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My workaround for 'lost' preview files in Premiere

Explorer ,
Jan 30, 2013 Jan 30, 2013

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So you render preview files in Premiere and the next time you launch the program you're met with red bars in the sequence - indicating the need to re-render (even though those render files are still sitting on the hard drive right where Premiere last left them). While Adobe is purportedly aware of the issue, it's still pretty annoying.

I found a potential workaround which, so far, seems to work - at least for me.

Premiere seems to lose track of rendered preview files on the sequence that was displayed at the time the project was saved before exiting. When Premiere is re-launched, by default, it opens to the last displayed/saved sequence.  

So here's what to do, whether your project consists of a single sequence or several.

1) Create an empty sequence. Leave it empty. Rename it if you like ("Select me before saving and exiting") - or not.

2) Work in your other sequence(s). Render your previews as needed.

3) Before exiting Premiere (this is the important part) switch to the empty sequence and save the project. Then exit.

4) The next time you start Premiere: a) Select the project, b) Wait till all media is loaded (Premiere reports this at bottom). It will open to the empty sequence. When you switch to the work sequences, you should have green bars where the previews were previously rendered.

Try it and let me know if this works for you.

Preston

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New Here ,
Jan 28, 2016 Jan 28, 2016

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Thanks man, it working and saved my day.

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New Here ,
Mar 15, 2016 Mar 15, 2016

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Create an empty sequence works for me, I have premiere pro cc 2015 & windows 10.


Only the clips with warp stabilizer are in RED but the rest is ok.


Thanks so very much.

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Participant ,
Jun 17, 2016 Jun 17, 2016

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SOLUTION:

Exactly, seems just making an empty sequence after seeing previews are gone without reason... I am using PP 2016 and the problem is still here. I can imagine people on deadlines seeing such a thing in the morning.

However, in my case some of random clips were 'offline' too (except missing previews), and I never bothered to check why these and not other. Seems random.

Very scary, indeed. Adobe team, please fix this thing.

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New Here ,
Jun 19, 2016 Jun 19, 2016

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Preston:

Have tried the empty sequence routine more than once....no luck...

Bill

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New Here ,
Oct 31, 2016 Oct 31, 2016

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So I'm using the latest version 2015.4 on windows 10, and it's still doing it. Nice to see it's still a problem after 3 years......

Bug report submitted.

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New Here ,
Jul 16, 2017 Jul 16, 2017

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Premiere Pro CC 2017. And this weirdness is still happening.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 02, 2017 Sep 02, 2017

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Yup. Premiere Pro CC 2017 and it still loses track of render files. Losing too many hours to this problem. I usually work in Premiere or AVID, depending on the nature of the project, but I'm going to have to seriously consider AVID for all projects going forward. Adobe is hot garbage.

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New Here ,
Dec 16, 2017 Dec 16, 2017

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I'm using Premiere CC 2018.
I tried what you explained and it did not work for me - the rendered files were unrendered when I opened it up again.

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Participant ,
May 16, 2018 May 16, 2018

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Yep, still got the same problem (it's 2018!).

I'm working in English on and English setup Mac. All paths are internal drive. They just disappear. Typing this waiting for big chunks of a 14 minute sequence to re-render. Glad I don't have a client sitting next to me.

I've had some issues with certain logos for this client tearing if I export without rendering first so I KNOW I rendered before I last closed it. Also happens with other projects too.

I'll hunt down one of the above bug reports and add some weight.

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Explorer ,
Jul 10, 2019 Jul 10, 2019

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Hey guys!

Absolutely randomly I have just found a strange solution or something like that!

At least it worked for me!

Just disable (or RE-ENABLE) checkbox "Scale to frame size" from the "problematic clips" that lost their preview files. This checkbox magically returns these preview files...

Its not the best solution and I do not understand how it works but you may try to experiment with this

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Community Expert ,
Jul 10, 2019 Jul 10, 2019

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I have done this with turning the effects off and on: in particular non-gpu effects,

but your scale to frame size actually works too.

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Explorer ,
Jul 10, 2019 Jul 10, 2019

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Yes, even option "Enable" or "Disable" clip works too but not always

So you need just to make some kind of change (I have tried even to enable or disable empty adjustment layer above the problem clip - it still works

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Explorer ,
Jul 10, 2019 Jul 10, 2019

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The other possible Solution is to render effects in to out first and only after that make render in to out

I have just tried with two  massive projects and it worked perfect - maybe it will help to somebody

And if you see some red bars after restart program just try to enable and re-enable problem clips  - they should be reconnected

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New Here ,
Jul 07, 2022 Jul 07, 2022

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Hey! Thanks for this solution, tried it in my current projects, and seems to be working, I even didn't have to enable/re-enable clips.

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Explorer ,
Jul 10, 2019 Jul 10, 2019

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Damn, it really works! Tried almost 5 projects

Hint - instead of making all clips enable and re-enable separately you may make all media offline in your project and relink them immediately

It works.

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New Here ,
Nov 04, 2019 Nov 04, 2019

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Awesome! It works.

thank you

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New Here ,
Aug 13, 2020 Aug 13, 2020

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Seems to have worked for me. Thank you so much, this was SUCH a frustrating issue!

