How to avoid errant "media offline" in color room?

I'm pretty sure this is a very common problem; media randomly shows Offline when in the Color room, especially when applying "presets" from grabbed stills. The solution is simply to roll the mouse over the Still thumbnails in the Stills Gallery, and the media appears again, but it's so annoying. And sometimes I'll find that it doesn't show Offline but the image stops responding to changes in the Color adjustments; again just a quick roll over the thumbnails fixes it. Obviously really tedious as well.

I couldn't find a conversation specifically to this as searches for "offline" all point to the far more serious actually-offline footage problems.

Is there a known solution to this?

Configuration in my sig; it's up to date.

I’m very sure that is a very uncommon issue. I have never seen that behaviour on any of the systems I have worked on, both Mac & Windows.

I have to agree with Peter on this one. I've never seen that myself, nor is it something that gets reported often here in the forums.

I have never seen that. You should check that your media storage is not subject to some power saving policy that puts it to sleep.

I also have this problem and it's extremely irritating, I haven't found a solution yet, but it has to be some issue with read/write permissions of the directory the Gallery is stored in.

Dang I somehow missed these responses.

I’m very sure that is a very uncommon issue. I have never seen that behaviour on any of the systems I have worked on, both Mac & Windows.

I have to agree with Peter on this one. I've never seen that myself, nor is it something that gets reported often here in the forums.

Huh… well I know I've heard about it elsewhere, because I learned elsewhere how to quickly "fix" it. Really surprised to hear this is not as common as I thought. I had the issue on my old Intel Mac Pro, and now on my M2Max Macbook Pro. I wonder if it has something to do with the UltraStudio 4K Mini since that's one of the few constants between the system.

I have never seen that. You should check that your media storage is not subject to some power saving policy that puts it to sleep.

Definitely not that.

I also have this problem and it's extremely irritating, I haven't found a solution yet, but it has to be some issue with read/write permissions of the directory the Gallery is stored in.

See, I'm not crazy!!

I'm pretty sure this is a very common problem; media randomly shows Offline when in the Color room, especially when applying "presets" from grabbed stills. The solution is simply to roll the mouse over the Still thumbnails in the Stills Gallery, and the media appears again, but it's so annoying. And sometimes I'll find that it doesn't show Offline but the image stops responding to changes in the Color adjustments; again just a quick roll over the thumbnails fixes it. Obviously really tedious as well.

Let me try to understand this: are the Gallery Stills disappearing and becoming unlinked, or are the media clips in the timeline themselves become unlinked?

Check User Prefs -> System -> Media Storage and make sure that the drive listed at the top of the list is your Gallery Stills drive (or path), and that you have full read/write permissions enabled on that. The rest of the drives should have the rest of the media in your project, and full read/write permissions should also be enabled on those.

In addition, go to Project Settings -> Master Settings -> Working Folders, and make sure the correct drive/path is listed for Proxy, Cache, and Gallery Stills Location. The same cautions about permissions still hold.

What specific source media types are you using? We've seen some weirdness with Sonoma and H.264/H.265 files, but I don't have any concrete answers yet. With embedded timecode formats (Red Raw, Alexa Raw, BMD Raw, ProRes, DNxHR, etc.) it's usually fine. I have occasionally seen Gallery stills go stupid and go away just because the source drive temporarily went to sleep; exiting and relaunching Resolve usually solves that problem.

Hey Marc, here's some more details.

Let me try to understand this: are the Gallery Stills disappearing and becoming unlinked, or are the media clips in the timeline themselves become unlinked?

It's the media clips in the timeline (well, in the color grading window) that show offline, but aren't, because they immediately return as soon as I roll my mouse over a gallery still.

Check User Prefs -> System -> Media Storage and make sure that the drive listed at the top of the list is your Gallery Stills drive (or path), and that you have full read/write permissions enabled on that. The rest of the drives should have the rest of the media in your project, and full read/write permissions should also be enabled on those.

The top location is my internal drive Movies folder. This is a laptop, so I have it there to ensure it's always available. That said, media is always stored on a Synology NAS, or more recently, on a Synology Drive sync (a local cache of a NAS), which is what you're seeing in the second line.

Media Storage Locations

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In addition, go to Project Settings -> Master Settings -> Working Folders, and make sure the correct drive/path is listed for Proxy, Cache, and Gallery Stills Location. The same cautions about permissions still hold.

I have an NVMe RAID that I use as my scratch disk, so that's "Scratch" in the screenshot below. When I first checked this pane just now, the Cache location was simply "CacheClip" and not the full path you see here; probably because I was mobile yesterday. So I've reset that now, however I doubt that was the problem as that setting is checked pretty regularly.

Working Folders

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What specific source media types are you using? We've seen some weirdness with Sonoma and H.264/H.265 files, but I don't have any concrete answers yet. With embedded timecode formats (Red Raw, Alexa Raw, BMD Raw, ProRes, DNxHR, etc.) it's usually fine. I have occasionally seen Gallery stills go stupid and go away just because the source drive temporarily went to sleep; exiting and relaunching Resolve usually solves that problem.

Mostly ProRes and Blackmagic RAW. Some H.264/H.265, and I am on Sonoma 14.2.1, but this problem goes back years.

I tried to recreate the issue while screen recording but of course didn't manage to, and I have to move on to other things now, but I will try to remember to screen cap next time I'm coloring so I can share that. I am starting to wonder if it only happens after I've grabbed some stills, since rolling over the stills is what fixes it -- I don't think I've ever had this happen and not had stills to roll over to fix it.

