Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2021 December 29

= December 29 =

KineMaster issues
Sometimes, when I open an animation in KineMaster, a popup appears saying "x media files are missing from this project". When I see in the animation the media files are indeed missing, but I never deleted or moved them. This is getting annoying because I am making a big animation and it is hard to get motivated to do it when you have to redo a lot of the animation every few days. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 17:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If you make daily backups, you will not have to redo things that often. For the rest, I suggest you file an error report with the makers of KineMaster. --Lambiam 08:47, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * How do you file an error report? If it involves email I can't file a report because and I'm not sure if the school email would allow that. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 20:54, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, if I make a backup, both the original and the backup have random missing files. Learnt this the hard way.-322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 15:38, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * A proper backup (incremental or regular complete) cannot have random missing files at least not without something going on majorly wrong. If there are random missing files either the backup isn't working properly, there was a major problem or the files were never there. Ideally they should be backuped to somewhere that is effectively "read only" at least with the username and password available so even malware or user error on the client site cannot damage the backups. While this won't prevent certain forms of loss such as hardware failure, malware or software problems on the server side etc, it should reduce the risk. To reduce the risk even more there should be disconnected backups stored somewhere offsite. Nil Einne (talk) 16:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * When making backups it is important to have a scheme that retains the original, full backups for a significant period of time. Many commercial organisations will keep their master backup copies for years, for instance a financial house may need to keep mortgage agreements for 25 or 30 years!  Every so often you can then take a backup of changes since the master, these also should be kept for a fairly long time.  Daily backups will roll forward from the latest second level backup.  There are plenty of schemes which operations staff have developed over the years according to differing organisational requirements and technology.  Start by studying backup which gives a good introduction.  One thing to be aware of is mirror copies.  A mirror copy on the cloud is not a backup.  When you synchronise your new files into the cloud, any deleted files will be removed from the cloud.  For a school system you need to talk to your teacher or head of IT, they should be able to help you. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:34, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It was a bit hard to digest the two above messages. I exported the project, and made copies on my Chromebook, my 2 USB drives, and my tablet. Are these sufficient enough? Also, my Chromebook is a home device, my email account is a school account. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 17:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If the export function is working correctly perhaps. Given that you claim assets disappear, it may not be. It's unclear to me why you need to export anything. Isn't the data locally hosted? If it is then you really should backup the entire local database so that you can go back to an earlier version without issue rather than relying on an export function which evidentally doesn't always work correctly. Also a got backup should happen mostly automatically and often enough that the amount of loss is acceptable. If you have to regularly export, this isn't automatic. Nil Einne (talk) 19:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems that KineMaster is for mobile devices (including the Chromebook) only. Unfortunately proper regular backups on such devices can be difficult and exporting the project can sometimes be the only option. If it's really losing files then I think you will need to take this up with the developers in some ways. But are you sure exporting the project is intended to export all assets, or you've turned on the option to do? For many programs on traditional computers exporting the project may only export the files created as part of te project. Any external assets you've added will not be exported and instead are simply linked from the project. If you lose these external files or they are moved or renamed, they will no longer be available. I suggest you first look into what exporting actually does. If the imported assets are simply linked, then you will need to backup up these separately and ensure they are restoed to the locations they were when exported. This may be complicated on a mobile device since they tend to hide the file system from most apps although any decent program should allow you to relink the files without losing any data associated with them so you just have to go through the project and re-link any missing files. Nil Einne (talk) 20:04, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I made the assets myself. I didn't move, rename, or delete any of them. They just disappear out of nowhere. You might also want to know that I am using free Kinemaster. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 20:43, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * (EC) Okay I tested Kinemaster on my Android device and confirmed exporting does seem to produce a .kine file with the single external asset I imported, at least based on file size. How your kine files lost a video during export I'm not sure. It may be that certain files are not included for some reason, notably from my quick testing I don't think assets obtained from their store are included. I assume the assumption is you can download them again and you may not even have a licence to save these assets as semi standalone video files. But I have no idea if Kinemaster will automatically download them or at least give a decent warning. Alternatively perhaps something is going wrong during export and Kinemaster isn't warning you. In any case as I said if a linked asset is missing, a good program should allow you to reimport the file with minimal data loss but I still have no idea if this applies to Kinemaster. Nil Einne (talk) 21:06, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The assets in the .kine file are okay, it's just that when I load a project from the "My Projects" area that assets disappear. The assets are just small videos I made that I use as templates. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 23:50, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what you're saying. How do you know the assets are okay in the Kine file if they disappear when you actually open the project? Unless the assets actually appear in the project, you have no way of knowing if they've been correctly included in the .kine file without carefully analysing it. Also with reference to the above what do you mean by "they just disappear out of nowhere"? Are the assets actually on your device? Use something besides Kinemaster like a video play to confirm whether the assets are still stored in the original location, wherever they were before you imported them. Make sure they play correctly. If the assets are fine in the original location but are disappearing in Kinemaster then this definitely sounds like a problem with Kinemaster. Probably a bug of some sort. You're probably better off asking in a Kinemaster specific forum for help since it's unlikely you'll find people here with experience with it. OTOH, if the assets are disappearing or breaking in the original location, then clearly something is affecting them in some way even if you aren't intentionally doing it. Make sure you don't have cleanup tools or other such apps which are doing weird stuff. Nil Einne (talk) 07:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

When I open the .kine file, the assets are there. However, if I load the animation directly, the assets disappear in KineMaster. The assets are stored on the device, which is a Chromebook. Maybe this has something to do with Chrome OS. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 01:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)