Premiere cc2017 will not open projects from other mac users

[Cat_Schwartz]

This morning I found a serious bug with Premiere 2017.  I have two iMacs running Premiere with two different licenses.  Everything was working fine until we decided to have the editors swap projects and then we got an error message saying "The project could not be loaded, it may be damaged or contain outdated elements."  This happened on both machines with both projects.  Both projects open up fine with their original user.   We are at this point stopping any further use of P2017 until this bug is solved. 

[Mitch W]

Okay... thanks.

[Cat_Schwartz]

Hey Mitch,

So here are my results from doing a bunch of tests:

1.  I took one of the project files we have been working on and was able to open up on both a Mac Pro running Sierra and a MacBook Pro running El Capitan. 

2.  I did a 'save as' of that project and then tried to open on the iMacs and it was a no go.

3. I then tried removing the plug ins from both machines, but this did not help the situation.  I still could not open the files.

4.  But then I got the idea to create an empty file on one of the iMacs and see if the other iMac would open it and it did!!

5.  We then loaded one video file to the project, did not create a timeline, and saved.  This was enough for the other computer not to be able to open the file!  We then removed the file from the project and re saved and the other iMac was once again able to open the file!

So based on these tests we were able to narrow it down to the iMacs (El Capitan so far, have not tested with a iMac running Sierra) not being able to open up CC2017 premiere files from other users that have media attached to them.

Mac Pro and Macbook Pro running CC2017 seem to be fine on either Sierra or El Capitan.

[Trent Happel]

It does appear that media is required. I believe this is why we could not reproduce with the supplied Projects, as all media required relink (Offline).

I think I have a repro case (using media and switching users on same system) for the engineers to investigate. Thank you.

If changing ownership is not possible, one possible workaround (as user that can open the Project) is to make all media Offline and save the Project. On my systems, this would allow the Project to be opened when logged in as a different user and then select all media in the Project and Link Media.

[Cat_Schwartz]

Trent, the problem cannot be solved by making the media offline.  The project literally cannot have any media associated with it, which means that the project has to be empty (not offline).  Only a new empty project can be open by the two iMacs regardless of user.  So the solution you propose will not do it.

[Trent Happel]

Darn it, seemed to work for the Projects I tried. Thanks, George.

[spunkybrewaf]

Any Adobe Staff out there that can give us an update and ETA on a fix please?

[Mitch W]

The fix will be available in our next dot release. We won't ship the release without it. Unfortunately... I'm not allowed to tell you exactly when that will be. You'll need to use the workarounds until then. Sorry!

[spunkybrewaf]

Ok, thanks Mitch. If you could urge them to release it as soon as possible, we'd all be very grateful Thanks!

[dylann85859773]

Hi Mitch

I just got the "The Project could not be loaded, it may be damaged or contain outdated elements" error. This on a project that I've been working on remotely for several months with no problem. Suddenly, today I can't open any of the projects without this error. We've been using Version 11.0.0 for several weeks without a problem but after receiving the error I updated to 11.0.1 with no success.

Is there a new update in the works to fix this? I tried trashing user prefs but that didn't help. I don't have access to the original machine it was create on, so I can't fix the cache. I also tried creating a new project and importing the problem project but got the same error.

Please help!

-Dylan

[Cat_Schwartz]

So I upgraded the iMacs to Sierra and this did not solve the problem.  So the problem seems to be focused on iMacs regardless of OS (El Capitan or Sierra).

[Mitch W]

Hi George,

We've been able to repro the issue on MacBooks and Mac Pro towers. The issue isn't specific to iMacs. We're investigating the cause and hopefully will have additional info soon.

[Seth Goldin]

Hi Mitch,

I'm also experiencing this issue.

For what it's worth, this is happening across my workstations with Samba version 4.3.6-GIT-UNKNOWN on my FreeNAS (FreeBSD) ZFS server. My client workstations are running macOS Sierra 10.12.1 (16B2555). I'm running Premiere 11.0.1 (6).

