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

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

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Hannah

Hey @lennartl, thanks for letting us know about this.

Would you mind clarifying a few things for me?

Are the After Effects projects saved in your Dropbox account? And are you opening them directly from your Dropbox folder?

What is the sync status of your Dropbox app? You can see that by hovering your mouse over the Dropbox icon in your system tray/menu bar.

Also, a screenshot of the After Effects error would help me investigate on this further.

Thanks!

lennartl

Hi Hannah,

everything related to the project is inside my dropbox but not every file/folder is synced locally. The smart sync fails only when trying to automatically sync image sequences locally which are linked inside the after effects project.

Sync status is active. Like mentioned this ONLY applies to image sequences. Other files like static images, sound files etc. are getting synced correctly by the smart sync feature.

The error message is exactly what I already wrote:

"Can't import as sequence. Found no matches for the selected file name. (39::44)".

Best,

Lennart

Walter

Hey @lennartl - sorry to jump in here, but could you post a screenshot of the exact error you're seeing?

A visual of that would definitely help us assist further.

Also, does this happen with Online Only files only or is it affecting local ones as well?

lennartl

Hi Walter,

here you go:

This message pops up for every image sequence. The image sequences are shown with broken links afterwards inside the project

Not sure what you mean with Online Only. The image sequences that are linked inside the After Effects projects are not local. That is the case especially when I open projects that have been created by coworkers. What smart sync should do is syncing all necessary files within the After Effects project locally when i open the project so that I can owork with it. It does that correctly for e.g. single .jpg files or .mp4 files but whenever an image sequence (e.g. file_0001.png, file_0002.png ...) is linked inside the project it doesn't automatically sync the whole sequence.

Best,

Lennart

Walter

Thanks for the additional information and the screenshots as well @lennartl

Could you clarify the size of those files and if they do sync after all? Also, does adjusting your bandwidth through the app's preferences makes any difference?

Any additional information is more than welcome, Lennart.

lennartl

Hi Walter,

yes they do sync if I initiate the syncing process manually by selecting the folder or files in the windows explorer and clicking "smart sync -> local". When I open the After Effects project then again everything is working fine. This workaround is just very tedious and time-consuming if the project has a lot of image sequences (which is often the case) and I would appreciate Dropbox to automatically do with via smart sync as it does it for all other files. The file size of single images range around 5-10 MB. Summing up to around 5 GB for an 30 second image sequence. The file size shouldn't be an issue as the smart sync works if there is an uncompressed video file (with >5 GB) linked in the After Effects project.

Changing bandwidth through preferences doesn't help. It's at "unlimited".

Best,

Lennart

lennartl

As additional information: We have 5 video editors in the team and everyone is experiencing this issue. So it is also not a problem caused by my machine or setup apparently.

lennartl

Hi @Walter @Hannah

what is the current status here? Any news already?

Thanks,

Lennart

lennartl

Hey @Walter . This isn't resolved yet. Please let us know how we can fix this or explain how we can create a work around.

This isn't acceptable as a business customer and we are considering switching back to OneDrive where this wasn't an 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.

Walter

Hey @NullLayer , could you clarify if you've tried any of the troubleshooting steps mentioned earlier in this discussion?

Fabiobox

Hello

i just quote the thread

I remember that a few years ago the smart sync with after effects worked very well. For a couple of years, however, every time I open an old project it takes me hours to resync all the files. Any update on this topic?

Jay

Hi @Fabiobox, the old implementation of Smart Sync has changed since the thread was created.

Just to clarify, what OS are you running on your device, and what version of the Dropbox desktop application is running when you hover over the icon in the system tray/menu bar?

Fabiobox

dropbox version: 175.4.5569

os: Ventura 13.2.1

Fabiobox

and just to clarify, when i said i need hours to resync everything, i mean that i have to do it manually.

thanks

Jay

Is your Dropbox folder located in the Home folder, or the new CloudStorage location?

Fabiobox

home folder. what is the new CloudStorage location?

Jay

This would be referring to the newer version of the Dropbox desktop application for Mac OS.

Are you able to mark entire folders as available offline when you right click the folder?

dmu

I'm having a ton of trouble with this as well. I cannot even open my AE file as it crashes immediately. Seems like dropbox does not have a solution since it doesn't seem they know how After Effects works and how it works with teams. We can't just make the files local to each of our computers when we're all pulling from the same elements. If there's a change it's a nightmare if everyone has local files. We need a solution to this. Dropbox, highly suggest you figure out how Adobe After Effects works since a lot of studios are using you for remote work.