Project manager "unknown error"

[Stig_A_]

   Hi,

After 2 years of using project manager to consolidate and back up my projects, it is now giving me constant grief.

On almost every project (mainly promos) it is unable to calculate project size og unable to back up my projects.

Every time giving me "unknown error", asking me to try again.  Not even once, has this improved anything.  I keep getting "unknown error"

It does not work and I've tried many combination of settings.

I will have to stop using Premiere as my editor if this keeps up.  I cannot keep backing up by copying 100s of GB of assets for a each 30 sec. spot.

What is going on?

Has a bug been introduced in the last few versions?

Does anybody else have these issues?

What could be the possible cause? 

Thank you

//Stig A.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi StigA, Sorry for this error. I do see a similar bug filed. Can you also file one? Here's the link.

Thanks,
Kevin

[synergist]

Before the latest update (to CC 2018), I used the Project Manager to archive three similar-sized (45 to 65GB) projects and had no problems. Since the update, with all the same settings, I now get the "unknown error" that StigA was talking about. I finally got it to work, after trying to change the destination to a local drive instead of a network drive (that didn't work), by unchecking the "Save Preview files" box. This post in the Creative Cow PP forum was somewhat helpful  https://forums.creativecow.net/docs/forums/post.php?forumid=3&postid=996718&univpostid=996718&pview=...

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi RogerP,

What was the source media? New project or an updated one? Any other info? Hope we can assist.

Thanks,
Kevin

[synergist]

Hi Kevin,

It was probably 3 hours of HD (1080p) footage, about half from from a Canon 5D and half from a Panasonic HC-V770, one main 7-minute sequence, two nested sequences, if that's what you're asking. It was definitely not a new project, and I'm not sure what you mean by updated. It was a CC 2017 project, and I had opened a copy in 2018 to archive it — and I forgot to mention that after the backup kept failing, I went back to the original and opened it in CC 2017 — and it was then that I also unchecked the "Save preview files" box. And then it worked. (So, the bottom line is, I have not yet gotten this to work in CC 2018.)

Is this a known bug?

[Guy Burns · Accepted solution]

Had the same problem and came across this thread. My project has about a dozen sequences, and the Project Manager wouldn't "Collect files and copy to new location". It came back with an "Unknown Error" message.

I narrowed it down to Sequence #4. That sequence was causing the problems.

I narrowed it down further: one of my music files from iTunes had special characters in the name: colons and commas. Got rid of those and the problem was fixed.

I'm running CS6.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks for the feedback, Guy Burns.

Kevin

[gregd80865280]

I'm having the same errors.

Film was cut in Premiere 2017, upgraded to 2018. Trying to collect all footage onto one drive (currently divided among 3). Have deactivated copying preview links and a few suggestions in this thread and not having any lucky.

[laurlau]

same issue here. no fix. no workaround. so? what shall we do next?

[laurlau]

1. delete all your proxies

2. check if you have special characters in your video/photo/work files naming like + # $ or whatever ( I found to have a Spanish character in one mov file)

3. delete adobe premiere cache

4. it should work.

[ColbyFulton]

I'm having the same issue. Makes it hard to do professional work on schedule when I can't easily output my project for color correction. Now I have to manage the files manually? It would be great if you guys could do a little more testing on this before you release the software.

[AngelAtilak]

I have the same problem and still no solution. It already occurred from version cs 5.5 now with CC 2018 again in the same embarrassing problem. For those who work with other colleagues is a very serious problem.

[mjays68]

I did the uncheck save previews thingy and it worked for me.

[Mathias16B8]

This worked well for me too! Thanks (Premier Pro 2020)

[Shootingwithcashen]

This worked for me as well! Preciate it.

[Oligert25115372vtyf]

Absolute legend ma man ! Thanks a lot!

[ludvig.palm@swedavia.se]

I had the same problem. After removing all special characters ( _ * `; ) it worked fine.

[Marcial Reiley]

Transcoding files fixed my problem.

[malkazoid]

Yup - I've come against this so often, I don't even try to use the project manager anymore.

This is 2019, mind you.  At least 4 years after this problem started being reported to Adobe.

If they haven't fixed it in 4 years, I don't like the chances that they ever will, to be honest. 

And yes, that's ridiculous.

I don't even want to transcode most of the time - just looking for all the media files to be copied to another directory.  If it is special characters that are the hiccup - it shouldn't take 4 years to fix that shortcoming in the code.  And it certainly shouldn't take 4 years to return a more useful error than 'UNKNOWN ERROR'.  If they had the courtesy to tell you which file the problem occurred with, which should not be rocket science, you'd save people dredging through thousands of media files on a feature, looking for the culprit.

Folks-  I'm self-taught with python, and it isn't even part of my job to code, and I've written scripts that can correctly handle special characters in copy operations.  Adobe should be ashamed of themselves.

[JONSTNR]

This is marked as answered but clearly isn't, an ongoing issue of 4 years - Adobe are you planning on even addressing this??

[mikejaz2]

Absolutely! I have a HUGE issue with this, as I'm gonna have to make a copied and collected project for the latest show I'm workign on...and I haven't been able to turn out one copied project for at least a year.

WHAT THE HELL IS TAKING YOU SO LONG, ADOBE?

[Gregreg]

HERE IS YOUR ANSWER THAT ACTUALLY WORKS - NO MORE "UNKOWN ERROR"

Step 1: Export an AAF of your timeline

Step 2: Create a new project

Step 3: Import the AAF you just output

Step 4: Consolidate using the new project and AAF.

Seriously, Adobe, I shouldnt have to find round-about hack methods to acheive professional standards. Test your software... Issues like this "Unkown Error: plague this program and make it difficult to justify relying on in a professional space. 

[Mursuit]

My "way around" for this problem was that I saved a copy (not save as!) of my project with a different name, did nothing else with that project but the project managing. I also changed the location for the project folder completely to another location, away from all the original material. I seriously don't know whether the change of location or the copying the project was the answer to the problem or both of them combined, but I found this an easy way to get around the problem. This worked for me, don't know if it will work for others (I hope so, because this seems to be a forever problem -_- ).

[PROCTER]

solved, many thanks

[MarkAPritchard]

Just to say I've had this on a substantial project today and it's beyond maddening. It takes well over an hour for Premiere to come up with the unknown error right at the end of the copy process. It's impossible to move work around effectively without this and make me think very seriously about looking at other editing options....

... come on Adobe. Thought you were better than this... 4 years and no solution??