All of a sudden I can no longer import and run MP4 in Premiere Elements. Any suggestion?

[Fivebar22223663yqhl]

I have Premiere and Photoshop Elements 2020. For several months I have been loading MP4 videos from an app on my phone. All worked well.

Today when I tried to load a video I got the message "media files were skipped because they are not supported .."

When I try to run one of the previously loaded videos in Organiser I get the message "The selected file cannot be played because your system does not have the required codec".

I have reinstalled the HEIF and HEVC codecs and rebooted several times but no joy.

I have not (AFAIK) changed anything recently to cause this.

Any suggestions???

Thank you.

[Ann Bens]

Maybe the app on your phone changed the output file.

[Fivebar22223663yqhl]

Hi,

Thanks for responding.

The older files that I have previously loaded also are not playable now from the Organiser. So Elements has the same problem with older files already in the catalogue and new ones I am trying to add.

Also, I can load the files onto the PC independently of Elements and get them to play via another prog (eg. PowerDVD) and they play. So the problem seems limited to the Adobe suite?

[John T Smith]

MP4 is a wrapper, what is inside YOUR wrapper - Exactly what is INSIDE the video you are editing?
Report back with the codec details of your file, use the program below
Free program to get file information for PC/Mac http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download
- when you analyze your file in MediaInfo and post a screen shot in the forum, do so in TREE view
- post your information IN your message, not as an attachment that someone would have to download

[Fivebar22223663yqhl]

 I hope I have done this right. 🙂

[John T Smith]

Your file is HEVC with VFR (Variable Frame Rate)

PrE has never done well with VFR (sometimes works, mostly doesn't work so well) so convert to CFR (Constant Frame Rate) and see if that works

Use https://handbrake.fr/ open source transcoder/converter to convert to Constant Frame Rate

[Ann Bens]

Elements might be having trouble reading the 20 fps.

You cannot compare Elements which is a NLE to a media player like Power DVD; two different worlds.

[Bill Sprague · Accepted solution]

"I have reinstalled the HEIF and HEVC codecs and rebooted several times but no joy."

I accidentally did that many months ago and had similar results.   It took a painful session with Adobe customer support to straiten it out.   

There is a long topic here that might get you going:  https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-elements-discussions/faq-what-should-i-do-if-premiere-elemen...

[Fivebar22223663yqhl]

Thank you.

I followed that link. The eventual magic was deleting

• BadDrivers.txt
• CurrentDisplayDriver.txt
• LocalBadDriver.txt

All working again.

Thank you to all who offered help.

[Bill Sprague]

Perfect!  Thank you Fivebar for responding with your success!