Media offline flashing

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pappyjay

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Media offline flashing

PostSat Sep 10, 2022 1:34 am

I have an issue which is nearly causing me to lose my mind. We all get the media offline every now and then but I am having this weird one that's not going away no matter the troubleshoot.
Basically, random files within my media pool in davinci resolve would play with flashing red media offline error. It happens intermittently while playing a clip.

Troubleshoots I have done:
*Relink selected clip
*Unlink selected clip
*reload new clip to davinci from the same source in my PC
*reload new clip to davinci from a different source in my PC
*Davinci > Preferences > System > Decode options > Untick the decode H264 option and restart Davinci

Nothing I try works... I have a huge project I'm working on and I'm at the beginning stage - the last thing I want is to stress over this dreaded red media offline error.

If anyone has the ultimate answer for me please let me know!
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Charles Bennett

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostSat Sep 10, 2022 9:02 am

In the past the only time I have ever seen something like that was when the drive with the media on it was too slow to keep up with the data stream.
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Jim Simon

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostSat Sep 10, 2022 4:53 pm

Is it possible those clips have dropped frames (which might not show as an error in outside media players)?
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Joe Shapiro

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostSat Sep 10, 2022 6:26 pm

I have definitely seen this multiple times with media that's perfectly fine.
One way I know to repro it is to take a drive offline under resolve's nose and then plug it back in.
I'm not suggesting this is a good idea - just mentioning that it's one way I've seen to repro the behavior.
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pappyjay

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostSat Sep 10, 2022 9:39 pm

Thanks for the responses. I use a fast sandisk SSD. All the media files are fine. In fact, when I play it directly from the source location in the SSD, it works fine. I have it backed up elsewhere and I went as far as re-uploading the copy from the backup drive into davinci and still the clip shows the weird media offline flashes. It baffles me how it's the same clips that give the error. And the issue is so precise, in that the flashing red error occurs at particular points within the clip, making it even more tricky to decipher what the problem would be.

I've scoured Youtube as well, and most issues are the usual media offline problems that occur due to changing file location, or not connecting the drive etc.

I am going to attempt to work on the clips in FCPx and see if the same issue occurs there.
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WDParks

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostThu Sep 29, 2022 12:08 am

Charles Bennett wrote:In the past the only time I have ever seen something like that was when the drive with the media on it was too slow to keep up with the data stream.


I'm having this same issue, but it is only one clip in a folder of several on the same drive, so I don't see how the drive can be at fault. I tried moving it to another folder and relinking, and it still does it. I tried "replace clip" and I still have the same issue.
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Jim Simon

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostThu Sep 29, 2022 4:12 pm

pappyjay wrote:when I play it directly from the source location in the SSD, it works fine.
How are you playing that? In Resolve?
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pappyjay

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostTue Oct 04, 2022 1:25 pm

Due to extensive research on this issue I have observed a trend and can conclude that it must be an issue with the way it was recorded or codec malfunction.

observations:

- when played on BRAW player, no media offline error appears however the frame freezes while audio continues on. This happens at specific points. This occurence seems intermittent when playing back on BRAW
- When I play these particular clips on other video players like EditReady, QuickTime, etc they all show the media offline flashes (while audio continues as normal) in the EXACT place where I notice the frame freezing while playing back on the BRAW player.
Every other clip within the SSD plays fine everywhere including in Davinci Resolve.

The big question now is, IS THERE A WAY TO RECTIFY FILE AT SOURCE like I have described above, and get the frozen frames to play fine anywhere?

I am dreading the answer that there is no solution as there are a good chunk of my work that are like this, and this is a film project with no actual file left in the camera SD card :(

There must be a way! Please help me out someone out there!

FYI - in addition to the troubleshoots I stated above earlier, I have gone further to:
-create new project with new clips
-transcode using Handbrake, EditReady etc
-Change the decode setting in Davinci Resolve

All to no avail. I am deeply saddened by this.
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Uli Plank

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostTue Oct 04, 2022 1:29 pm

I feel sorry for you, but it seems those were never recorded. Probably due to cable or SSD malfunction.
The BRAW player is covering up the problem by repeating frames. If that is a solution for you, record it with an external recorder.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

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Andy Mees

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostTue Oct 04, 2022 1:34 pm

Sounds like your camera / recorder dropped frames during the capture. There is no way to recover video frames that were never recorded. That said, how many frames are we talking about at each instance? You can use optical flow techniques to generate missing frames... quite convincingly / invisibly so if it is only a single frame here and a single frame there.
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Jim Simon

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostTue Oct 04, 2022 1:55 pm

pappyjay wrote:There must be a way!
For these clips, no. For future clips, be sure to set the camera to stop recording when frames are dropped.

