to open correctly. The smart sync works with all types of files like jpg or mp4 but fails when it comes to image sequences.

Best,

Lennart

[Megan]

Hey @lennartl, happy Friday! 

Can you change them to local manually, and let me know the results? 

[lennartl]

Hi,

making them local manually works but that is not the point. The source files are spread throughout our whole directory and it is very time consuming to go into each folder making all linked files local manually. That is what smart sync is supposed to do for us automatically. But it fails with it when it comes to image sequences.

Best,
Lennart

[Jay]

Hi @lennartl, thanks for the update. I'd recommend getting in contact with the support team directly for further assistance.

Once you get a ticket ID from the automated response, please let me know the number here so I can locate it in our system.

[smoore90]

Thanks for your response Megan. I'll try those steps next time I run into this issue 🙂

[NullLayer]

Experiencing similar issue.

The image files exported from the clients camera are named in numerical order by default. These are then added to a Dropbox folder which sits in a folder alongside with the AE project file. When importing images as a sequence into After Effects, I keep getting error messages and certain images/frames will not import, normally its a batch of frames, not singles. The image files are not corrupt as they can individually be opened/previewed on Mac from Dropbox.