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

[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