Captions not updating (Premiere Pro 14.9 and earlier)

[Ren_Cloudsurfer]

Hi, I'm working in the latest version of Premiere and set up some Open Captions as subtitles. When I duplicate a caption file in the project window and use a duplicate in the timeline, the captions don't update when I make ANY changes, such as writing a new text or adjust timings. After restarting Premiere, the captions update correctly. Seems some sort of cache issue. I have to set up a lot of captions, so restarting each time is not an option. Any tips? Thanks.

[Moderator note: This thread is now locked. They have completely replaced the old method of creating captions. New questions should be in new threads.]

[Sergey_Snegirev]

Not fixed. I am on CC 2019 (13.1.4) and the issue is still there. Closing a project and re-opening it works as a workaround but it is still annoying.

[Michael Elmkjær Madsen]

Still an issue - how hard can it be ???

ONLY thing that works for me is right clicking and modify in the program monitor, change the timebase, then changing it back.

This is so stupid..

[Morris Getman]

DaVinci Resolve is lacking caption background auto-sizing. I bet they add this feature before Adobe fixes the caption cache bug.

[JennyCLife19]

I just want to add that I am also having this issue and it's extremely dissapointing.  My .srt files do not update when making changes to the graphics/font/size in the timeline, even when rendered/exported.

UPDATE: I saved and closed and re-started premiere, and then the file was updated and also would have semi-in-time changes working, but still a bit clunky and it seems hit or miss when it will work and when it won't!

[inac31345386]

Not sure if I am on target here, but the problem seems to be, that even if you duplicate a caption in premiere, then the new caption still is just a representation of the same "media file". Premiere seems to treat imported captions like they were videos, just making a "pointer" to the original file on the drive. Check the properties for your captions to see if this is true for you.

This is what I did.

Imported a caption named (example) Vid_LONG_Caption.srt from an .srt file on my drive.

I duplicated it inside Premiere Pro and named the new caption Vid_SHORT_Caption.

When editing this new caption inside Premiere Pro, it would not update when I played it. Not even after restarting Premiere.

I tried deleting render files but no result.

I then checked the properties of Vid_SHORT_Captions. And they looked like this:

Vid_LONG_Captions.srt Type: SubRip Subtitle Format File Size: 3,72 KB Image Size: 1920 x 1080 Frame Rate: 25,00 Total Duration: 00:03:11:07 Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1,0 Alpha: Straight Alpha

And apparently Premiere just doesn't recognize changes made on such duplicates? I don't know. I have given up. It is faster to manually edit the original .srt file than to deal with all of these issues in Premiere Pro. 

[Stan Jones]

Inacl, I agree with your observations, including that PR is treating the .srt outside PR as an unchanged file. And you cna fix that easily enough by exporting a new .srt. The essential bug here is that PR does not show changes made on a duplicate caption stream in the program and source monitors.

The changes do exist, and as actually kept in the xml/compressed project file. 

I agree that where you have an srt and you just need to edit it, there are more efficient ways of doing it than using PR.

Stan

[nathanspowers]

Adobe, how has this been an issue for YEARS! How am I having it years after it's reported. Fix the program. You only have billions of dollars from tens of millions of paying customers at your disposal. This is why a subscription model is garbage. Might need to switch to Davinci soon. Free and less buggy.

[kjdoyle1]

Same issues. How is this not fixed yet???

[visionmia]

Can anyone suggest a competitor to Adobe Premiere that will help solve this problem, or external plug in. Post production option.

We don't have the time/money to, well, write this etc. 😉

[visionmia]

We'll go away and try Da Vinci

[tobrien871]

Just started using captoins and am using 14.1 on a Mac w/ Catalina 10.15.4

I am finding much of the same problems. 

Here's what I'm finding, in addition to the updating not working:

1) background has no adjustment for size, and it is taller at the top than the bottom. Need adjustment options!

2) When duplicating and modifying a caption, the changes do do show immediately. I've had to save the project and reload it to show the results.

3) Need ability to enlarge the adjustment icons in the UI for captions. trying to poke one of those tiny matrix dots with a mouse on a HD monitor is ridiculous!

4) Need improvement in the UI for timing of more than one slide in a caption. If you add a slide in an existing caption, it won't show until you play with the timing. It should default to split the entire length of the caption evenly. Eg. for 2 slides, splits in 1/2; 3 slides into thirds, etc. This should be dynamic, probably optional to turn on and off.

What I've found in just one day of playing with captions.

Tom

[The Mono Grande]

When will you sort out the buggy captions!!!???

[kaz_surf]

Really?!? Still not fixed?  Update after update but nothing on this?? The video team not interested in this fix..?

[Graham_Ohmer]

I found that this problem was solved by deleting any duplicates I had made of the .SRT in the Project.

No idea why this is.. but I saw someone else mention that it stopped updating as soon as they made duplicates, so I worked backwards from that.

I am using the same .SRT for the same video but exporting to different "sizes" (16x9 / Square / 9x16)... so to work around that, I did:

> a "Save As" and made a new project for each format (16x9.Prproj / Square.Prproj / 9x16.Prproj )

>> Duplicate the .SRT in Finder, labelling as such (16x9.srt / Square.srt / 9x16.srt). 

>>>Offline the .SRT in each project and re-link to the corresponding .SRT in finder

hope this helps

[C5R5]

It's 2021, and still no fixes. Can't wait for clients to ditch Premiere and work in Resolve (other that color grading)

[Stan Jones]

Adobe is revising the entire caption workflow in the public Beta using the essential graphics engine. I believe this will solve many of the problems with captions and add new features. But because of those changes, I don't expect any changes in the current caption system. Note that the Beta captions are not ready for primetime; basic functions are not yet available.

I find fewer times where the captions don't update as long as caption streams are not duplicated inside PR. But yes, there are still many caption problems.

Stan

[J Schaap]

Glad to hear that they are finally address this problematic area. Is Adobe going to give legacy support for captions created under the current system?

[Stan Jones]

That's a good question. The new caption workflow forces a new PR project level (not backwards compatible). When I open an old project in the new workflow, it seems to keep the Open Captions in place.

I'll try to remember to ask about this in the Beta forum.

Stan

[Stan Jones]

Yes, legacy captions import well into the Beta version. My tests were limited, but so far so good.

Stan

[defaultiqsi2i2svjun]

The solution is to close the project and reopen it. Then you'll see your changes take effect (or you can actually edit accordingly, at that point). As everyone seems to agree, PLEASE UPDATE THESE TYPES OF BUGS, ADOBE, THANKS! 

[SMcreative]

Kre57 did not supply an answer.

[R Neil Haugen]

It was set as "correct" by someone probably back 'then', in 2018. It's an old thread, and their captions stuff is COMPLETELY different now. So ... time to move on to a new thread on the new stuff.

Neil