Consolidate duplicates does not work

[shakespit]

I have big project with some dupes in it. So when I try to use "Edit > Consolidate Duplicates" it does nothing.

So I ended up cleaning all project to three clips that are linked to exact same raw footage, no proxies attached and I nothing else in project panel, just those three clips:

Still "Consolidate Duplicates" does nothing. Maybe I should look for some other places where Premiere thinks that those are different clips? Any ideas?

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi there,

We're sorry about the poor experience. Let us know the version of Premiere Pro that you are using. Is this happening specifically with braw clips or is it also happening with other formats? Also, please try resetting app preferences to isolate any preference corruption issue that might be causing the app to misbehave.

Thanks,

Sumeet

[shakespit]

Hi,

my premiere version is 15.4.1

I don't know about other types of files, just had a case with blackmagic files.

Resetting preferences did nothing.

I can send you prproj for examination if you wish.

Tair

[Godjiro]

I find the same premiere behavior in versions 15-22.

Sometimes, if those clips are in root bin of project, command works.

But if the clips are in different bins or imported from another project - theres no reaction at all.

No matter what kind of clip - .braw, .mp4, .r3d, .mov, .wave or pix sequence.

I find it very disapointing and i`ve got the only question - why that command still in menu?

May be it would be reasonable just to remove it and do not mystify users?

[R Neil Haugen]

I can get this with RED r3d files on import at times. The file will show up three times. I have to manually delete the additional "clips". A bit of a pita ...

Neil

[ateigen]

Yes, I wish we had preferences for the behaviour of "consolidate duplicates", as for relinking.

I don't know if it's a help to you, but this is my checklist for getting CD to work. At least it may help others that browses for this question:

-Make absolutly sure the clip names are identical with the file names on disk. I use Proxy->Reconnect Full Resolution Media to be sure, reconnecting to the same original media. Observe: Premiere interprets the old path as the new proxy.

-Detatch all proxies, even if you don't think you got them, premiere sometimes believe you do...

-Interpret footage must be identical (wish they could add a warning for this, with override possibility)

-Audio mapping must be identical (wish they could add a warning for this, with override possibility)

-Check with one file first and observe where files gets deleted. I used to believe that it deleted the instance high in the hierarchy, as premiere would presume an instance deeper in the hierarchy was more organized. But it doesn't seem to always be the case. I suspect it prioritizes to keep instances linked to sequences, or if there are logged metadata, for instance. This is where it woul've been very valuable to have som options in the interface. 

[ateigen]

Last point got wrong: not "where files gets deleted" but "where instances gets deleted"

[shakespit]

wow, that's great checklist, I'l try it next time, thanx!

[Will-Guy]

I'm commenting just to reaffirm how awesome this checklist is. It just solved my issues in seconds.

As you mention - would be great if it simply told us the issue that prevents consolidation, and had an overide option. But that would be too easy!

[maiathesun]

This is a very weird discovery I just came across... At least it works on my Premiere version which is 22.3.1, and maybe it's helpful for you:

I have two exact duplicates, and no matter if they're in root bin of project, or if I select both of them before clicking Consolidate Duplicates, it won't work... BUT if I right click and check "Modify -> Audio channels", and accept, on both clips, without applying any changes to the clips; and then click CD (while these two clips are selected), they will automatically consolidate. Weird, but it works! It's like a way of reminding Premiere "hey... can't you see these are the SAME file?"

[Gabo´s]

This may be tedious if you have  alot of footage but..

You can consolidate duplicates one by one if you replace your duplicate clip with the same file. Then you can hit "consolidate duplicates" again and it just works.

[Eyu4]

I'm having the same issue. Instead of actually working I'm going from one problem to another, wasting my time. It just feels like Adobe don't truly care about the product and users. Maybe I should've chosen Final Cut instead.

Wouldn't be surprised if people are still having this problem in 2 years from now. (*cough* adobe...).

UPDATE: the workaround I found for now is to close and reopen the project again and again, click consolidate duplicates again, until all are removed. Sometimes media offline > relinking media also works. THIS FEATURE IS TOTALLY BROKEN AND UNEXPECTED.

