I’ve seen similar questions asked, but never found a concrete answer. (Unless I have overlooked something)
I asked this last night, and didn’t see my question posted, so I’m having to ask again.
When I move files in my project (“Move Here”) from one folder to another, the file get moved within the editor, and disappear in their current folder, but if you actually navigate to the project folder in Windows Explorer, you’ll see a copied asset, one that exists in the old location, and one that exists in the new location. Why? Is this suppose to work this way? I’m using 4.7.2, and have seen this happen in every version since last March.
This causes my project folder to swell with duplicate files, if I don’t manually go in and delete the old files.
What you are seeing is redirectors, which is how the engine code handles content that has been moved. Take a look at this Forum post for how to handle cleaning those up.
Basically what you need to do is move all of the file/folders in the editor that you need moved.
Then in the Content Browser window, right-click on the old folder and choose ‘Fix Up Redirectors in Folder’. Once it finishes, save and then delete the folder.
Just a warning, I would create a backup copy of your project before doing in major shuffling of assets.
If it doesn’t fix them, then the next way is to do it by force. If it’s only a few files it shouldn’t be that painful though. Once again, just make sure you backup.
Delete the 1 kb redirector files. This will likely break the references to those assets. Any blueprint, material, etc. that was using them will need to be opened and that reference fixed.
Let me know if it works for you.
Just a side note. When it comes to file structures and naming conventions, I also had to learn the hard way. This is why before work on a game begins there are usually long meetings dedicated to planning the file structure and making sure that everyone is on the same page. Mistakes can be extremely hard or even impossible to fix if not caught in time.
Generally that is what I have done in the past. And it does break references, which means I just have to go back in and redirect those files. I try to keep incremental backups of the project also. For naming conventions, I try to follow through with the convention that is mentioned on this site. It just ends up being a pain when things don’t work automatically. Thank you.