Cheers,
-Joseph

Where are your gallery stills located? I would have expected them to be located in the first storage location by default (your user movies folder). Looks like you've customized them to a lengthy path. Does it matter to the issue you are having? I have no idea. Sorry.

Where are your gallery stills located? I would have expected them to be located in the first storage location by default (your user movies folder). Looks like you've customized them to a lengthy path. Does it matter to the issue you are having? I have no idea. Sorry.

This is a Cloud project, so when you first create the project, it asks where you want your "Project Media" to live. I use a consistent folder structure on the NAS for my projects, so I have a folder in every project called, in this case, "Project Media 20240324" that I point it to. (This screenshot is what you first get when you create a project, before assigning the location)

Resolve Project Media Location

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I'm an idiot, lol - sorry Joseph, I totally missed the fact that you are using cloud storage. I don't yet have any experience with cloud storage in Resolve - from others it sounds like it's not quite a fully developed feature.

I'm an idiot, lol - sorry Joseph, I totally missed the fact that you are using cloud storage. I don't yet have any experience with cloud storage in Resolve - from others it sounds like it's not quite a fully developed feature.

Actually this issue predates that. And it's a cloud project, not necessarily cloud storage (although I have been experimenting with that, and it's really good). I don't believe this has anything to do with the Cloud library, which has now been around for two years, so really isn't all that new.

It's amazing it's been around that long. Still seems unrefined but perhaps that's old news. As I mentioned, I haven't tried it yet. I just don't understand why your setup is showing offline clips in the color room. Sorry.

Same issue here. I have been dealing with it since Resolve 17.
I have two workstations in my company (a Macpro and a ImacPro) and the problem persists in both. I discovered that if I work only in a single screen the problem dissapears, but when I made colorgrading on two screens the problem appears.

I have opened multiple tickets but no one has been able to help me.

Same issue here. I have been dealing with it since Resolve 17.
I have two workstations in my company (a Macpro and a ImacPro) and the problem persists in both. I discovered that if I work only in a single screen the problem dissapears, but when I made colorgrading on two screens the problem appears.

I have opened multiple tickets but no one has been able to help me.

I suspect it's a multiple screen issue. Happens to me ALL THE TIME, and if anything its worse in 18beta.

Same issue here. I have been dealing with it since Resolve 17.
I have two workstations in my company (a Macpro and a ImacPro) and the problem persists in both. I discovered that if I work only in a single screen the problem dissapears, but when I made colorgrading on two screens the problem appears.

I have opened multiple tickets but no one has been able to help me.

I suspect it's a multiple screen issue. Happens to me ALL THE TIME, and if anything its worse in 18beta.

Yep, same problem here. On one monitor, no problem, just grading for hours... if I connect the second monitor... it goes "media offline"... Same problem with the two monitors and the reference one...

Also have the same problem - have tried reimporting the Powergrade node tree I use (Darren Mostyn) and multiple other ‘fixes’ but the problem continues. Sometimes media shown offline. Sometimes grade shows on the stills in the 2nd monitor but not on the waveforms of main edit window in the color page until I move the mouse over the powergrade or grabbed still I’m using. V annoying!

Also have the same problem - have tried reimporting the Powergrade node tree I use (Darren Mostyn) and multiple other ‘fixes’ but the problem continues. Sometimes media shown offline. Sometimes grade shows on the stills in the 2nd monitor but not on the waveforms of main edit window in the color page until I move the mouse over the powergrade or grabbed still I’m using. V annoying!

And still happening in 20b1. Haven’t tried b2 yet but I don’t have high hopes.

[Dwaine Maggart]

@Joseph: Can you please provide a link to a screen recording showing the issue. I'm really having a problem wrapping my head around the description, and seeing would hopefully make it much clearer as to what you are experiencing.

@Joseph: Can you please provide a link to a screen recording showing the issue. I'm really having a problem wrapping my head around the description, and seeing would hopefully make it much clearer as to what you are experiencing.

Happily, but I’m on the road now away from my dual screen setup. It’ll be nearly two weeks before I can provide, but yes I 100% will. I’ll set a reminder.

@Joseph: Can you please provide a link to a screen recording showing the issue. I'm really having a problem wrapping my head around the description, and seeing would hopefully make it much clearer as to what you are experiencing.

Dwaine, apologies this took so long. This recording shows the clip going "offline", and how to recover it. What I didn't include here is another issue that has the same cause and recovery, where the clip appears normal, but any changes made to the grade don't show up. So you'll be adjusting exposure or WB or whatever and nothing happens. Then I just run the mouse over the still, and the clip updates and suddenly all the changes become visible.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/oi86bdc1 ... mteed&dl=0

[Dwaine Maggart]

Thanks for the screen recording. That makes it pretty clear as to what the symptom is. Seems like this could be Mac specific?

How hard is this to repro? Is it likely to come up pretty quickly doing what you did in the screen recording?

Thanks for the screen recording. That makes it pretty clear as to what the symptom is. Seems like this could be Mac specific?

How hard is this to repro? Is it likely to come up pretty quickly doing what you did in the screen recording?

Yeah from the forum discussion here it appears to be M Mac + dual monitor specific. My hardware is in my sig and I’ve removed the UktraStudio for testing; makes no difference.

This happens constantly. I was recording the screen cap for all of ten seconds before I ran into it. I can record more that shows the other issue if that’s helpful.