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OliverFelixDear
Participant
June 16, 2023
Answered

Productions is always creating 'Recovered Clips' bin with duplicate media

  • June 16, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 5421 views

Hi all, I'm an assistant editor currently working on a feature doco and we have chosen to use Premiere Productions. Within the production, there are many projects but I'll simplify it by saying there is a Media project that contains the source clips, and a Sequences project that should contain sequences of all the media on a timeline. The Media project also contains the original copy of these sequences - and I am copy pasting this sequence over to the Sequences Project. When doing this, I can go into one of these sequences in the Sequences project, righ click reveal file in project - and it will take me back to the Media project as intended. However, the moment I close the Sequences Project and re-open it, a new bin named 'Recovered Clips' is filled with random clips from the sequences, and the copied sequences no longer point to the clips in the original Media Project, but to this terrible new Recovered Clips bin. Whats going on and how can I fix this?

 

Some other information:

-We're using Merged Clips. I know, I know, its advised that people dont use Merged Clips anymore and should use Multi-Cam clips, but we've gone down this path now and its too late to go back with the amount of logging, and assembling thats occured. The clips that appear in the Recovered Clips bin are always Merged Clips as far as I can tell (which is to say, a majority of our media). BUT there are many times that sequences filled with Merged Clips pulled into the Sequences Project never create Recovered Clips. 

 

-Not all clips in a sequence appear in the Recovered Clips bin, and it seems to be differant everytime. I did several tests of dragging the same sequence with a full day of media from the Media Project to the Sequences Project - then closing and reopening the project to see what clips appeared in the Recovered Clips bin that is created upon reopening the project. Always seems to be differant clips. I also noticed that it seems the longer I leave the Sequences project closed, the more Recovered Clips appear in the bin.

 

-Our setup is 3 iMac's connected to a shared network. The media and project files are all stored on a raid system storage that we are all connected to. 

 

-Initially, we were all on individual Project files that I have since collated into one Production. I did experience some problems with Recovered Clips as well during the import process, but it was minimal and I just replaced a few clips within the timeline. So perhaps there is some other issue inherant with the media not associated with us being in a Production.

 

Any support or suggestions on what may be causing the issue is highly appreciated! I'm not really sure how to proceed from here as we cant continuously be creating Recovered clips that arent associated with the original media.

    Correct answer R Neil Haugen

    And to check ... the files whether stills or video are on the same drive and folder tree? Probably different subfolders?

    4 replies

    M
    Mary31437702tyko
    Participant
    October 4, 2024

    I was having this same issue and it was driving me crazy, but finally figured out a workaround. 

    Context: I'm working in Productions and have all of my media in a source media project. I have a separate project for dailies using media from the media project, and Premiere is constantly making recovered clips bins when I open my dailies project. Sometimes it's just one or two clips, sometimes it's been upward of 1000. Unlike OP and other people I've seen with this issue online, I am not using any merged clips or multicam sequences, and I haven't moved any of my projects around or brought them into productions from past projects. 

    Solution: After much trial and error, I finally figured out that if I move the original source media from my media project into the dailies project where the recovered clips have generated, the recovered clips will immediately disappear. Then I'm free to move the source media back to the original media project. You have to be sure to MOVE the media and not just copy it or it won't work. Sometimes when I reopen my dailies project later it will create more recovered clips, but it's never the same number of clips and it doesn't happen every time I save and reopen the project. Seems like it must just be a bug and while it's annoying that it still happens, I just repeat this process quickly now and move on. 

     

    Hope this helps someone!!

      jacekk
      jacekk
      Participating Frequently
      October 4, 2024

      Thanks, @Mary31437702tyko 
      How do you mean 'move' and not 'copy', please?
      Do you mean, in the Production, drag the original source folder from the source project into the working project, then once the recovered clips have disappeared, drag/move the folder back? Is that it?

