fixing broken library links?

As my projects grow I sometimes need to reorg my assets. Easiest way to do that is drag them around in folder windows (in the OS, in my case, Windows).

But when I open up a file with a missing link, I get a error message, that’s it. If I try to fix the library link text in the outliner (ctrl-click), then save the file and reopen, the link is gone. I have to re-link from scratch. It seems like there is some kind of automatic cleanup going on that throws out broken links and all the information in the blend file associated with it, even if I correct it and save. (setting fake-user flag in the datablock view makes no difference)

Is there any hope for me? (sob) The state of the linking management stills seems somewhat primitive and I never really seem to hear about ‘exciting’ developments in this area :slight_smile:

I would try managing link by picking on folder instead. See what happens.

ridix: I don’t understand ‘picking on folder’

I regularly get the same problem when Blender crashes. But it loses everything. I’m very tired of it. Only way is to manually relink every image… several time a day.

BlenderAid was pointed out as a solution. It can detect broken links and will automatically present all the copies available in the project database for you to relink to. Kind of tricky to install but handy otherwise.