[arcadiadb]

I second this.  Consolidate Duplicates does seem to still be broken.  Closing and re-opening the project does not work as a work around on my end.  Help!  

[Eyu4]

The feature is broken, adobe should fix it, but I'm not hopeful anytime soon, if at all.

But anyway for now, are your dups being linked to the same source files exactly? Try opening a new project and just bring different files multiple times and test it, to understand if the problem is with your first files or not 

[Gregory5FCF]

Agreed. It has never worked for me. Come on Adobe. It be nice if they'd at least tell us ..I'm sure they are aware by now.

[dparsons85]

This is so dumb but I found a very cumbersome workaround. 

The Audio Channels and Interpret Footage of the assets has to be the same for each clip. To check this r-click on each file, go to Modify > Audio Channels... and Modify > Interpret Footage... 

Make sure you click OK on both the Audio Channel and Interpret Footage windows, do not click CANCEL. Even if you never changed the Audio Channels or Interpret Footage settings you might have to do this to get the files to consolidate. Run Consolidate Duplicates again and it should get rid of one of the files.

This happened to me when I imported an old project into a newer version, many of the files would not consolidate despite having the same settings. Adobe, please fix this.

[Amonitas8475]

Hello ALL!

I believe I've found the solution!!

It's a workaround but it has worked from my testing, let me know if it works for you.

Take your project and export out an XML of the entire project.

The open up a new project and import the XML

For some reason it brings all the timelines in but only ONE instance of the media!!

Hope this worked for everyone else!

[shakespit]

What a cool hack!

[Path 88 Productions]

Fascinating.  Whatever made you think of this as a possible solution?

[R Neil Haugen]

I would expect simply that this worked as a practical matter for *now*.

I like to see practical useful things, personally. Not as a substitute for fixing issues but simply to get stuff done now.

Neil

[Rashad Wells]

I'm just commenting to confirm that I tested this and it worked!

[Aldy Waani]

It's not working on my mac running 23.4.0

but its working on my team running 23.1.0

tried both new projects and projects with XML imported.

[Fredits]

I wanted to echo what maiathesun says here. I banged my head against the wall trying to get this working again and his 'Modify' tip worked.  My example is I already had footage imported in Premiere. I wanted to import an XML from Resolve that had some edits. I import the XML, it creates duplicate clips. I run Consolidate Duplicates, it doesn't work....

First I tried modify > Audio channels on the newly imported clips from the Resolve XML.  This didn't work either. Then I noticed the Resolve clips had Mono 2 channel selected.  But the clips I had already imported had Stereo 2 channel selected.  I ran Modify > Audio Channels on my original imported footage, changed the audio channels to match new resolve clips. Ran Consolidate Duplicates again, and it worked!  It removed all of the newly imported clips, keeping my originals intact and the edits in the new sequence using the single reference of the clip. Hope this helps someone. 

[R Neil Haugen]

Thanks for the detailed post!

[Rashad Wells]

Here's what worked for me:

I needed to consolidate a variety of videos, audio, and images, and "Consolidate Duplicates" wasn't working. So, I created three search bins:

• Searchbin 1: Metadata - Media Type | Find: "Movie" OR Metadata - Media Type | Find: "Audio" (to gather all videos and audio in one search bin)
• Searchbin 2: Metadata - Media Type | Find: "still image" (to gather all images)
• Searchbin 3: Metadata - Media Type | Find: "offline" (to gather all the offline files I was about to make)
  
  

These search bins captured everything, including duplicates. Then, I selected all the files in "Searchbin 1" and made them offline. I did the same for "Searchbin 2"

All the files then appeared in "Searchbin 3" as offline files. I selected everything and used the "Link Media" option. After linking, the "Consolidate Duplicates" feature worked perfectly and consolidated everything. Finally, I deleted the search bins.

It's worth mentioning that in the Link Media panel, I had "Relink others automatically" enabled, so I only had to link one, and the others linked instantly.