"Can't find file for asset", but the asset is not being used at all

Every time I open the editor I got several “Can’t find file for asset” errors (and I suspect these errors will also occur if I try to package the project).

These assets doesn’t exist anymore, but the most important is: they are NOT referenced anymore. They are stucked in my blueprints like plagues.

There are a lot of posts of people with similar issues, and all of them manage to fix by recreating the assets and/or references… which I think is a bit ridiculous approach for a problem that appear to be very common. Is there a more smart way to fix this problem? Fixing up the redirectors didn’t work. I don’t think there is a magical button to remove this kind of inconsistent data (I wish), but maybe a script or C++ code?

(A more detailed explanation: I had some USoundBase properties in my classes. Since I am migrating to FMOD, I removed that properties from the classes. After that, I tryied to delete the old audio assets and the engine kept insisting that they are being referenced (which they definetely were NOT, unless we are talking about a ghost property here, which doesn’t exist anymore but keeps referencing assets). I forced the deletion, expecting that at least Unreal would be smart enought to finally remove the reference, but unfortunetelly it didn’t happen).

Hi,

You could try to Right click on the content folder and fix up redirectors in folder.
Close the Project and delete the Saved and Intermediate folder.
Also, make sure the referenced files are deleted in the explorer.

If that didn’t solve the problem you might migrate the whole project in a new empty project.
(Usually, this is what helps me to solve issues like this)

Hope that helps.

I have the exact same issue with FMOD and UE4 .
Seems like your issue appears for UI sounds only, like mine,
so this might be something to look at.
Will reply if i find anything useful.

Seems like the solution for my issue was quite simple!
I just had to right click on the UI widget blueprint asset in editor and click save.
I did this for all UI widget blueprints and all references were fixed.
Hope that helps.

Fix up didn’t work. Migrate the whole project… I refuse :P. UE4 SHOULD have a better way to handle this kind of thing without make us to destroy everything and recreate. I will try to delete some folders and build folders though, I didn’t tried that yet because it usually took a few hours, but I think I have no option.

Do you have this errors with FMOD assets? Because I am having the errors with the old assets, the sound cues, which I replaced by the new FMOD events assets.

I think this caused the errors. I have some properties (for example, “ExplosionSoundFX”) in my C++ classes. I replaced these properties with new properties with the same name, but now with the type “UFMODEvent”. UE4 appears to not be smart at all, instead of remove the old values, they are now lost in a limbo inside the blueprints.

Try to recreate the event in FMOD , same name and same folder as appears in ue logs.
Build your banks, load your project in unreal and try again.
I had this problem with FMOD assets like you and its fixed now.

Didn’t work. I also tried to make a silly modification (for example, add a node and delete it), recompile and save. Didn’t work either.

I have been struggling with this issue for ages now. I know I have removed the asset. And I know it was used in the files that are having this issue. I deleted them anyway.
But now there is no way to remove the hidden reference from the blueprint files. Anyways, UE4 has so many referencing issues that makes me lose my mind.
I have to imagine this is a very common issue with people but there seems to be no publicly available fix for it. Recreating the blueprint IS NOT a fix.

So, I was not trying to fix this issue on my project until today, and fortunately I was able to fix.

First, I create a new asset in the same folder and with the same name of the missing asset (SC_UI_Back). Then I opened each asset that was referencing this asset using the reference viewer. (Of course there are no real references, but since the engine insisted that the references exist, at least the reference viewer show these assets). Then I did any silly modification in the assets (I added a “Print String” node, just to immediately delete two seconds later) just to be able to click the “Compile” button and the “Save” button. After repeat the process in all assets that are “referencing” the SC_UI_Back, I was able to delete SC_UI_Back because now the engine magically doesn’t think it is being referenced anymore.

I loose my mind sometimes too. The way UE4 manages data is a mess, I already had dozens of issues related to data. I still have a blueprint which I can’t add a component called “MissileTarget” without crash the engine because one time years ago the blueprint already used a component with this name and now it is stucked there forever.

I posted my fix a few minutos ago, I basically recreate the missing asset and then I made any silly modification in the other assets just to be able to recompile and save. The workaround fixes the issue for me. At least for me there was just a few assets to fix.

I think this is a possible fix for this issue. Still a pain in the butt.

We have to be really carefull and on the watch when MOVING, DELETING or RENAMING ASSETS. It´s a very good habit everytime we do one of these operations to do “FIX UP REDIRECTORS IN FOLDER”.

Almost every asset can be referenced by another and the dependencies need to be fixed when deleting the “raw asset-file”. When we delete an asset (i´m sure this happened a while ago here) there show up a dialogue which gives you the dependencies to other UnrealAssets. If we force delete and don´t do a fix up redirectors, it might happen that the other assets don´t know where to point for the wanted assets (which we deleted or moved).

After a while when we keep working and at some point strange things will happen and assets show up which we already deleted or assets occur at wrong places. When we work in a team and with VersionControl like Perforce or Tortoise this will become a real problem. This was my experience with Asset-operations.

The only thing which helped me and my team was to click Migrate on the Content-Folder and then Unreal will gather all dependencies and show you the assets which will be migrated. There showed up all assets which linked in some way to other, even if they don´t exist. Then you´re able to collect this names and you can create empty assets of the appr. type and name in the folder.

After this you can delete them, and fix the redirectors and the dependencies in other asset which reference to them.

A
REAL
PAIN …

I heard of colleagues which needed to “Recreate” the whole project. Maybe this process can some day be automatized but maybe this is a technical problem.

In my case it was possible to fix it without even re-creating the missing asset. Just add a ‘Print String’ node or something else in the blueprint that the engine thinks is referencing the asset, recompile/save and remove the ‘Print String’ node again (and then recompile/save) of course.

it can be fixed, but in a pretty routine way

to be clear: u have asset that lost some of it’s part. To find it u can r-click on folder - validate assets - look load errors tab. 1th path - asset, 2nd - lost part. So u need to create 2nd path with all folders and add there lost part., u also can just copy there existing asset. Then - restart UE and make validate assets again. So, if there is no errors - that’s good, now just delete copy u created, if it’s unnecessary.