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Media Cache

The Media Cache stores managed media used internally by the application. Users should not access or delete files in this folder directly.



Unreferenced Media Clean Up

Unreferenced media will automatically be removed from the Media Cache on a regular basis with the auto-save process or on startup/exit of the application.

The clean up process can be done explicitly by using the option Flush Purgeable Media in the preferences.



Media Pre-Allocation

By default, disk space for video files is allocated on-the-fly as the files are rendered or written. However, concurrent I/O operations from multiple clients or background processes can lead to clip fragmentation and decreased playback performance, especially on spinning disk storage.

To address this issue, Stone and Wire, Flame's optimized I/O system, provides media file pre-allocation mechanisms. These mechanisms reserve the necessary disk space before writing the media files, ensuring better contiguity and improved playback performance. The available pre-allocation strategies are:

  • FALLOCATE: Files are pre-allocated and zeroed out during allocation. On most file systems, this operation is as expensive as writing the files.

  • RESERVE: Disk space is reserved but not written, leaving the apparent file size at 0. The apparent size of the frame will remain 0. This operation is typically much faster than FALLOCATE but is supported only on selected file systems, such as XFS.

  • F_PREALLOCATE: Similar to RESERVE, but supported on different file systems such as HFS/HFS Plus.

  • BEST: Automatically selects the best pre-allocation strategy for the current project's media folder file system.

  • NONE: No pre-allocation is performed. Disk space is allocated as frames are written.

Note: Pre-allocation is not performed for compressed media (such as JPEG) because the size of a compressed file cannot be determined in advance. In such cases, the pre-allocation strategy is ignored.

By default, pre-allocation is disabled (NONE). To enable it, modify the Preallocation parameter in /opt/Autodesk/sw/cfg/stone+wire.cfg under the [StandardFSMediaOptions] section. Note that the Preallocation parameter under the [Partition#] sections only applies to storage volumes used by versions prior to 2026.



Measuring File System Performance with sw_io_perf_tool

Stone and Wire includes a command-line tool, sw_io_perf_tool, to measure file system performance. This tool simulates I/O requests (audio and/or video) issued by Flame Family products and reports throughput and maximum latency for the requested operations. Use this tool to evaluate the read and write performance of your project's media cache.



Usage Example

To display a list of available options:

/opt/Autodesk/sw/tools/sw_io_perf_tool -h

To test the read performance of the media cache for project MyProject at UHDTV resolution (3840x2160) with 16-bit floating-point depth and no frame rate throttling:

/opt/Autodesk/sw/tools/sw_io_perf_tool -m /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/media -v 3840,2160 -d 16fp -Z

Alternatively, allocate temporary test media in the project itself:

/opt/Autodesk/sw/tools/sw_io_perf_tool -u $(readlink /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/.uuid) -v 3840,2160 -d 16fp -Z

This tool can be run while other operations are ongoing to simulate real-world conditions. The media used by sw_io_perf_tool is allocated and freed automatically.



Checking Disk Usage

To check if a project's media cache is full, use the df -h command.

Linux:

$ df -h /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/media
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc        7.3T  4.4T  3.0T  60% /mnt/8TB_STORAGE
  • Size: Total size of the file system.
  • Used: Amount of space currently used.
  • Avail: Available free space.
  • Use%: Percentage of space used.

macOS:

$ df -h /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/media
Filesystem      Size    Used   Avail Capacity iused ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s2   3.6Ti   898Gi   2.7Ti    25%    3.7M   29G    0%   /System/Volumes/Data
  • Size: Total size of the file system.
  • Used: Amount of space currently used.
  • Avail: Available free space.
  • Capacity: Percentage of space used.
  • iused: Number of inodes used.
  • ifree: Number of free inodes.
  • %iused: Percentage of inodes used.

To see the storage consumed by your project's media cache, use the du -hs command:

$ du -hs /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/media
219G    /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/media
  • The output shows the total size of the specified folder (219G in this example).


Moving the Media Cache

You may need to move the Media Cache for various reasons, such as insufficient storage capacity, hardware upgrades, or making room for another project. Follow these instructions to move the Media Cache for a single project or all projects under a common mount point.



Moving One Project Media Cache at a Time

These steps guide you through moving the Media Cache of a single project to a new location.

  1. Ensure the project is not in use

    Make sure the affected project is not in use by any application or background job.

  2. Determine the current Media Cache location

    Use the realpath command to find the current Media Cache location:

     $ realpath /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/media
 /mnt/SSD/MyProject/efa426b-3654-4e1a-9f9e-4e144e557ee4

  3. Copy the Media Cache to the new location

    Use the cp -pR command to copy the folder to the desired location. This command will preserve file attributes:

     $ cd /mnt/SSD/MyProject
 $ cp -pR efa426b-3654-4e1a-9f9e-4e144e557ee4 /mnt/NVME/MyProject/

    Verify the folder exists in the new location:

     $ ls -ld /mnt/NVME/MyProject/efa426b-3654-4e1a-9f9e-4e144e557ee4
 drwxrwsrwx 3 flame artists 15 Mar  20 18:12 /mnt/NVME/MyProject/efa426b-3654-4e1a-9f9e-4e144e557ee4

  4. Update the symbolic link

    Modify the symbolic link in the project home folder to point to the new location:

     $ cd /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject
 $ ln -sfn /mnt/NVME/MyProject/efa426b-3654-4e1a-9f9e-4e144e557ee4 media

    Validate the symbolic link points to the new location:

     $ realpath /var/opt/Autodesk/flame/projects/MyProject/media
 /mnt/NVME/MyProject/efa426b-3654-4e1a-9f9e-4e144e557ee4

  5. Verify the new location in the application

    Start the application, enter the Manage window, and confirm the new Media Cache location.