And then test your media ahead of time so you know what the limit is.
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pappyjay

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostWed Oct 05, 2022 12:42 am

Thanks all. I am lost for words :(

Re optical flow technique, how is that achieved please? Willing to try anything at this rate. Fewer things in life have made me this sad
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WDParks

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostWed Oct 05, 2022 1:19 am

pappyjay wrote:Thanks all. I am lost for words :(

Re optical flow technique, how is that achieved please? Willing to try anything at this rate. Fewer things in life have made me this sad


I recently had the same problem. The footage worked fine in Premiere, but Resolve did not like it. In my case, I had a big blank section at the end. I trimmed that, and re-exported to Media Encoder and then output a new clip of the same footage. Resolve was fine with the re-exported copy.

If you don't have access to that, see if you can run it through Handbrake. No guarantees, but worth a try.
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Andy Mees

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostWed Oct 05, 2022 8:24 am

pappyjay wrote:Re optical flow technique, how is that achieved please?
In the Edit Page you can generate single replacement frame between two otherwise sequential frames using the Frame Replacer OFX (Studio Version Only)

From the manual, Chapter 159 Resolve FX Revival:
The Frame Replacer allows you to reuse or blend adjacent frames together to help remove any corrupt frames or artifacts that show up for the duration of just a single frame.
— Replace This Frame: Checking this box selects the specific frame in the clip that you want to replace. This will also automatically apply a keyframe at the appropriate location in the clip.
— Replacement Method: Allows you to choose the method by which the new frame is created.
— From Previous: Replaces the selected frame with the one immediately before it, effectively
duplicating the frame.
— From Next: Replaces the selected frame with the one immediately after it, effectively duplicating the frame.
— Blend Prev/Next: Replaces the selected frame with a blend of the frames immediately before and after it.
Optical Flow: Replaces the selected frame using DaVinci Resolve’s optical flow technology with a blend of the frames before and after it.

For more complex work, like generating multiple sequential frames you'll need to spend some quality time using the Fusion Page's Tween option: 'Tween' interpolates between two non-sequential images to generate a new frame using an Interpolation Parameter to determine, relative to the two source frames, which (missing) frame it is that you are interpolating. An Interpolation parameter value of 0.0 will result in input frame A, a value of 1.0 will result in frame B, and a value of 0.5 will yield a result halfway between A and B.
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Lee Reichel

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Media offline flashing

PostWed Oct 05, 2022 5:55 pm

I have had the media offline message a lot in the past and trying to relink or locate missing files works sporadically at times. I finally narrowed the problem down to the cache files. I have my cache on a 1 TB SSD and when I check the drive and there is very little room left when the clips start turning red and trying to relink them is like playing whack-a-mole. Most of the time clearing the cache drive worked. Putting the cache on a larger drive nearly made the problem vanish. Whenever I have relinked clips only to have them turn red again the cache drive being nearly full has always been the issue.

One time it was so bad I deleted all the files on my cache drive and every clip turned red. I then copied the timeline and created a new time line, pasted the old over it and then relinked the media folder and I was back in business.
The cache drive was always the cause for me.
I am running windows 11 on an i7-12700 cpu, 64GB of memory.


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pappyjay

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostWed Oct 05, 2022 10:47 pm

Thanks peep. I have checked DR, and though I found the Frame Replacer tool/effect, nothing happened or changed when I dropped it on the timeline.
If I had a man cave where no prying eyes can reach, I'd retire into it for a good few days and sob! It's a painful situation unfolding right before my eyes and I feel helpless as I can't have the actors back for a reshoot.
I never had this when I was solely using FCPx ..
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Andy Mees

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostWed Oct 05, 2022 11:11 pm

Larry, if your camera dropped frames during recording then it really doesn't matter what NLE you use, those frames still won't exist. That said, as noted above, Resolve actually has some great tools for helping you with the issue you are facing, but there is a fundamental expectation that the user has some degree of technical ability and/or is willing to figure it out. So, instead of sobbing in a cave for a couple of days, perhaps spend that time more fruitfully, coming to grips with the tools and digging yourself out of this problem? Where there's a will there's a way.

Another tack. Maybe share a sample 'damaged' clip of your media ie one that appears to have dropped frames on your system. Perhaps another user here will be kind enough to check it for you and confirm whether there is indeed an issue ... and if so, whether it's something thats fixable or not.
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Joe Shapiro

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostThu Oct 06, 2022 3:37 am

Have you found any software that plays the clip back acceptably? If so I’d suggest exporting a new version of the clip from that software and seeing if you’re happy with how the resulting clip plays in Resolve.


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Uli Plank

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostThu Oct 06, 2022 6:49 am

From my experience, the only player doing that is the BRAW player by BM.
It won’t export, that’s why I suggested recording the signal.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

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pappyjay

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostMon Oct 17, 2022 11:42 pm

Thanks all.. I've had to go down the painful route of chopping off the missing frames (literally frame by frame)... painful is in fact an understatement but desperate situations they say calls for desperate measures :/
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Uli Plank

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Re: Media offline flashing

PostTue Oct 18, 2022 1:56 am

Well, is it really so difficult to rent a recorder in your area?
In many cases the short freezes might just go unnoticed. Where they are obvious, setting a cut with the razor and covering it with a very short Smooth Cut should help. Your method is not only more tedious, but the short jump in motion might be more noticeable.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

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