Watch Folder_Wait for File Copy to complete

[erik]

Hi!

I have a workflow in which a Watch Folder will pick up any video file and pass it on to the encoder. These video files already exist on my drive and will be copied to the watch folder if transcoding is desired.

Some video files are pretty large and take time to fully copy to the watch folder. It seems that Windows calculates and reserves the file size up front. The file size is not growing, like when you're exporting a video file from Adobe Premiere or Avid Mediacomposer, but the final file size is displayed immediately. This results in FFAStrans picking up the file too early and a failed job.

Is there a way to wait for a completed file copy before picking up the file? Maybe a setting I don't know about or a Command Line solution?

Thanks in advance!

Erik

[momocampo]

Hello Erik and welcome to the forum,
I think the option that you're looking for is "check growing file", inside Monitor folder node. Choose "once".
Hope it helps

Cheers.

Benjamin

[Ghtais]

Hi Erik

this is a strange problem, I'am using many workflow like that (copy file in a watch folder for encoding) and I have no issue even with big file (more than 50 Go)
As momocampo said, check growing file and once

bye

[erik]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your responses!

Unfortunately that doesn't work here. As you can see in my screenshot, I checked "check growing files" and selected "once".
These were already my settings so the problem still occurs.

Is there a command line solution which will check if a copy is completed?

Thanks again!

Erik

[momocampo]

Hello Erik,

Weird, because this is the good option in theory.
Anyway, you can to adjust your "sleep timer" (workflow properties and general) and set to several minutes for example.
Tell us if it can help.

Benjamin

[emcodem]

Hey erik,

your probelm is strange, it should actually work without problems.
As it does not work, the workaround might not work as well, but if you want to do it with batch, then try something like that:

Code: Select all

@echo off
:filenotready
echo Checking file readiness
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 4 > nul
if not exist %1 GOTO end
copy /b %1 +,,
echo %errorlevel%
if /i "%errorlevel%" NEQ "0" GOTO :filenotready
:end

Save this to a batch file e.g. c:\temp\test.bat and in your cmd executor do something like that:

Code: Select all

cmd /C ""c:\temp\test.bat" "%s_source%""

[dklooker]

Hi,

This is quite a late reply, but we did some additional testing. And when we copy a file to a watchfolder on a server on the computer where ffastrans is running the growing file option is working. But when we do this on a different workstation where ffastrans is not running then the problem occurs that a file is picked up while still being copied and then it fails.

We are not yet on the latest version. But is this as designed or do I need to chenge something in my configuration?

[emcodem]

Hey @dklooker

the checks before a job is being started are:
1) if you enabled check growing, the filesize will be considered and a job will only start if the size did not change for at least 2 iterations (time according to your wf setting sleep time)
2) independent of your settings, it checks if the file can be opened for reading before a job is started

If you copy files into the watchfolder using windows copy, the "check growing" will actually not be of use because windows copy reserves the full space for the file from the start of copy, so the size will never change. But windows copy will lock the currently written file so it cannot be opened for reading.

In your case, obviously, we are able to read from the file while it is being copied. So, IF you use windows explorer copy, there must be something about the storage that you are using that allows to open the file while it is being copied.

Did you try the batch that i posted here? There is a chance that it works for you because the batch tries to open the file for writing instead of reading which might be the solution to your issue.

If you let us know that the batch works for you, we might want to internally discuss an option for "write check" option in the monitor instead of "read check only".

[dklooker]

Great! I am checking it out. And the batch command is starting. However after file copy is done I still get the error access is denied from the log. I also checked if s_source has the right variable, and that is the case.

I will check on a different network drive if the results are the same.

I attached a printscreen of the batch file. This is on a different network drive but with the same error.

[emcodem]

OK that looks good. The batch should run and give this message until the file is ready. As soon as the file is ready, the batch will end.

If that works, you can easily hook the batch into your workflow and it will wait at this point until the stuff is finished.