About Premiere Pro Project Manager

[28439390g3mg]

I have a huge amount of old projects I need to store. Storing separate project files is not an options since I hame tons of additional materials used in a projects, so to consolidate and store all the media I normally use Premiere's Project manager. Yesterday I opened a project saved via the Project manager a couple of years ago and got multiple errors connected with missing files. They were rendered files, music, motion graphics. So I started to open other projects both old and new and all of them had missing files.

My question - is the Project manager buggy and works not what it's meant to or is it me who does not fully understand how it must really work. 

And second question - I had it in Premiere Pro 23 and 24, now I'm having this issue in 24.5 - on opening a project saved via the Project manager Premiere Pro crashes.

Last question - Premiere Pro - nomatter what version it is - always finishes with an error if you try to save a project wia the Project manager with "Include Previews" on. Why and how do I fix it?

[Averdahl]

My question - is the Project manager buggy and works not what it's meant to or is it me who does not fully understand how it must really work. 

By @28439390g3mg

The Project Manager in Premiere Pro is problematic and though i have not tested it, PlumePack will do what you want. You can test it here: Overview | The Best Project Manager for Premiere Pro ! (autokroma.com)

Collect & Copy seems to be free and if you want to unlock all features you have to buy it.

[28439390g3mg]

Thank you, I'll try this one. It's a pity thugh tha you have to rely on third party software when in comes to such fundamental things as archiving...

[28439390g3mg]

No luck... No time for looking for fixes...

[RobShultz]

I've not had the problems with Project Manager which you're describing. Please give us system specs. Also, let us know the specs of the computer which you're opening the managed project onto.

[28439390g3mg]

It's both on Mac (Max, 32 Gb, Sonoma) and PC (14700, 4080, 64Ram, Win11). I tested old and new projects, also tried to test projects created on Mac on PC and vice versa - in all cases I had at least several media missing somehow. I have no problems only when an archive was created via the project manager and opened on the same machine with the same disk structure and OS as if the Project manager won't copy some files which are elsewhere but the prject folder (I have music tracks on a separate SSD on the same PC and use an external fast SSD for Mac when I need music or some generic files like rendered lower thirds. So the Project manager does the copying with no errors (but for the previews part I mentioned above) and the project opens fine. Whould I open it on an another machine be it a Mac or a PC, I get those errors with missing files, the same counts for my own old projects opened on the same Mac or PC they were created on.

It looks loke the Project manager leaves some files and media used in a project every time

[28439390g3mg]

Just now, while I was typing the message above... My project is perfect, all the media is linked, no errors duting rendering

[PaulMurphy]

Hi Denis,

While I am generally quite positive about the tools in Premiere Pro, Project Manager has been a significant disappointment for a long time now and needs a serious overhaul. It is not a reliable or professional tool.

I've been delivering longform projects for 15 years and have often seen unnecessary media copied even when "Exclude Unused Clips" is ticked. I've also encountered error messages after hours of copying media, with little information about the cause, and then Premiere deleting all the copied media up to that point.

I haven't used PlumePack, but I can't imagine it would be worse than the built-in Project Manager.

That said, I'm not entirely convinced that opening a project created with Project Manager is what's causing your crashes. I haven't personally experienced that and wonder if it may be something else. If you get prompted to link media when you open one of these Project Manager projects, I recommend not linking, saving the project first, and then linking the media.

Cheers,
Paul

[28439390g3mg]

By the way I havent mentioned that - yes it does copy unused media when "Exclude Unused Clips" is ticked, I can confirm.