Hi all,

For a long while now we have edited very satisfactorily with our media files shared between our two suites on a Synology NAS mapped drive (Windows 10, Avid 2020.6).

I am trying to get the same working with the project files and encountering what looks like a permissions issue, with Avid reporting all bins are locked and changes can't be saved.

I see plenty of users seem to be doing this OK with permissions suitably corrected but for the life of me I can't find any combination of security settings, either on Windows or the Synology DSM control settings, that makes a blind bit of difference.

Can anyone offer any clues?

Tony

In any shared Avid environment, with shared projects, the first editor to open a bin will lock it for all others. You can delete the .lck file at OS level (if you have Win/Mac permissions) as a temporary measure to gain access and save any bin but that may cause havoc, especially if another editor is also working on the same bin, at that very time. But by far the best media management practice is to not share projects at all. Duplicate them if necessary, with the same bins being then available to each editor, within their own project. You'd be surprised how many times, in big facilities and on big series, they have been set up in this inadvisable way.

Thanks for your reply Mercer.

This doesn't seem to be the technical issue in my case as there are no ".lck" files present in the project. Has Avid changed that scheme for newer Avid versions? 

Others have posted previously about changing Synology NAS permissions settings to resolve the issue. Is anyone who has achieved this able to describe just what change they made? Nothing we try is working.

In our specific setup I don't think sharing projects is very risky, as we mainly work on small fast-turnaround projects and don't have editors assigned to the same project working in more than one edit suite at once; it balances against the version control problems we have now when its necessary to move projects backwards and forward between suites.

Tony

Are you running Media Composer Ultimate, Media Composer (Standard), or Media Composer perpetual. Standard does not support shared bins/projects.

And are you using Mimiq? You need that when using non-Avid shared storage.

Tony Sutorius:

This doesn't seem to be the technical issue in my case as there are no ".lck" files present in the project. Has Avid changed that scheme for newer Avid versions? 

Not as far as I am aware of. I have 2022.7 and it's still the same. The .lck files are not visble in the project, they are at hidden OS level. I think Job's answer may be key, are you sure you are not on standard MC?

So this one has nothing to do with 3rd party bin-locking

On MC ultimate with a project on an SMB share, Windows based Media Compsoers will do this if the storage appliance allows full windows permissions.

eg.

This can be fixed by configuring the share differently, but you don't usually get access that stuff on an off-the-shelf NAS.

What OP can do is set read and write for everybody on the project directory (explorer > properties > security), but not sure if newly created bins will inherit those settings.

EDIT: Synology could provide provide a checkbox enabling/disabling "nt acl support" (setting to "no" will fix this). Don't hold your breath, though.

Hi guys, thanks for your responses.

I'm using Perpetual, stuck at the 2020.6 version because our renewal expired during COVID lockdown in our country and I missed the window, and am now stuck unless we go to monthly subscription which I am not very excited about doing.

Just an update, with the kind help of a forum meber offline if looks like we have it working. Required a simple (though far from obvious) Windows-end permissions change on the network drive containing the Project files. 

I'll be interested to see how this goes as a live workflow. Will post about it once its battle-tested.

Does anyone have any experience syncing Users between two suites? That would save a lot of drama here too.

Thanks all!

Tony

You can't project share unless you are using an Avid shared storage or 3rd party Avid File System emulation (Mimiq, Terrablock, EditShare, etc.). Proper bin locking automatically acitvates when MC sees a drive with the Avid file storage system.

A simple SMB share of a NAS folder will lead to system conflicts.