      M
      Mary31437702tyko
      Participant
      October 5, 2024

      Yep! Open the two projects in panels side by side and drag the media from the original source media project into wherever the recovered clips are. The recovered clips should disappear, and then you can drag them back to the original media project 

        mattchristensen
        Community Manager
        mattchristensenCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        June 19, 2023

        @OliverFelixDear Thank you for the detailed description of your setup and issue. More than likely this is happening because of how the separate projects were combined into a Production. If you're going to take an existing set of projects into a production, it's important that you first combine everything into a single project. Get everything organized, duplicates removed, etc, in that single project, and then break it apart into a production.

         

        If instead you create a production and add separate projects, you could end up in a state like you describe. The Recovered Clips bin is Premiere Pro's way of catching clips that have lost track of which project they came from. So how to proceed from here depends on which of the following steps makes the most sense for your project. I would suggest doing one of these:

         

        1. Gather everything into a single project in the production. All sequences, source clips, etc, all in one project (you can keep the bin organizations). Then run Edit > Consolidate Duplicates to catch any duplicates. Put the other (now empty) projects in the trash. Save the project, then break apart the production again, making new projects and moving clips and sequences to their appropriate projects. Keep all the projects open as you do this, saving often. When it's all done, you shouldn't see Recovered clips appearing anymore.

         

        2. As Recovered clips appear, move them to their appropriate media projects. If, when you do that, you find what look like duplicates in the media project (the "original" and "recovered"), try running Edit > Consolidate Duplicates. It may or may not work, depending on many factors I won't go into. If they don't consolidate, you'll just have to live with having two copies of the clip in your source project. This is because they came from separate original projects, and some part of their metadata is different (markers, other metadata, etc), so Premiere Pro doesn't see them as duplicates which can be consolidated.

         

        I hope that helps!

        Matt

          R Neil Haugen
          R Neil Haugen
          Legend
          June 19, 2023

          Thanks Matt! That actually answered some of my wondering also.

           

          Neil

          Everyone's mileage always varies ...
          Remote Index
          Remote Index
          Inspiring
          June 17, 2023

          Hello OliverFelixDear,

           

          This all sounds annoying.

           

          One question I have to add to the detailed information you have provided: If you allow PPro to create the recovered clips on any give sequence (ie. drag a sequence to "Sequences" project, close and re-open) ... what happens if you then take the newly generated "recovered" clips and drag them out of the "Sequences" project and into the "Media" project. If you do this and save and close/quit and then re-open, does PPro regenerate even more additional recovered clips in the "Sequences" project?

           

          I have not had issues to the extent that you are describing, but when I have had new "recovered clips" generated on sequences, it usually only happens on import of a sequence. In these cases, sometimes I will simply file away the duplicate clips in the appropriate project.

           

          R.

           

          P.S. one side question: when you say "I know, its advised that people dont use Merged Clips anymore and should use Multi-Cam clips" - who advised you this? where did you hear this?

            R Neil Haugen
            R Neil Haugen
            Legend
            June 17, 2023

            Merged clips was designed as a quick & dirty on-sequence process to align video/audio. It has numerous limitations, like can't be used in XML/EDL/AAF workflows, you can't use the 'top & tail" Q and W shortcuts ... and others.

             

            The "normal" means of joining separate audio to video is the Multicam process. Which ... I think should have been called something else if that was the general purpose, but ah well.

             

            It's gone into in some good and useful detail in this most excellent pdf on general use of Premiere.

             

            Adobe Long-form and Episodic Best Practices Guide 


            Jarle’s blog expansion of the pdf Multicam section: Premiere Pro Multicam

             

             

            Neil

            Everyone's mileage always varies ...
            Remote Index
            Remote Index
            Inspiring
            June 17, 2023

            Hello R Neil Haugen,

             

            A better resource on the limitations of Merged Clips is the online user guide - it's more comprehensive than the Best Practices Guide you linked to (though it's incomplete in that it does not list a prohibition on using proxies, and the specific problem with AAF, both of which are listed in the Best Practices Guide).

            Nonetheless I am interested to hear the source of information for the original poster.

             

            R.

            R Neil Haugen
            R Neil Haugen
            Legend
            June 16, 2023

            @mattchristensen might be able to help on this ...

             

            Neil

            Everyone's mileage always varies ...
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