Invalid Regions Changed

[thehowlingsea]

There doesn't seem to be any answers online for solving the problem of 'xx invalid regions changed' when opening a logic project. I'm encountering this daily now running Logic 8. Please can someone tell me how to firstly stop this from continuing and secondly how to fix the projects it is affected.

thx

[David Nahmani]

That means the audio file has been edited while that particular project was closed. So when you open the project, it's trying to re-create audio regions from the same audio file, only to discover that that audio file no longer has the same length, for example.

 

Do you have multiple projects referencing the same audio files?

[thehowlingsea]

Well I back up onto an external hard drive. Is missing audio files also attributed to this too?

[David Nahmani]

No. But AFAICT you're not missing files, you're just opening a project that references files that were edited outside of that project (in another project, or in another application).

 

When the audio files stay intact between the closing and re-opening of the project, you do not get that message.

[thehowlingsea]

OK so this is all attributed to the fact that in an effort to save space i moved some projects to an external drive and DELETED the originals on mac HD? When i open projects even directly from the external drive i get this msg.

 

In short what can i do to firstly locate missing files and more importantly avoid this with projects in the future?

[FlowerPower]

The 'Invalid regions changed' message can be very confusing, because it may occur in the following situation:

 

You have and old song with a one minute long file called eg. "Audio#123".

Next time you open that song, the hard drive containing that file isn't connected.

For some reason Logic finds another file - only one - with the same name. It's not one minute long, but Logic will still use it.

Logic wants to be helpful, and tells you that an invalid regions have changed. Because it's not one minute long, but maybe 30 seconds long, Logic will adjust the region length for you and tell you that an invalid region has been changed.

 

THe best way to deal with this specific problem (without waiting for a new version with improved file handling/better error messages):

Open the project.

If you get this message, make sure, that after loading the audio files and changing the region lengths, Logic only contains the correct audio files.

If it does, save the project, preferably under a new name, and make sure 'Include Assets' and 'Copy External Audio Files to The Project Folder' sis ON. THese settings mean that the files we be saved in an Audio Folder inside the Project Folder Logic now is creating, next to the Project File itself.

 

If the project file and project folder exist on the same drive, the problem shouldn't occur. When I've had the problem, it has been with old projects - from before I always had a project folder inside a project folder with the project's name - which included an audio folder with all the relevant files.... or eg. if a song contains some files that has been mailed to me after I started to work on the project (or for other reasons had certain files outside the project folder.