Jeffreyt
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: Is there any way to manually relink media in FCS?

We recently transitioned from NFS to AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) for our shared storage in our FCS environment.

There have been a couple of headaches involved, but it has been a largely smooth transition except for one problem.

A couple of our assets (some of the most important ones, naturally) had colons ( : ) in the filenames. This was fine for NFS - the backing store's filesystem could handle them. But AFP cannot since apparently OS X considers the colon an unusable character in file names due to its own directory requirements.

So we are left with a handful of assets that are fully annotated in FCS, comprehensive metadata, etc. that show the original media files as missing. The files are there - they were just renamed automatically by the system to replace the colon.

I am wondering if there is any way to tell FCS that the filename has changed since there is no possible way that I can change the filename back.

If I have to get my hands dirty on the FCS command line to accomplish this, I am not hesitant to do so. I just don't know how to go about doing it...

A bit about my system:
Apple Xserve running Snow Leopard (10.6.3)
Final Cut Server version 1.5.2

The backing stores are presented via AFP using Netatalk from a Linux-based storage array (I know this unconventional but it actually works quite well - except the "no colons in AFP or Apple native filenames" issue...)

If there is anyone out there who can shed some light on this, I would really appreciate it!

Thank you all!

Several, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Feb 5, 2011 9:18 PM

by slowfranklin,Solvedanswer
slowfranklin slowfranklin
Level 3 (640 points)
A:
Jeff.M.Taylor wrote:
According to various pieces of Netatalk documentation, the colon is a forbidden character, no matter what.


No, it depends. In OS X Finder when you use "/" in filenames it will be replaced with ":" when stored on disk (locally) and vice versa. When sending such a filename across AFP it's up the the AFP server to encode/espace it properly.

Posted on Feb 6, 2011 10:32 PM

Close
Jeffreyt

Q: Is there any way to manually relink media in FCS?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by slowfranklin,

    slowfranklin slowfranklin Feb 6, 2011 3:08 AM in response to Jeffreyt
    Level 3 (640 points)
    Feb 6, 2011 3:08 AM in response to Jeffreyt
    http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/support.php

  • by Jeffreyt,

    Jeffreyt Jeffreyt Feb 6, 2011 2:07 PM in response to slowfranklin
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Feb 6, 2011 2:07 PM in response to slowfranklin
    Thank you for the reply.

    I do not need Netatalk support. According to various pieces of Netatalk documentation, the colon is a forbidden character, no matter what.

    Since it is impossible for me to change the filename back to what FCS is expecting (since that filename has a colon in it, which can no longer be done), I need to know if I can manually change the database to give these assets new filenames.

  • by slowfranklin,Solvedanswer

    slowfranklin slowfranklin Feb 6, 2011 10:32 PM in response to Jeffreyt
    Level 3 (640 points)
    Feb 6, 2011 10:32 PM in response to Jeffreyt
    Jeff.M.Taylor wrote:
    According to various pieces of Netatalk documentation, the colon is a forbidden character, no matter what.


    No, it depends. In OS X Finder when you use "/" in filenames it will be replaced with ":" when stored on disk (locally) and vice versa. When sending such a filename across AFP it's up the the AFP server to encode/espace it properly.

  • by Jeffreyt,

    Jeffreyt Jeffreyt Feb 7, 2011 7:53 PM in response to Jeffreyt
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Feb 7, 2011 7:53 PM in response to Jeffreyt
    Thank you for the clarification.

    Indeed you are correct - the Netatalk documentation merely implies that the colon is a forbidden Mac OS character - not a forbidden Netatalk character.

    Netatalk itself (at least in my case on Ubuntu 10.04) does handle the translation of the colon in a way that is comprehensible to Mac OS.

    The colon was truncated to a double-quote (") when I attempted the rename on the Linux command line. After seeing this, I renamed the file again on the Linux command line to remove the colon.

    When using the Mac OS command line (terminal), I was able to get the file to reflect a colon:

    $ cp ./file.mov ./file\ duration\ 10\:00.mov

    While the Finder will not permit a colon in the filename under any circumstances (at least not as far as I can tell), the command line will permit it if you use the escape character (\).

    In the Finder, the new file shows as "file duration 10/00.mov" but if you run an "ls" on the command line it shows as "file duration 10:00.mov" which is correct.

    In Linux, it shows as "file duration 10:2f00.mov" so Netatalk handled the markup in such a way that it is able to present the correct filename to the Mac OS.

    Despite the Finder/Terminal name mismatch (the filename having a "/" in the Finder display), FCS is perfectly happy, since it reads the filename directly.

    And if you don't want to get your hands dirty on the command line, using a forward-slash (/) in the filename within the FInder does translate to a colon when you view the file from the terminal, as was described by slowfranklin above. (I am from a Unix background where the slash is a (sometimes the only) forbidden character, so I also used the command-line method just to see if it would work)

    Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction.
    Question marked as answered.

    Message was edited by: Jeff.M.Taylor