Changing the permissions on the FreeBSD side doesn't seem to work, nor does even using consistent usernames on the Sierra side.

Here's the output of smbutil statshares -m for a particular share in which I'm having trouble.

SMB_NEGOTIATE                SMBV_NEG_SMB1_ENABLED

SMB_NEGOTIATE                SMBV_NEG_SMB2_ENABLED

SMB_NEGOTIATE                SMBV_NEG_SMB3_ENABLED

SMB_VERSION                  SMB_3.02

SMB_SHARE_TYPE                DISK

SIGNING_SUPPORTED            TRUE

EXTENDED_SECURITY_SUPPORTED  TRUE

LARGE_FILE_SUPPORTED          TRUE

FILE_IDS_SUPPORTED            TRUE

DFS_SUPPORTED                TRUE

MULTI_CREDIT_SUPPORTED        TRUE

ENCRYPTION_SUPPORTED          TRUE

[DarrenManden]

Hi Mitch,

We're running into this same issue here. 3 iMacs all running CC 2017, but anyone other than the original "owner" of the project cannot open the project.

We're all currently on El Capitan.

So far the only workaround we've found that seems to work for us is to open on a Macbook Pro, save the project, and then open on the other iMacs.

Filing a Bug Report now. Mitch, by any chance, is there any news on this?

Cheers,

Darren

[Mitch W]

Hi Darren,

This is a high priority bug for us. We're working hard to resolve it. The problem is not an iMac problem. It can actually happen on any Mac. The only known workarounds for this issue are currently to try one of the following: First, as the original project owner, open the project and select all the project media in the Project panel. Right-click and choose Make Offline > Media Files Remain on Disk. Save the project in the offline state. The project should now be able to be shared. The second user will (of course) need to relink the media to the project.  The second workaround is to use Terminal to change the owner to the project with the command  chown -R username /path to project.

Some users are reporting that making the project offline is not resolving the problem for them. However, for me, I’ve not had an instance yet where this did not work. I’m just saying that your mileage may vary.

[parkthedavid90]

Interesting, just one additional piece of information is that all the accounts that our editors are using are "Standard" accounts. I wonder if you opened the computer with Administrator account, it would work. When I was seeing if I could open the projects on a Mac Pro earlier in this thread, I was using an Administrator account. For the iMacs, they were Standard accounts. Maybe the account perm issues is the difference?    

[Mitch W]

It looks like we may have another (and certainly better) workaround for this problem. The issue appears to be related to the default Media Cache and Media Cache database locations. These locations are set to a hidden folder in the users library. Set the Media Cache and Media Cache Database locations to a shared drive or a shared location outside of the user folder. Also be sure to set scratch disk locations to a shared location and save the project file itself to a shared location.

Be aware! This workaround will only resolve issues with new projects. This will not resolve issues with existing projects!

[Cat_Schwartz]

Moderator Note: The Premiere Pro team is still working on a solution for this bug and will release a patch as soon as possible. We apologize for this inconvenience. In the mean time, this workaround works for most users.

Thanks Mitch!  Here are the steps we took to implement your workaround:

1 - Go to Main HD/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/  and create a folder called Media Cache.  The OS will ask for authentication.

2 - Launch premiere cc2017 and open project using original owner of the project.

3 - Go to Preferences > Media and change the location to both Media Cache and Media Cache Database to the new folder you just created above.

4 - Save project.  and then close project.

5 - Go to ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/ and DELETE the contents for the Media Cache, Media Cache File, and Peak Files folders.  It's best to just move the folders to the trash and recreate them, otherwise your system could crash trying to move the thousands of files that could be in these folders.

6 - Open the project again.  Premiere will start regenerating files into the new location.  You don't have to wait until it finishes.  Once it starts you can hit save and close the project.

