Skip to main content
Participant
Dec 22, 2017 11:23 PM UTC
Answered

Cannot apply crossfades between clips.

I have had this problem frequently over the past few months. Trying to drag and drop a crossfade between 2 clips and it will only apply it's self to one clip. I have tried clicking on the clips, selecting both, making sure there is no space between the clips. I end up usually having to do a work around that's not the same by putting them on different tracks and fading them over top of each other. I also have these same problems blending audio clips. I believe I have "tried everything" and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

On a recent pair of clips, I applied the crossfade and it went over the 2 clips but on the former clip the transition was longer than the latter clip and I could not make it longer. At all. It was fixed at the size it was and could not be stretched.

I don't know what to do.

R Neil Haugen
R Neil HaugenCorrect answer
Legend
Jul 10, 2025 8:05 PM UTC

That's not a bug, it's expected behavior. 

 

Cross dissolves require handles ... unused frames from trimming the end of the clip. If you don't have any trimmed frames, it can't be applied. 

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

26 replies

Participant
Jul 10, 2025 7:10 PM UTC

I have what seems to be the same problem. I'm editing and applying a cross dissolve between two long sequences, and get an error code that there isn't enough media on one of the clips to apply the dissolve. It defaults to a dissolve over one clip rather than two. Both clips are long, much longer than the few frames needed for a dissolve. On some editing sessions, the dissolve function works perfectly. Others not so much. This has happened over multiple years, multiple sessions and seems to be a buyg

Translate
R Neil Haugen
R Neil HaugenCorrect answer
Legend
Jul 10, 2025 8:05 PM UTC

That's not a bug, it's expected behavior. 

 

Cross dissolves require handles ... unused frames from trimming the end of the clip. If you don't have any trimmed frames, it can't be applied. 

Translate
Everyone's mileage always varies ...
Participant
Nov 22, 2022 8:18 PM UTC

November 2022 - This is driving me nuts- amd it does seem to be a bug. There is plenty of extra media iat the cut point- plenty of media for crossfades, handles, etc. For context, I've simply cut out an "umm" and brought the two clips together. Premiere refuses to allow a transition or crossfade. DOH! I'm on a Mac running Catalina OS 10.15.7 nand Premiere v 22.6.2

Translate
R Neil Haugen
Legend
Nov 22, 2022 9:05 PM UTC

That would be a royal pita. Wow.

 

Out of curiosity, how many frames cut available for handles, and what's the framerate of the sequence?

 

Neil

Translate
Everyone's mileage always varies ...
Participant
Nov 22, 2022 9:29 PM UTC

It's standard braodcast material- audio 29.97 progressive with audio at 48 kHz. There is literally 20 minutes of footage on either side of the cut point. It's from a 40-minute interview. All I did was cut out some "ums" and "yeahs"- standard stuff, which usually works fine- but not right now. I'm going to try the trash preferences/clean cache, etc.

Translate
El.Robert
Participating Frequently
Jul 29, 2021 3:13 AM UTC

Another bug I am having premiere. As usual, there is no fix for this even 4 years later. This issue will pop up randomly whenever it feels like it, adobe will ignore the issue, and the adobe ghouls will try to invalidate your experience by saying "I'm not having this issue so it's a you problem".

 

Yay.

Translate
R Neil Haugen
Legend
Jul 29, 2021 5:52 AM UTC

You don't say whether you checked to make sure you have handles on the adjacent ends of the two clips. That is the most common problem child for this issue. If you have handles sufficient for the cross dissolve and it's still not applying it, that's definitely a problem somewhere.

 

And I don't know how many times people who've complained about this finally realized ... they didn't actually have handles available. They finally post a screengrab and ... gee ... there's either one or two little triangles on the upper corner of the clips.

 

There have been a few ... but a very few ... where this wasn't the case. If it isn't the case for you, that is definitely useful data, and wrong behavior by PrPro.

 

And by the bye, when troubleshooting, noting whether any particular other machine is having the same issue is useful data point. Not ghoulish at all ... simply useful data. You need to drill down to what specifically is causing something which is happening on only a (relatively) few machines.

 

Neil

Translate
Everyone's mileage always varies ...
Participant
Jul 29, 2021 1:25 PM UTC

Hi Neil - check out the the full discussion if you haven't.  Handles are not the issue in this case which makes it different than similar issues.

 

Best,

Billy

Translate
Participating Frequently
Jul 22, 2021 9:38 PM UTC

Are we talking crossfading audio?  Or cross-dissolving/transitions between video clips?  Because the answers have to do with video, not audio. 

 

I have the issue of not being able to apply a crossfade between audio clips.  And it does not have to do with inadequate handles, as I am trying to cut, say, a 5 second piece out of a sequence, and crossfade a few hundred milliseconds between the resulting audio.  It won't even let me drop it on either of the clips sometimes.  The problem seems like a bug.

Translate
Ann Bens
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jul 22, 2021 10:07 PM UTC

Handles apply to both video and audio.

There is no report of any bug. Works fine on my side.

Milliseconds is 3 digits, audio samples 5 digits.

Just drop the transiton and them adjust. Default frames or seconds.

Translate
Participating Frequently
Jul 23, 2021 3:38 PM UTC

Hi @Ann Bens -

 

The issue I am having is that when I drag the transition over the audio clips.  I made a screen recording which demonstrates the problem.  In the attached video, I demonstrate that there is plenty of handles on each clip audio to make said transition, but nonetheless, I am unable to drag a transition on top of either side of the clips.  This happens whether my Timeline display is set to audio units or frames.  I have also attached a screen cap of my Timeline preferences which includes default audio transitions.  Are you referring to those settings when you say the following?

quote

Milliseconds is 3 digits, audio samples 5 digits.

Just drop the transiton and them adjust. Default frames or seconds.

 

Best,

Billy

Translate
Ann Bens
Community Expert
Community Expert
Dec 22, 2017 11:49 PM UTC
R Neil Haugen
Legend
Dec 22, 2017 11:30 PM UTC

This may be related to whether or not you have adequate 'handles'. Those are unused bits of media at the ends of clips, and are what most of the cross-fades use to blend across the edit point ... if you don't have "extra" media of the clip past the out point of the first clip or before the in point of the second clip, there's nothing for a cross-dissolve to fade in/out of.

Neil

Translate
Everyone's mileage always varies ...