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.

[jb91823235]

Having same issue here with BRAW files.
ERROR! an unknown error occurred during the project manager operation.
Using premiere pro 14.0
MacOS Mojave - 15 Macbook 2019, 32GB 2400 MHz DDR4 Ram. 2.3GHz intel core i9, Radeon Pro Vega 20
I expected the project manager to complete the operation. It failed about half way through the operation with the above error message. It appeared to be copying the files and then failed.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi JB,

Sorry for the frustration. Keep in mind that Neil is a volunteer and a user like you. He does not work for Adobe. If you are having any specific trouble with a feature or have a feature request, as Neil suggested, let the product team know over at User Voice.

"And since your engineers is reading this, can he/she please respond to this message with the exact details they need to fix it. Let's get this sorted out so the project manager starts working again."

Engineers actually do not read these forums, they do read the posts at User Voice, however. Keep in mind that they do not always respond to posts, but they do tabulate the upvotes and will respond if need be.

These forums are run by users like you with some participation for support staff like myself. We are here to help users fix issues, we cannot address bugs or feature requests here.

Anything releated to product improvment must be addressed to developers over on User Voice, not here. Sorry about that. I do understand your wanting to have Project Manager working for BRAW. Unfortunately, that is expected behavior as BRAW is not yet a format Premiere Pro supports natively. 

Thanks,
Kevin

[jb91823235]

Great! That's a clear answer. Premiere pro does NOT support BRAW files. Thank you for the clarification. However this issue has been going on since before BRAW was introduced by Blackmagic. So there are other issues going on too. But, its good to get an answer, we won't be able to project manage with BRAW files. So we can stop trying to find work arounds like changing file names. 
Neil said the engineers read "every flipping post", he must have been referring to the posts at User Voice. 
Got it, clear as day. Thanks for your response. If anyone wants engineers to know of issues, post it over on User Voice. Not here.  AND, include your specifications as Neil suggested. 
Thanks for your clear response Kevin. 

[R Neil Haugen]

JB,

As most any other user, I get your frustration. I've found the Project manager enough of a hassle, and opaque enough, that it hasn't been worth my time to try and sort the blame thing out. I don't run projects as large as some do, so the biggest file space is media. I don't want to necessarily spend the time to dump that, so I just move projects into a single folder (as I've needed to use multiple drives for sustained read/write) and then copy to the backup drives. When full, they go on a shelf "archived".

For a lot of people, that just looks like it shouldn't be what they need to do, and they've figured out how to make PM work for perhaps most of their jobs. Then they hit something where PM throws up an error or simply doesn't do what is expected ... and yea, it's a pisser.

The engineers and supers that go to things like NAB and MAX and IBC (was hoping to finally make IBC this year, and now, forget it ... sigh) are very approachable. Even though when they see me coming they know I've probably got a few rather direct questions. Ha.

So yea, post away at the UserVoice on this or any other thing it fails. The upper managers for all Adobe budget decisions (the ones well above the engineers or Kevin) live by metrics. Their biggest metric seems to be UserVoice ... so file over there. File in detail.

And then post a link here as above on your issues. Post on LGG, Creative Cow, everywhere. Get a ton of people to go upvote. Squeak the wheel as loudly as possible.

Neil

[jb91823235]

Thanks for the feedback Neil. I've had a look at some of your other replies to peoples problems and you seem like a great help to them. Well done. 

The issue arises for us because we have regular clients that we pull archived footage from previous project into the timeline and the files come from various different folders and even external drives sometimes. So, the idea of Project Managing it and trimming the files with handles when the project is complete and uploading it to the cloud incase the client wants an change in 6 months time to that project ideal.  Hopefully we can get a fix in the future. 

I really appreciate your responses. Thanks.

[R Neil Haugen]

Wouldn't it be nice if the Project Manager did everything you thought it should?

Yea.

And I here your complaint. In your situation, you need to do that whole mess manually, or ... would prefer a more autotmated approach. And I will be thrilled go to upvote any UserVoice request to upgrade the Project Manager. 

I'm a contributing author on a pro colorist's subscription site, teaching color in Premeire to folks mostly used to Resolve, Avid, Baselight, Mistika ... but most heavily, Resolve. That has a full database and all sorts of project management capabilities. But wow ... wathching the tutorials on how to properly set it up, how to handle when X comes out Y because Z is interrupted by A having breakfast ... so you need to add a section with an order to add Q to P ... but not if ...

