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.

[Meghan5FC2]

I've tried every single suggestion on this thread and nothing works. I can't believe so little effort is being made to fix this, while adobe is instead apparently focusing efforts on introducing (also broken) features like frame.io integration. COME ON ADOBE FIX THIS BEFORE ADDING NEW FEATURES

[R Neil Haugen]

Post that over on their Premiere Pro UserVoice site giving details of the problems you're having. It's the only way to get 'traction' for it.

Adobe has this forum setup for user to user help with some oversight from Product support, and some devs pop in at times too.

But the product teams do no have control over those types of decisions ... period. That was commanded from On High.

And to get your specific issue to both the devs and the M&E ... marketing & experience folks ... in their lofty towers studying user metrics, the posts over at U-V go up to the M&E suites in collated form. And are used by them as part of their metrics databases.

As it's the M&E folks you need to get your statement to. This forum ... yea, rant away, we all do at times! ... but understand, it's not getting anything done. Past letting off steam.

The Project Manager has so many 'if this, that, but on Tuesday, never ..." things it's crazy. Takes a lot of puzzling through to figure out how the blame thing works.

Neil

[Kevin-Monahan]

Sorry about that, Meghan5FC2. Unfortunately, the Project Manager is easy to foil as there are several caveats. The main one is H.264, and HEVC footage cannot consolidate. Another is that BRAW is not supported natively, so that won't work either. Conversely, editors need to edit with such problematic formats. 

One solution is that you can usually transcode the footage to an editing codec on ingest to use the Project Manager as you like. The win is a smooth-running project that can be consolidated and stored for safekeeping. There are also third-party plug-ins that can act as a project manager in that it can consolidate footage, even H.264 and HEVC footage. Here is the bug you can upvote: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/33843655-better-project-man...

Thanks,
Kevin

[thejackbc]

Hi Meghan,

I'm having exactly the same issue. For some reason Project Manager just isn't working anymore, which is really bad as it's a key feature in working with large teams on large projects. I have tried, all failed, these in attempts to make it work:

> Moving the Proxies (at first it was just copying all the proxies I'd made for that project and none of the actual media)

> Turning On/Off Exclude Used Clips (Which in my opinion defeats the whole point of the Project Manager)

> Turning On/Off Audio Conform Files

> Turning On/Off Include Preview Files

> Turning On/Off Rename Media Files to Match Clip Names

> Exporting to a different Hard Drive

> Exporting to the Desktop

> Importing the sequence into a new project and repeating the steps

> Importing the sequence from an XML into a new project and repeating the process

I need to get a timeline to a different department ASAP and so far I have no choice but to manually search through thousands of files to find the select few I need. Really running out of options here Adobe. Any Devs or Officials got any advice or tips? Need this sorting ASAP as I will need it throughout the project I'm working on.

[Kevin-Monahan]

What is your source footage, thejackbc? Let me know.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Chris24474340jix3]

2022 - this is year 5 of this thread. 

I too have a feature-length doc that I'm trying to prep to send to color (on the other side of the country) - and project manager still doesn't work properly.  I'm not going to pretend like you care if you lose a customer, I have no choice but to use this program (realistically) - but, it just seems disrespectful that a huge problem would exist like this for so long.

[R Neil Haugen]

As Kevin Monahan's post notes, there are caveats. And I don't know of anyplace where the full implications of all possible choices are actually laid out to help us users get the blame thing to work.

And I think that's the far bigger failure ... not that there aren't failures within the Project Manager itself.

But since there are those caveats/limitations, and we have no way of knowing what they are ahead of time, we can't work around them, can we?

I've seen a few posts over the years where someone finally figured out how to get certain types of projects through the PM process. But we don't even have a compendium of user-found items.

Resolve's equivalent can be as bulky and non-intuitive to attempt to work with, and yea, it can fail for all sorts of weird reasons. But at least they do have a ton more documentation on how it does work, and when it doesn't, what the probable causes are.

Neil

[dsfsdf249600142z0i]

I was having this problem just now, but actually managed to solve it simply by unchecking "exclude unused clips". That's all it took.

[defaultzxjal0sjbarw]

I have a project that has around 30-40 comps. I've been accessing footage from a drive but I want to consolodate.

Even in AE, you can select the comps and collect for output. Why doesn't Premiere have this?
Between the constant unexplained errors I have to manually go through and select each comp to export ONLY to get the error again. Maybe there's strange symbols in my file names. Like a crazy # for a number that everyone uses? 
I've got tons of assets and can't go through them manully. It's the inconsistency that gets me.

Apparently this issue has been around for years too. Because no-one ever needs to collect a project for output right?

But the team are hard at work giving us colored keyframes in After Effects! We're all saved. 

Moderator note: Your frustration is understood, however, the crass commentary you wrote has been removed from your post. Please be aware that we have minors reading here and explicit responses like those are not allowed in the community. Feel free to complain, but do not disparage Adobe workers and keep the comments respectful. Adobe employees are people, and deserve to be treated as you would like to be. Thanks.

[Bruce225578783fpx]

I am having the same problem with project manager.  Guy Burns seems to have a solution.  My question is, do dashes - qualify as special characters?  How about _ underscore?  Thanks if anyone knows. This is a pain.