Duplicate file name issue

[Kurgen]

Hi, and thanks for welcoming me to this forum. :)

First off, I'm a relatively new Sony user, having switched from over 10 years on Canon cameras to my current A7iii in spring this year, I'm loving the camera, faults and all, however, I've hit a real stinker of a problem. I recently hit the "file number 9999" issue, where the camera (or rather Play Memories) decides to reset the filename counter back to 0001. This was a bit of a pain at first, but now I've run into a bit of a brick wall. I'm trying to import some recent files into Lightroom, and I've now hit a range of file numbers that I've already imported on my first 0001 to 9999 cycle, and Lightroom will not allow me to import these recent but identically named files. Understandably so. I can't quite believe that there is this set-in-stone "rule" with Sony files that does not allow the filename to exceed 9999, but that's what I've read in my admittedly limited searches so far, and the settings on the camera and in the software certainly don't make any solution obvious. Surely I've missed something, and there's an easy way around this, short of renaming every single file from 9999 onwards?

Thanks in advance...

[LiveShots]

Not sure about PC’s but with a Mac there is a way to rename multiple files at once, sort the files by date/time, then select all the duplicates (they should be at the end), then select Rename to change the prefix of the selected files to something else.

[VTC]

Don't know why people are squeamish about renaming their files.

So what happens if every number IS different? You still have a bunch of vague numbers without any idea of what the content is without looking at it. I rename mine with a number first then the context of what was taken, in this case a Joe Ely performance. Any clip in the timeline has a name, not a number. Helpful when different clips are mixed in. I can differentiate the Joe Ely clips from the Marcia Ball clips. Not so easy if it's a bunch of numbers. Searching the drives is faster, too.

I use the free app NameChanger on Mac. If you're on Windows you're on your own.

 

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[Kurgen]

I do have a filename changer for Windows, I've used it for years for other purposes, I just wondered if I'd missed something simple in getting either the camera or Play Memories to behave logically in continuing after 9999. I guess not. Just seems like a ridiculous limitation, as I've had filename sequences up to many hundreds of thousands in my Canon days. It feels like I'm back in the days of DOS and its 8 character limit, only even more limited.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Can understand your frustration.

One thing that you can do in the camera, to avoid import problems, is to change the first three characters (usually DSC) of the filenames.

You may say, "yes, I know, but I shouldn't have to." but hey, it's only every ten thousand files. Nearly.

[Kurgen]

That's a good point Thad, I had used my initials as the prefix, but yeah, I'm certainly willing to "sacrifice" that, even if I have to update it every 10000 files, it's a lot less hassle than having to rename every single batch of imports. Thanks.

[pmk]

You could try starting a new catalog in LR. Bit of a pain though having to manage multiple catalogs.