My head starts spinning.

Project management in post is such a massively needed but incredibly complex thing. Wish it weren't.

Neil

[mappleby92]

Hi --

I have tried 10x today to "collect files and copy to a new location" via the Project Manager. Each time, it "Analyzes" and after a few minutes gives me the same "Unknown Error" message above. The project has about 7.5TB of audio & footage, all footage in blackmagic raw (braw) files. I have been using the most updated version of premiere (14.3.0), although also tried an older version - (14.0.0). 

I just came across this thread, and it seems like I will have no luck because the files are blackmagic files? Is this correct? If not, did anyone find a solution? 

[ner0sputnik]

"Wouldn't it be nice if the Project Manager did everything you thought it should?"

I'd be happy if Project Manager did the one thing it was supposed to do!

[riccardo0101]

Hi, I have solved the common error and maybe I have found one system issue on windows 10.

after having manually backed up hundreds of files of my project imported in premiere I found one impossible to copy even from the administrator side or command line or low level file utility (DirOpus, Double commander etc), because it was owned by a strange user, not present on my system. even playing with the advanced properties of the file it was not possible to change its ownership. by deleting only this strange file, premiere also managed to finalize the "collect and copy" of the project manager. this file was the only one that was externally edited by premiere with after effect, which in my opinion created the strange exclusive property of the file.

[fooki88]

I had this message appear recently while trying to export individual clips using the project manager. This was my first time doing it this way so this may seem obvious to others but figured I would leave the comment for anyone who was a little green or confused like me. Everytime I clicked "ok" to initiate the export, it gave me the uknown error message. I finally noticed that it could not calculate the project size and realized that because I did not have my in and out points set on my timeline and the "exclude unused clips" was checked, it did not register what I was trying to export. I simply left the timeline as is and unchecked the "exclude unsused clips" and was finally able to get my project size, click ok, and export the individual clips. 

[netalanderinligi]

Hi, I solved this problem with a different solution. I openend a new sequence and delete all unnecessary files from timeline. Once I have a clear timeline, I close my premiere, opened again and create a blank project. Then I import my problematic project in to this new project but I only chose that final sequence I need. When premiere imports that sequence it only takes necessary files. Then I tryed to collect this project and it works perfectly. 

[Solomon Kaylib5C22]

So I tried every suggestion on this thread. Big waste of time for me lol. It turns out Premier is unable to collect Braw files from Blackmagic cameras in the project manager. 

Thanks to this we are now missing our festival deadlines. Bg let down. The only way to make this work appears to be a number of paid add ons.

[R Neil Haugen]

A lot of things needed for video post are in "paid add-ons". I'm a "contributing author" over at MixingLight.com ... which as a colorist's site, is heavily tilted towards Resolve, with some Baselight and Mistika and other things also.

And no matter what they're working in, it seems everyone has a bunch of Boris and/or Red Giant plugins added into the mix. Many spend several times more per year in plugins than a CC yearly subscription costs.

For example, I've got the full RG Universe on my rig. Some things that just can't be done in PrPro, and some things that it just makes a lot faster.

The whole thing with PrPro and BRAW is a right pain. My main rig for what I shoot myself is a BMPCC4K, and yea, I love me some BRAW. I gave up on the BM freebie plugin as it just had too many problems and failures for me. The Autokroma one is cheap considering the hours I spent trying to get the BM one to work.

Check with Autokroma ... their plugin gets around most of the limitations of the BRAW in PrPro, but I've been so frustrated with the Project Manager I've not used it much, and I don't know if the presence of the  Autokroma plugin gets the PM to work properly with BRAW.

Neil

[Nicolas from Autokroma]

Hey ! 

I know this thread is a bit old, but as there are still people here having some problems with Project Manager, you can also test PlumePack which is a new "Project Manager" plugin for Premiere Pro.
It has the same "Collect & Copy" feature than the native Project Manager but without bugs and more features ! (Better folder structure in the new project for example). 

