Audio tracks exporting as blank

[cmdv]

Hi! I should preface this by saying that I am NOT an editor. I work with video/audio media but am not a tech person. I do wind up having to do alot of tech-ish things but I am not fully versed or trained in any of this. I am figuring things out as I go.

I am trying to export a ProRes file with 8 tracks of audio and several keep coming out blank. I am not doing any real editing - I am simply trying to swap out the English (original) audio for a language dub. The dubbed audio is all on one file (an audio MOV), not from separate sources. I can see the waveforms on all the tracks/channels and I can hear them on the monitor and see the mixer go up and down - so there is sound on each track!

But when I export - even though I set the sequence to export as multichannel with up to 10 tracks - only the first 2 tracks seem to come out. It does export 8 but the last 6 are blank. I confirmed this by bringing it back into Premiere - no waveforms on A3-8 in the exported file.

I tried things listed here for people with similar issues (locking tracks, keyframe Mute:off, etc) but it didn't help.

Anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong?

[cmdv]

Forgot to add: I am on a Mac (iMac M1, with Big Sur) and using Premiere 2021 (I did not care for the export window in the newer one, but if it will help I will try that!)

[Peru Bob]

Just a few guesses:

Delete the Media Cache and Media Cache files:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/faq-how-to-clear-your-media-cache-in-30-seconds-in-premi...

If that doesn't work, try resetting the preferences:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/faq-how-to-reset-trash-preferences-in-premiere-pro/td-p/...

If that doesn't work, try resetting the Workspaces:
Reset a workspace
Reset the current workspace to return to its original, saved layout of panels.
1. Do one of the following:
• Click the Workspace menu icon and select Reset to Saved Layout.
• Choose Window > Workspace > Reset to Saved Layout.
from here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/workspaces.html

If that doesn't work, try Preferences > Audio Hardware and set Input to None.

If that doesn't work, try creating a new project and import the old one into it.

[cmdv]

I figured out what was wrong. It was exporting all the audio, it was just putting everything onto 1&2. Even though I set the sequence up to be multichannel, I didn't realize I still had to map each track (I guess I assumed it would do that automatically?). But it seems to only let you map in pairs - 1&2, 3&4. There is no option to map to just 1, 2, 3, etc. so my output was still not the same as what was imported. They're supposed to be discrete 5.1 channels so I don't think putting them in pairs is gonna fly.

I am just going to give up on this now. I am not an editor. I had thought swapping out audio tracks would be an easy thing I could do but it's (unnecessarily?) complicated. We'll just have to send this out if needed and I can just stick to swapping out stereo dubs.