  6. Delete the original folder

    After verifying the copy, delete the original folder:

     $ cd /mnt/SSD/MyProject/
 $ rm -Rf efa426b-3654-4e1a-9f9e-4e144e557ee4


Moving All Project Media Caches Under a Common Mount Point

These steps guide you through replacing a storage volume used exclusively for Media Caches. Note: The commands below are approximations and will need to be adapted to your platform and configuration.

  1. Ensure no applications are using the Media Cache

    Make sure no application or background task is using a project with its Media Cache on the volume to be moved.

  2. Create a temporary mountpoint

    Create a new temporary mount point for the original volume:

     $ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/old_volume

  3. Unmount the original volume and remount it

    Unmount the original volume and remount it on the new mount point:

     $ sudo umount /mnt/media_caches
 $ sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1 /mnt/old_volume

  4. Mount the new volume

    Mount the new volume on the original mount point:

     $ sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1 /mnt/media_caches

  5. Copy data to the new volume

    Use the rsync command to copy the material from the original to the new volume. This command will preserve file attributes and hard links:

     $ sudo rsync -aH --progress /mnt/old_volume/ /mnt/media_caches

  6. Remove the temporary mount point

    Unmount the original volume and eliminate the temporary mount point:

     $ sudo umount /mnt/old_volume
 $ sudo rmdir /mnt/old_volume

  7. Verify access and clean up

    After verifying that each project has access to its Media Cache, you can safely delete the data on the old storage.



Relocating The Cache And Renders Database

Flame Family products use a PostgreSQL database to manage Cache and Renders metadata (see PostgreSQL Database for more details).

There might be a need to relocate the database of a given host, eg. for maintenance or upgrade. Administrator privilege is required.

Warning: Make sure the application is not running and that no remote stations are using the database.

  1. Log on the host on which the database is located and type the following command to perform a snapshot of the database, replacing <snapshot location> with your desired location:

    sudo -u flame_db -i /opt/Autodesk/pgsql-17/bin/pg_dumpall | zstdmt -o /<snapshot location>/flame.db.zst

  2. When the snapshot is complete, log on to the host on which you want to restore the database snapshot and copy the database snapshot on that host. If you have created the database snapshot on a shared location, skip this step.

    scp Source_Server:/<snaphot location>/flame.db.zst /<snapshot location>

  3. Restore the database backup on the destination host:

    zstdcat /<snapshot location>/flame.db.zst | sudo -u flame_db -i /opt/Autodesk/pgsql-17/bin/psql -X -d flame


Clean Up

Follow these steps to delete the source content:

Warning: Before deleting the original database, a complete backup should be performed.

  1. Delete the database snapshot on the source host:

    rm /<snapshot location>/flame.db.zst

  2. Delete the database snapshot on the destination host

    rm /<snapshot location>/flame.db.zst

  3. Destroy the database on the source host

    sudo -u flame_db -i /opt/Autodesk/bin/igniter --destroy


Restoring Project Media Cache Database Backups

When the application is started, a backup of the database subset for the currently selected project is done automatically, the same way as for the Catalog. In case of disaster recovery, it is possible to restore this backup of the project's cache metadata.

Important: As stated above, these backup files contain metadata related to a single project; they are not a backup of the whole database, and they do not contain media, setups or other ancillary project data.
Important: Before restoring a project, a valid database must already exist. Refer to Database Creation if you need to create a new database.
Warning: Before restoring a project, make sure the application is not running and that no remote stations are using the database.

Administrators are able to restore backups using the following commands:



Rocky Linux / Trust Authentication mode

zstd -cd /<project home>/catalog_AUTO_BACKUP/<project name>/backup.000/<project name>.sql.zst | /opt/Autodesk/pgsql-17/bin/psql -d flame -U u:flame_user


Rocky Linux / Certificate Authentication mode

zstd -cd /<project home>/catalog_AUTO_BACKUP/<project name>/backup.000/<project name>.sql.zst | /opt/Autodesk/pgsql-17/bin/psql -d flame


macOS / Trust Authentication mode

/opt/Autodesk/lib64/zstd -cd /<project home>/catalog_AUTO_BACKUP/<project name>/backup.000/<project name>.sql.zst | /opt/Autodesk/pgsql-17/bin/psql -d flame -U u:flame_user


macOS / Certificate Authentication mode

/opt/Autodesk/lib64/zstd -cd /<project home>/catalog_AUTO_BACKUP/<project name>/backup.000/<project name>.sql.zst | /opt/Autodesk/pgsql-17/bin/psql -d flame

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