Fix old Reaper project paths

If you've moved your old Reaper project to a new computer and have your samples and REAPER Media directory in a new path you may have to manually find all the old samples or other files on your new computer.

This script helps update the old Reaper projects paths without the need to manually having to fix every old project.

Usage

To fix the file paths in your Reaper projects run the script

$ ./fix-reaper-paths.py

or

$ python3 fix-reaper-paths.py

This will go through the directory set in configuration under "default_projects_root_dir" and find each .RPP file recursively under the root directory. For each project the file paths defined inside the project will be changed from old to new of each entry in the configurations paths attribute.

The configuration is in json format and can be found in config.json. It describes the old file path roots (for example C:\Users\Lauri\REAPER Media) and the new file path roots you want to replace it with (for example D:\REAPER Media).

The resulting fixed project file is written to the original path with a suffix of your choosing. By default it is set to -fixed meaning a project file project.RPP will be written to a new file project-fixed.RPP. If you want to overwrite your old projects you can set "fixed_project_suffix": "".

Dependencies

Running the script requires for python3 to be installed on your system PATH. I've only tested the script with Python 3.8.10.

The Reaper version I've used in my old projects was v4.77/x64. I don't know how similar the format is in later versions and if this script is compatible with those newer ones.

Disclaimer

This script was only created for my personal use when I decided to move all my old Reaper projects from an old laptop to my new computer. Most likely you should not use the software as is, but feel free to use it as a starting point if you happen to have the same problem I'm having. Always make a backup of your project root before running.

I have a bunch of projects where I use a VST sampler called Shortcircuit. The settings for each of the VSTs are encoded in base64. If you don't use such a sampler you can in the configuration file set "vsts_to_fix = []". The script handles also changing paths for Shortcircuit.

I've also used a plugin called Sforzando. The VST plays back soundfonts. However my soundfonts are in a different directory in my current computer so the paths need to be changed also for this plugin settings. Luckily I managed to figure out the file format for the plugin. After a header there is xml (specifically ARIA format data) compressed with zlib. This was found after a lucky guess. Now after some changes the script manages to change paths for Sforzando too!

The script was not coded with releasing it in mind but maybe it will be helpful for someone out there.