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 16, 2021 Feb 16, 2021

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This problem really is insane. We do music videos, so writing previews can take hours with all the effects. Do Adobe ever read these pages? It's not as if the software is cheap. I hope the dummy project solution suggested below works for us.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 02, 2021 Apr 02, 2021

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I've started to have this problem, as well. If you go to your Premiere Pro Auto-Save files and check back through various version, you will likely find one that maintains the render. This is a giant pain and I wish Adobe would make it possible to re-link a saved render file. But this has worked for me. I "save as" and then write in Caps USE THIS ONE to tell it apart from the dozens of auto-save files. 

 

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Explorer ,
Dec 06, 2021 Dec 06, 2021

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Nope.  No avail.  This is so annoying

 

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 10, 2024 Jan 10, 2024

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Well, here we are in 2024, 11 years later (11 years!!) and this is still a problem! Adobe really do not care do they? My gut feeling is that like a lot of applications that have been around for years, the layers and layers of programming have become quite opaque and fixing fundamental issues like this is far too much of a job to attempt. See also PP's inability to simply play back a timeline consistenly smoothly, such a bssic function. Fixing these issue would require a total re-build that is never going to happen. When you try newer applications like Resolve you suddenly realise how smooth and effortless video editing can be (and at a fraction of the cost too). I will be moving to Resolve once the big project I am finalising now is done as my patiience is at an end.

 

Anyway, the better news is this solution works Preston so many thanks but as you say, you have to follow it to the letter. It really, really should not be necessary though.  

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Explorer ,
Jan 25, 2024 Jan 25, 2024

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Agreed, I just came here as I have a timeline over 60-minutes long, and it ALWAYS fails to load the previews whenever I re-open the file. 

It also seems to break the connection when I do certain edits ANYWHERE on the timeline. 

This is unacceptable. I have to manually delete the preview folder for this project because it just keeps re-rendering new preview filed and the folder bloats to hundreds of gigs...

WHAT IS UP ADOBE? Should we all switch to DaVinci Resovle's free editor? Premiere PRO means we use this professionally and expect what we pay for.

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Enthusiast ,
Jan 29, 2024 Jan 29, 2024

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The lost renders issue - I've just scrolled through the 71 posts on this looking for the holy grail.

I posted this in the Premiere Bugs reporting section last year. No excuse for Adobe not knowing it exists. I have no response from engineering on this - surprise surprise.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-bugs/some-prores-422-video-preview-files-lost-on-closing...

 

To be honest I thought it was just ProRes422 rendered files lost as I have not used the normal lower quality iframe rendered files approach for so long.

I used Pro Res for the Hybrid working method to speed up exports to a ProRes master as all your renders are done in high quality already.

As Geoffrey5CC7 said - it is 2024 for goodness sake and Adobe still have not fixed this !.

I guess it is some form of internal software database mess up that loses track of where rendered files are located.

The snag being you can't link them manually like normal media items that can't be found.

 

I'll try the empty sequence trick tonight but it seems this is only working for some users.

 

With fundamental major bugs like this I cannot comprehend why you see worthless features developed by engineering fiddling with User Interface issues that don't need even changing. This is just burning up valuable resources when they have major bugs like this lurking in their code and reported by numerous users.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 30, 2024 Jan 30, 2024

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And sadly the workaround I was hopeful about has stopped working. It did work for a bit but no more. No idea why.

As you say this fundamental issue going on for so long (15 years!) is quite ludicrous and the sign of a very bad company. I will be leaving Premiere after my current project and would encourage others to do so as it is the only way Adobe will learn though my impression is they are past redemption and will in a few years be history. This is how major companies go sometimes - incapable of change and addressing basic problems. Like most businesses it probably comes down to senior management trying to extract maximum profit for the lowest outlay, They deserve to fail and ceratinly do not deserve my money / support any longer as there is only so much contempt from them one can put up with.

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Enthusiast ,
Jan 30, 2024 Jan 30, 2024

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I have resorted to quite a long process work around which does always work.

If I have long clips that I have applied a few effects to, say Lumetri, Warp, maybe some de-noise for darker clips I don't want these rendered again during export.

I look in the Video Previews Folder and identify those I wish to stop re-rendering all over again which takes ages during export.

Copy them - store in a folder in my media location called ProRes Renders - then import them into my project as finished clips into a Bin named Pro Res renders.

Drop those clips on timeline and replace the previous video footage corresponding to that clip. Keep audio of course as required (unlink previous footage first to separate Video/Audio track)

Yes - this is a long manual process - but still quicker than waiting an eternity for the export.

Some of the shorter renders I have to leave, but do the above as you require.

I'm exporting out to a ProRes master - from then encode to whatever formats you want using Media Encoder.

This is the only solid 'partial workaround' I have found to this problem. It might be crazy but it works.

It also gets over the 'Use Previews' bug (for your longer rendered clips) - which does not work in V24.x.

At least they don't get lost when you close and re-open the project.

Just hope this annoying problem gets fixed soon.

 

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