What I'd do is with VMS open take a screen image using Windows Snipping Tool of the Media or Explorer pane containing the files. Then with VMS closed use this as a reference to rename the files in their folder(s). Using a second monitor helps in such situations.

Thanks for the reply, yes it's MS 17 Platinum - my apologies.

I tried that already and just tried again and doesn't resolve the issue. Also the checkbox for allowing media to show as offline is set, so I have tried renaming the files outside of MS when MS is not focused, but get the same windows error saying it is in use. ideally I can't rename all files outside and re-reference them as I did a trial run of this and screwed up with the similar naming.

The closest I have so far is to open audio objects as a copy in new editor, it then takes the 'take' name, which allows me to edit audio objects in my DAW.

Any other suggestions to actually fix the issue would be helpful so I can rename inside MS would be apreciated.

Thanks

Since I have some media named the same in subfolders, I made the mistake of pressing 'Yes' to allow MS to find the remaining files as I located the first one. It re-selected files from the top level folder. Thankfully, I had a backup.

I tried this exercise manually, but for some reason, I screwed up even when copying and pasting, I was no longer confident that I renamed all the right files.

the naming is like this:

2-2 - 000 - 000 - 000.wav
2-2 - 000 - 000.wav
2-2 - 000.wav
2-2.wav
2-1 - 000 - 000 - 000.wav
2-1 - 000 - 000.wav
2-1 - 000.wav
2-1.wav
1-0 - 001.mp4
1-0 - 002.mp4
1-0 - 003.mp4

etc..

I've just tried renaming one file within VMS without any problems. I did it both in the Explorer pane and Project Media pane. My file was 'mts'. What are yours?

Wav and mp4 obviously from your reply. It's my bedtime but I'll play around more tomorrow.

That's very kind of you. I can make send a sample file

Thanks for file. No problem with it. Right clicking in both VMS Explorer pane and Project Media pane and selecting Rename works perfectly. It's different on timeline as there's no right click rename option. Instead you can only rename it as a Take which of course doesn't rename the original file. So it appears to be a problem unique to your pc.

1 - Right click on a file and in its Properties General tab tell us which plug-in is being used

2 - Also where are your files located? Externally, internal hard drive? As an experiment try copying a couple to a different folder preferably without a long file path. Drag them into a new VMS project and see if you can rename them.

That is very strange, that I tried opening a new project and importing the media and I could rename.

So, I selected all timeline entries and copied them into a new project and started renaming all of the files. I got about half way and then boom, the same message came back. I managed to skip a few and some renamed whilst others not, but since I managed to get most way through, I made a note of the file, closed down MS and re-selected the file one by one.

I have a second machine in azure running Movie Studio and this was also having issues renaming. I also tried saving the project to a new location with the copy media option.

At first, I thought it was because my project files were in OneDrive, but I moved the project with the copy media option and still couldn’t rename.

So my theory is that it has something to do with the project and after copying the timeline from the project it allows you to rename.

For video, plugin is so4compoundplug.dll. For audio it is fhgaacplug2.dll.

I have found a solution now, but thanks for your help. If you have any further ideas, be sure to let me know!