This page covers what happens when a cue points at a file that is no longer there, and how to put it right. The whole design here has one purpose: you find out on Saturday afternoon, not on Sunday morning.
How you find out
When you open a list, you are told straight away: a message reports how many cues refer to a file that no longer exists.
In the list, each affected line carries a warning mark, and its tooltip shows the full path it is looking for. That path is what tells you what happened — whether the file moved, the drive letter changed, or the network share is not mounted.
The usual causes
| What you see | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| Every cue in one block is marked | A folder was moved or renamed |
| Every cue from one drive is marked | A network share is not connected, or the drive letter changed |
| One cue is marked | That one file was renamed, moved or deleted |
| A list from another machine marks everything | The media is not on this machine — you needed a bundle |
Putting it right
If the files moved, put them back where the list expects them, or fix the cue: open its properties and point it at the new location.
If the list came from elsewhere, the answer is usually a bundle rather than a list. A .playout file holds the rundown and points at media where it lives; a
.playoutbundle carries the media inside it. Ask for the bundle — see
If the file is genuinely gone, replace it and rename the cue, or move the line to the archive so it stops appearing in the running order.
What a missing file does during a show
A cue whose file is missing produces no picture. It does not crash the playout and it does not stop the list — the show continues, with black where that item should have been.
That is the least bad behaviour, but it is still black on air. Which is why the check happens at opening time: open the list once, early, on the machine that will run it. Everything about this feature assumes you will.
The habit worth having
Open Sunday’s list on Saturday, on the actual machine, and look at the top of the window. Ten seconds, and it converts the most common cause of dead air into a job you do with a coffee.