7 - Login to different mac user or computer, launch Premiere cc2017 and open project!  While this is great news, we are not done yet.  We now have to repeat some steps under this new user profile to be able to share contents back and forth.

8 - Go to Preferences > Media and change the location to both Media Cache and Media Cache Database to the new folder that was created previously.  If you are on another computer, you need to create this folder before you can change the settings.

9 - Save project.  and then close project.

10 - Go to ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/ and DELETE the contents for the Media Cache, Media Cache File, and Peak Files folders.  It's best to just move the folders to the trash and recreate them, otherwise your system could crash trying to move the thousands of files that could be in these folders.

11 - Open the project again.  Premiere will start regenerating files into the new location.  You don't have to wait until it finishes.  Once it starts you can hit save and close the project.

12 - Open the project again.  Premiere will start regenerating files into the new location.  You don't have to wait until it finishes.  Once it starts you can hit save and close the project.

Now you should be able to share this project back and forth between the two users.  Here things to keep in mind, Premiere sets the default folder for Media Cache and Media Cache Database to a folder in your user profile.  So that means you have to change this to a common folder in the system before you can share a project.  The good news is that once you have made that change you don't have to do it again.  The only thing you have to do is make sure that any cache files left in the old location be deleted and then save a version of your project that does not refer to the old folder for cache files.  New projects going forward will not have this problem if you have changed the default location of Media Cache and Media Cache Database to a folder all users can see.  I chose to create a folder under main Library folder following a similar path so I remember to empty out the folder from time to time while keeping it to my local drive.

[Cat_Schwartz]

Hey Mitch, I just saw that there was an update pushed for both Premiere and AE.  Well, we upgraded hoping that this upgrade would fix the issue but to our surprise it did not.  In fact, it made it worse!  Because not only are you still not able to open other projects from other users, but the upgrade has an additional bug where it does not let you change the cache file destination!!!  Thank goodness I had a clone of my HD prior this latest upgrade so I am reverting back so we can use the workaround.

[Mitch W]

Hi George,

Trashing the user preferences should resolve that problem. Hold down the option key (Mac) or the Alt key (Win) when launching Premiere Pro. That will reset the user prefs to their defaults. You should then be able to go in and modify them again.

[Cat_Schwartz]

Thanks Mitch!  Everything seems to be okay now with the upgrade, though I don't think the original issue was addressed in this latest release.  The workaround is working fine for us for now.  Having a common location for cache files for all users seems to be the solution.

[DarrenManden]

Hi Mitch,

Thanks for that. The workaround here that seems to be working so far, is to open the original project on a fourth system that isn't an iMac (I realise that this isn't an iMac only issue, but for whatever reason this seems to work for us). Our fourth is a Macbook Pro. Simply saving the file under a different name using that system allows the other iMac operators to open the project and work away.

This works for projects that already exist.

I noticed that someone in the forums asked about whether this is affecting only standard or administrator accounts as well. All of us here are running under administrator, and are still getting the issue unfortunately.

We're all still running El Capitan (10.11.6), and have a mix of both Radeon and Nvidia cards.

If you need any more info, please don't hesitate to ask.

Are you able to give us an idea of how the fix is coming along? Should we be rolling back to 2015.4 for anything new, or is a fix around the corner?

Any updates you can give will be most useful.

Cheers,

Darren

[jacoblewis]

Can you expand on how to use terminal as a workaround?

[davidb56370876]

Can you please also try it with these files?  WeTransfer

[Mitch W]

H David,

Yeah, all 3 of those projects opened as well. One project prompted me for a missing Red Giant Denoiser plugin, but they all opened.

[davidb56370876]

Thanks!

I am using only iMacs.  I have a Macbook Pro, but did not upgrade it due to this problem.  I can upgrade that computer and let you know if the project opens on it if that would be helpful for you.

One is a late 2012

3.4GHz i7

24GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048MB

The other is late 2014

4 GHz i7

32 GB 1600MHz DDR3

AMD Radeon R9M290NX 2048MB