I just bought RM9 - updated from RM7. How do you add media?? It says to drag and drop picture which it doesn’t allow and I can’t find a way to insert through my pc plus all of my links to my pictures are broken except one. I can’t find a “fix Broken link” like they had before. I would not have known it was broken until I published a wall poster and pictures didn’t show up. No red "X’ was showing in the program until I went in the actual media file. I love the new program- very frustrated with the notion of “good luck trying to figure this out”-no ebook or online manual.
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Those basic questions are answered in the RootsMagic Wiki, accessed from the Help option when you click on the vertical ellispsis (3-dots) at the top right of the main screen.
There are several places to find “Fix Broken Links” in RM9. The easiest place is probably by clicking the main Tools tab on the left side of the screen (next to last tab in the list).
But there shouldn’t be any broken links immediately after importing from RM7 to RM9. Did you happen to change the default media folder after you did the import from RM7? If so, that will break all the links.
It’s much better to set the default media folder before importing from RM7 and then not changing it again. Any time you change the default media folder it will break any existing media links and you will have to run the “Fix Broken Links” tool again.
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Also, drag and drop works, you need to be careful about where your cursor drags the media to on the add media screen. When the down arrow is bouncing, you have found the spot and can drop the media file. There will be a text update saying “xx media files added” but you won’t see the media file until you select “Close”
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Thanks for your help. I tried to fix the broken links - I have the same RM9 pictures folder on onedrive, a usb back up and on my desktop - RM9 would not recognize any pictures in that folder. I kept copying the folder to a different location to see if it would recognize the pictures but it just shows an empty folder. What do I do now?
In RM9 settings set the location of the media folder. Then point the fix media tool there. sometimes a jpg or pdf file goes “bad” and you have to duplicate it and replace the bad one.
adding media by dragging avoids the silly file type prompt and accepts both jpgs and pdfs at once.
I looked at my RM7 and they are not broken there-only happened when I transferred it to RM9. They don’t look broken in 9 until I tried to print a report with them and pictures didn’t show in print. That was when I checked the media file and found them all broken but 2 pictures in the media folder - looks fine on the desktop (no red "X’ on the desktop). Desktop/media files are fine in RM7.
RM8 introduced relative links for media. In RM8 and RM9, Media file locations are stored in the RM database relative to the folder locations settings that you define. That’s why Jerry recommended setting up your file folder settings first. If you change the Folder Settings (particularly the Media Folder setting) after importing your file then media links stored in the rm database won’t be accurate and you’ll need to fix broken links with the tool.
Am not sure why your links would break going from 7 ->9 if you are a Windows user (assuming that you didn’t change your RM9 folder settings or actual media file location). However if you are a mac user, just going from 7–>9 could break your media links because the media file locations stored in your RM7 database do not reflect your systems mac directory structure (they reflect the virtual machine folder structure that was created to allow rm7 to run on a mac.) Regardless, you should be able to fix things with the “Fix Broken Links” tool. (I find it easiest to use the ‘folder’ option rather than let the tool scan my entire disk, even if that means multiple iterations of running the tool.).
That’s an interesting challenge that I hadn’t thought of. I’m not a Mac user but I still should have thought of it because I’m well aware that RM7 users on a Mac were running in a virtual Windows environment and RM8 and RM9 users on a Mac are not running in a virtual Windows environment.
But Mac users have been importing from RM7 to RM8 for a long time. Does every such import result in all the media links being broken until they are fixed? Surely not, but maybe I’m wrong. And if doing an RM7 to RM8 import manages to avoid broken media links, how does it work? I truly don’t know.
That gets us to RM9. Surely Mac users upgrading from RM8 to RM9 shouldn’t have any problem with media links. But what about Mac users upgrading from RM7 to RM9? With respect to managing the media links, is that any different than upgrading from RM7 to RM8?
I suspect the same challenge of media files would arise for any RM8 or RM9 users moving their database from Windows to a Mac or vice versa. I guess that in either direction you would just have to move the media files somewhere on the target machine, set an appropriate default media folder on the target machine, and run the Broken Links tool on the target machine. That’s the only thing I could think of that would really work.
The media are stored in a regular mac folder which the RM7 fake winedows bottle accesses. When switching to a real mac app you just have to point it at that folder. RM is very good at fixing media links and handles nested subfolders gracefully. FTM does not and wants to dump all media into one folder.
Yeah, shame on me for not re-testing before commenting. I just re-tested a 7–>9 upgrade and significant progress has been made; the relative links for most of the media were properly converted. I did find a few media files locations that remained in the format of “C:/users/crossover/…", so the process to remap the RM7 VM file path is much better but not 100%. Not a concern though since the “Fix Broken Links” tool resolves the remaining issues.
@DAP if you have used the “Fix Broken Links” tool ‘folder option’ (see image), navigated to the proper desktop folder, and that didn’t work, then perhaps RM does not have file permissions to access the desktop media folder. You can test this by going to System Settings, Security and Privacy, Files and Folders. Scroll down to RootsMagic and see what folders it does have access (2nd image). As a test, copy your media folder under a directory that RM has permission to access. Then rerun the “Fix Broken Links” tool pointed at the test directory.
Thanks for your help . I finally let the program find the missing links and re link them.
You have created an amazing program.
Thanks again,
Debbie
INMHO – at least for windows, the drag-n-drop method usually works the best in my experience.
I rarely use “Existing Media” as the drag-n-drop simply add additional tags (note I have not yet tested with ver 9+)
I have ONE separate Media folder where all my family tree software resided (with the exception of old versions of FTM)
Kevin