Can anyone explain why audio channels become unsynced?

[Blade283694466fq1]

I am on 25.1. This is obnoxious. For some reason audio I have manually synced, comes unsynced from eachother seemingly randomly. I have manually fixed the entire video like 5 times. Both audio tracks are lined up with the end of each clip and that ever changes. The only thing that changes is I move the video track and two audio tracks at the same time. Then I'll zoom all the way in and look at the wave form and it will not be where I adjusted it. I've never encountered this problem before and I am now dreading doing any kind of audio adjustments until right before the final render. Is this a known problem? This is my first project on Premiere Pro 25. 

Linking the channels is not an option as they require seperate effects. 

[Rach McIntire]

Hi @Blade283694466fq1,

Thanks for reaching out.  What format are our video files?  Are you on Windows or Mac?  If you have time, please give the team a few more details. See: How do I write a bug report?  I hope we can help you shortly

[Blade283694466fq1]

Hey Rach yeah this seems a pretty significant bug. I figured out when it's happening and that is, any time they are moved while linked or snapping to a video/audio track. I also never encountered this problem on Premiere 24. 

I'm on Windows, Premiere Pro 25.1. I'm not gonna list my specs, that's not the problem. The audio tracks are not from my camera, but from seperate devices. Zoom H4 32 bit wav and 7RYMS 32 Bit wav. Recording in Canon CLOG3 MP4. It has happened on 3 seperate projects so far. I know the video's audio and these devices are recording in different time units. 

I think I know the issue. Might be with my framerate not matching up with audio time units. My framerate is 29.97 and when I zoom all the way in to the smallest time unit, I cannot slide them in line with the video frame. This is a pretty damning problem on Adobe's end, I thought audio time units would be even more fine tuned than this. Even when I have the video and audio tracks linked, and not aligned (just aligned to where I want) and move them at the same time, it will still shift the audio track. I thought that would prevent the issue but it does not. 

[Blade283694466fq1]

Update: Ok I have found more people complaining about this over the last two years, so it's not just me or my equipment. I really don't appreciate how this wasn't identified immediately by you with my description. It is a known problem with the only work around to always use multicam or nesting, or so I read. I am about to test nesting to see if that prevents the issue. The biggest problem I have with Adobe on this issue is, usually Premier indicates when audio has been moved out of sync, with red time signature tags, but when moving attached clips and it moves audio out of sync, it makes no indication. It acts like nothing is wrong. Am I out of line in thinking this is intentional on your part Adobe? In order to conceal a known problem by gas lighting us into thinking it's our fault the audio is out of sync. I am very annoyed, and it really makes sense how several of my projects in the past have had surprising audio issues, because one of the last things I have done when finished editing is slide everything to the very front of the timeline, but little did I know, by doing that all my audio unsyncs. This is BS Adobe, fix it or charge less. 

[Blade283694466fq1]

UPDATE: Nesting does work. But you have to do all you syncing adjustments again within the nest, then replace the original tracks with the nested file. FUN!

[Blade283694466fq1]

AND ANOTHER THING! If you accidentally pull a clip you already synced out of place and CTRL+Z to send it back, the audio will not go back to where you synced it before. So no mistakes everybody. 

[Rach McIntire]

Hi @Blade283694466fq1,

Thanks for those extra details.  I'm glad you've found a workaround.  I'm sorry you are frustrated by the process.  I asked for your specs because there are currently a few known issues it could be, but without knowing what type of machine you're on, I can't say if that's part of the problem or not.  How are you manually syncing the audio?  Out of curiosity, why are you moving everything down at the end?  Have you tried updating to the 25.2 Beta?  Are you able to send a screen recording of the issue?  We can't fix problems we can't reproduce, so the more info, the better. 

Sorry for the frustration.  I hope we can help you soon.

[Blade283694466fq1]

CPU: Ryzen 7700X
GPU: Nvidia 4060ti 16gb
RAM: 64 GB DDR5 TFORCE DELTA 
Storage: Crucial P3 Plus 4TB

I am manually syncing the audio by aligning the wave forms of the camera recording and the 2nd audio source. The synchronize function Premiere offers is bad with different audio timecodes, and requires additional rate strecthing alignment if going that route. Also multiple clips makes using that fuction pointless. 

I tend to move everything to the beginning at the end so I can shave off the beginning or add an intro easier. 

I have not tried updating to 25.2. I'd rather not use a beta version or upgrade when I'm in the middle of projects.

It's very simple to reproduce. I just did it. A recording isn't necessary, but I guess I could if you can't reproduce this simple way. Use 1 video track and 2 audio, 1 from camera and another from external device. Work in "Show audio time units." Zoom in and align the wave forms. Then grab the video and audio tracks and just move them around the timeline over and over. Each time it's moved the audio will get more and more off. Move it like 10 times in a row and the changes are very apparent. 

The shifting from the adjustments on the timeline are so subtle that's it's not easy to tell, unless a lot fo shifting is happening early in the timeline. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is happening to a lot of people, but going unnoticed, or making people think it's their mistake. 

Like I said before. Premiere will also shift the solo audio track when simply snapping it to the end of the video track. Without saying it did, which is the biggest issue. 

So I just finished 2 of my projects, and every time I made any kind of shift in the timeline, it would affect all subsequent syncing to video tracks. I doubt this issue will be resolved, due to seeing posts on reddit about it. So in the future I'm just going to nest, sync, then take it to a new timeline, which is going to be very time consuming when balancing audio towards the end of production. 

[Blade283694466fq1]

Here's a video of it doing it. It's actually different than I thought. About halfway through the video I discover what it's actually doing. Any attempt to move it, it will snap back to where it wants. There are no keyframes on these files btw. 

https://youtu.be/WmnMA_p5orI

[Rach McIntire]

Thanks, @Blade283694466fq1, for that video. It is super helpful. I can see exactly what you mean. I saw you unlinked to move it and then didn't relink—does that make a difference? That behavior still shouldn't happen, but I'm curious if it makes a difference. I will work on an internal repro and get a bug report filed.

"I have not tried updating to 25.2. I'd rather not use a beta version or upgrade when I'm in the middle of projects."  - THANK YOU I always advocate for that unless there is a show-stopping bug.

[Rach McIntire]

Hi @Blade283694466fq1, 

I was able to reproduce this issue and talk to our engineers about it. If you move an audio-only clip in audio units and then edit video units, it will align to video units. So that's what's going on. There does still seem to be a bug in there, though, because I'm seeing the same with just using video units. I have filed a bug report, and hopefully, we can get a solution soon.

[Rach McIntire]

updating status