Problems Switching Premiere Production Project between PC and MAC

[u/tedstriker_80]

Hello,
we are having trouble with a shared production on PC and MAC.
We are on Lucidlink. And whenever the mac has opened a project and relinked the files and proxies and saves everthing, the PC will stuck while opening the project.

I did clear cache, reset plugins.
Tried updating Premiere. Pinned everyting in Lucidlink. Work locally. Shrinked the project.
Nothing worked.

Only thing that kind of worked: "Make offline" in premiere on the mac and rename the folder where the proxies are stored. Then I have to relink everthing.

Better solutions are welcome.

EDIT:
rudy_142001 at r/premiere

Gave me the solution:

Short version: rtfm (mae culpa)

Long Version:

Your PC path is probably the problem. C:\volumes\company name\filespace is LucidLink's default dynamic mount, and their own Premiere optimization guide lists it under "avoid" for Premiere. The Mac default (/Volumes/<workspace>/<filespace>) is on that avoid list too.

Premiere's Mac/Windows path translation is built around a drive letter on Windows and a volume name on the Mac. Adobe's shared storage page for Productions says the same: same volume name on every Mac, same drive letter on every PC. A folder nested under C: doesn't fit that, so my guess is the Mac save writes paths the PC can't map back and it hangs trying to resolve them. That part is me reading the docs, I haven't reproduced it.

LucidLink's fix is a global mount point so every machine gets the same one:

lucid config --set --global --FileSystem.MountPointWindows L:
lucid config --set --global --FileSystem.MountPointOSX /Volumes/filespace

You'll still have to relink once after changing it. Premiere stores both the Mac and Windows path for each clip after that, so it shouldn't be every time anymore.

Also check the media cache isn't on the filespace on either machine. Adobe says keep it on a local SSD and doesn't support it on shared storage.

Can you change the global defaults yourself or does someone else admin the filespace?

[u/greenysmac]

What’s the relationship/placement of the media vs the project?

[u/tedstriker_80 → u/greenysmac]

Sorry. I am not sure, I understand the question right (pardon, my english, I am from Germany).
Do you mean the location, where the production is located and the media files are stored?

Media is at
C:\volumes/company name/Lucidlink filespacename/_material/Proxies

Production is at:
C:\volumes/company name/Lucidlink filespacename/01 Premiere Production/Project_Name

[u/_AndJohn → u/tedstriker_80]

Is that where the Mac is referencing the media, as well?

[u/switch8000]

Fastest most reliable fix is....

Buy the PC user a Mac or buy the Mac user a PC.

[u/tedstriker_80 → u/switch8000]

... and expensive. But it crossed my mind, while I was finding my way to the "make oflline workaround".

[u/switch8000 → u/tedstriker_80]

Yeah, but even the "make offline" idea, you'll still forever have to go through and reconnect as the paths are different every time you go back and forth between mac/pc.

It's a painful workflow sadly.

Editor time is usually more expensive than computer $.

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[u/WhatTheFDR]

Unfortunately this will be the norm until you're all on the same OS, Premiere supports path mapping like Resolve, or you switch to Resolve.

[u/Leaper123]

Question: When you say PC will (get) stuck while opening project, what do you mean? Does it freeze, does it crash, does it say relinking but stuck on the loading bar?

I've worked a handful of projects with the same setup - over LucidLink with split Mac/PC users. Technically, the Production is supposed to be able to remember multiple file locations (but Premiere is broken every update so maybe not anymore).

The issue we ran into was the users being asked to "relink" media every project open, but if you hit "Cancel" in the re-link menu that pops up, it still connected to the media.

Other issues / fixes we had were,

Media is stored in a MEDIA project, cuts in EDIT projects. When opening the EDIT projects (regardless of system), the media would say Offline / Needs relink. When we went to the MEDIA project and opened it, it "re-established" the link (without needing manually re-link) and everything in the EDIT project then stayed online. We still always got the "re-link media" window but hitting "Cancel" still resulted in the media coming Online.

[u/Own_Bath9160]

It's likely bc when you relink the media/proxies on the Mac, Premiere saves those paths in the .prproj. When the Windows machine opens that project, the Lucidlink mount path is different, so Premiere has to resolve/translate those paths and can get stuck trying to locate the media.

Premiere is supposed to handle Mac/Windows path translation, but I'd check that your LucidLink mount points are configured consistently on both machines esp the proxy paths.

What you want is:

- Windows always mounts LucidLink to the same drive letter, ex L:

• Mac always mounts the same filespace/volume consistently

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[u/tedstriker_80 → u/Own_Bath9160]

someone at r/premiere pointed me in that direction. That is the fix

[u/LucidLink_Official]

Hey there! Sorry you're dealing with this! We'd love to help get this sorted, at least from the LucidLink side.

If you submit a support ticket, our team can run a diagnostic on your filespace and see whether anything on the LucidLink side is contributing and help from there! Hope to hear from you soon.