# Can't rename MOV file



## mikecox (Nov 7, 2017)

I have imported some MOV files into Lr. I want to rename them but I get "could not rename" error every time I try


Lightroom version: CC 2015.12 [ 1125239 ]
License: Creative Cloud
Operating system: Windows 8 (*Note: my OS is actually Win10 Pro*


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 7, 2017)

Are you sure the files are not offline?


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## Hal P Anderson (Nov 7, 2017)

You evidently can't do it in the loupe view. Go into grid view, select a movie file and rename it by clicking on the file name in the Metadata panel. Type in your new name and hit enter.


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## mikecox (Nov 8, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Are you sure the files are not offline?


Yes, they are all in the folder they were imported to, along with the RAW image files imported at the same time.  

I finally gave up renaming them in Lr and went to Explorer.  They were right where they were supposed to be and after I renamed all of them I opened Lr, Synced the folder and they all displayed with the new names.  

A lot of very weird things have been happening recently, not only in Lr but in PrE and Ps, things that no one seems to be able to reproduce.  I am beginning to think it's time to re-install my OS!


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## Hal P Anderson (Nov 8, 2017)

mikecox said:


> things that no one seems to be able to reproduce


This thing, at least, I was able to reproduce. LR has the movie file _open_ when you're in loupe view, so the system refuses to rename it. Renaming in grid view works fine, however. I'd classify it as a bug.


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## clee01l (Nov 8, 2017)

Hal P Anderson said:


> This thing, at least, I was able to reproduce. LR has the movie file _open_ when you're in loupe view, so the system refuses to rename it. Renaming in grid view works fine, however. I'd classify it as a bug.


Not really a bug. Just simply how the filesystem works.  If a file is Open for Read (or Write) by any other function or app, you can't change the name of the file.  If the play function is invoked on a movie file, the play function reads a chunk into the buffer, if the file name is changed  before the play function reads the next chunk, the play function can not find the file to read the next chunk — "error".  This is different from a JPEG or other image file as the read operation reads the whole data block and then closes the image file making it available for other operations like renaming.


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## Hal P Anderson (Nov 8, 2017)

Cletus,
If a program lets me try to rename a file that it knows isn't going to be able to be renamed and then fails with an uninformative error message, that's a bug.


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## clee01l (Nov 8, 2017)

Hal P Anderson said:


> Cletus,
> If a program lets me try to rename a file that it knows isn't going to be able to be renamed and then fails with an uninformative error message, that's a bug.


I guess we are at odds as to whether there error message was informative.  "Could not rename"  give me a lot of information.  But then I have programmed apps and needed to trap system generated error messages. What I think happened is that the filesystem returned a standard message the "the file could not be opened to write".   At this point LR does not know why and based upon the Adobe error handling functions will pass that error back to the user.  It does not know whether another LR process has the file open or if another app has the file open and won't close it so that LR can open it to Write.


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