"File missing" warning

Hello everyone, it’s my first time posting on this forum.
I just wanted to leave a little suggestion.

If a file that has been added to a project (eg. an image) gets moved or deleted (which may happen by accident), there’s no clear indication in the UI that something like that happened, unless you save and reload the project.
I think there should be a warning (maybe on the timeline) that the file that’s being used is missing from its location.
This just happened to me, I’ve imported an image and then had no idea why do I have a large piece of text on the video instead of the image I wanted. Maybe veteran users don’t mind such a thing but it will surely improve the beginner expirience.

What version of Shotcut are you using. I believe Dan did something like you suggest in version 19.07. See:

It shows “INVALID” with 19.07.15
(I just renamed the source folder to make it happen)


job log.txt (3.6 KB)

I may have got the wrong end of the stick as to what the poster meant. Here is what Dan posted:

Basically he’s fixed an MLT file problem whereby he changed an image into text, which meant the image couldn’t be recovered even if it was put back where it was moved from.

It’s not clear to me if this is what the poster is pointing out. Is (s)he just saying that Shotcut should check the residency of all the sources periodically as it executes?

The poster was making a video, and while doing so, moved/deleted files before exporting.
The suggestion is to have the UI warn them that the files have been moved, either at the time they are moved or as you export to not get the “Invalid” text in the video.

I’ve never experienced this, and had to do it. I didn’t know it would give the Invalid in text like it did. That’s a frame capture of just using one image. I did use two images, and it showed 2 Invalid text. One invalid txt for every missing file. The way I found that out was I resized one of the images.

I had thought the missing file just wouldn’t be displayed, and the text the OP talks about was text they put into their video.

Doing this would require adding a file-watching added to every file-based resource in a project/session. That is possible, but it does add overhead and code needing maintenance and debugging. I am not so keen to do that. People should be more careful and not ask tools to become more bloated.