BUT the main feature of PlumePack is that it can trim your files without re-encoding ! So you can remove the unused frames of your media without changing the codec / quality of your files ! It's really like copying a part of your file ! For now works with BRAW, R3D, ProRes, ProRes RAW, ARRI RAW, ... and soon H264 & H265.
More infos : https://www.autokroma.com/blog/Introduction-to-PlumePack

Best,
Nicolas from Autokroma

[John Matchett]

If you are searching for a solution to the frankly disgracefully and ENDLESSLY unfixed Project manager error in Premeiere, then do yourself a favour and buy a copy of PlumePack. Not only does it work (hoorah!), but the customer service is simply superb. I initally also had an issue with a packaging glitch using PlumePack (presumably the same file that was tripping the Adobe software up) but the the crew were on it fast, read the error logs and and fixed it. Really professional and courteous - thank you. One less thing to trip me up now...

[AP_10]

Thank you so much, I tried literally everything in this blog, before resorting to PlumePack. And that was the only thing that worked for me. Took about 4 hours to copy a 10 min sequence, but it worked! Seems like it gets rid of any bugs that Premiere can't handle. 

[michaelduffy1884]

Someone else mentioned this already and it worked great for me. This is what solved the issue for me. 

COPY AND PASTE SEQUENCE INTO A NEW PROJECT.  

[Solomon Kaylib5C22]

But not for Davinci Resolve files.

Mod note: Please trim your posts.

[Christine5C8F]

I'm not sure who I need to contact but I'm trying to get in touch with someone from Consolidated Premier. Contact me at c.Lyons259@gmail.com

Thank you

[MartinHuntford]

I'm having the same bug in CC2021 on Windows. There are no files with special characters present. I've tried deleting the cache, and moving the sequences I want to package into a new project. Nothing works. I'm supposed to be delivering this package in the next 30 minutes. Any suggestions, or will I just not be billing my client for this project? 

[Nicolas from Autokroma]

Did you try to uncheck all checkboxes (conform audio files, preview files, .. ?). That could make it work. 

Otherwise you could try PlumePack but it's a paid plugin (alternative to the Project Manager). From your screenshots you wanted to transcode all your files, and PlumePack can only trim for now (it's like copying a part of the file without re-encoding) : More infos on our website : https://www.autokroma.com/PlumePack

Note : in case you have BRAW files in your Timeline it is a known issue of the Project Manager !

Best,

Nicolas from Autokroma

[MartinHuntford]

Heya, 

Yeah I've tried all combinations of the different boxes on the right without any success. No BRAW footage present. It's all ProRes4444XQ with synced 48000 Hz WAV audio, straight from the camera and Sound recorder, and nothing else. 

I've tried copying and pasting the sequence into a new project. I've tried clearing all the caches. I'm running Win 10Pro on AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor 3.50 GHz, and 64GB RAM with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super, so well within Adobe's recommended system specs. I've checked through my system using HWINFO and there don't appear to be any issues with any of the components on my computer. The drive with all the footage on is high speed and perfectly healthy with plenty of space. It's only been a few weeks since I did a full, clean reinstallation of CC while trying to solve yet another bug, so I'm not prepared to do that again so soon. 

Thanks so much for recommending your plugin. I hadn't heard of it before, but I will most likely be investing!

[Gregreg]

Im having this issue too now... in late 2021. I have nothing else to say, other than this issue is damning, and you as a company have failed me. I need to be able to rely on an NLE to work. Ive been onlining and offlining professionally for over a decade and this issue is now causing me embarassment. If you think that Im going to "file a bug" report - why dont you look at the dozens ive filed already. You dont test your software, you dont serve the professional market... You have lost me as a customer permanently. I'll be switching to the FREE Davinci Resolve effective immediately, as I use it to clean up the mess Premiere has caused me.  Davinci is reliable, and used predominantly among mordern colourists.... Adobe is done. 

[Editor Jim]

April 22, 2022

For anyone in the future that is getting the "unknown error" message when consolidating a project with Project Manager - 

I had the same problem. In my case, I had to drill down to the problem clip and what solved it was deleting the .xml file in the root folder of the clip.

I have no idea what caused it and I'm not saying it's wise to delete the .xml file but it worked for me.

[Editor Jim]

I'm replying to my own post above. I made an error in my post. The answer for me was to delete the Index file, not the .xml file.

Sorry all.