My workaround for 'lost' preview files in Premiere

[Preston_Herrick]

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

[jefbak]

I still have issues with this as well. Does anyone know if it has been fixed in CC version?

[Jim_Simon]

There are a couple users reporting the issue with CC as well.

[radrave]

Update: I've made the move to back to FCPX and could not be more pleased. Much, much faster editing. Thanks to Adobe's poorly implemented "cleaning" software and uninformed, and often rude, tech support, It was technical nightmare extracting myself from CC and returning to CS5/6 (for photoshop, Indesign, etc) but well worth it to escape from the giant of incompetence and greed that Adobe has become. There are so many other viable options. No need to suffer with Adobe.

[carlborromao]

I am running out of patience, too. These are not minor bugs. This is a total nightmare. Think about it: loosing all your render files upon project closure!!!! Again and again.

[jefbak]

I am also trying fcpx but it has its own set of issues that drive me crazy (though I do like the magnet editing approach).

For me it is extensive use of red giant looks in projects that this happens with. Every clip needs rendering and the preview files are usually gone when certain projects are opened. And once it starts happening on a project it starts to happen every time.

[ScubaBadger]

I am not experiencing this on windows 7 suite with PP CC.

[Jim_Simon]

Me neither.  In fact, most don't.  It's a very difficult situation to track down.

[Brit.b]

I have CS6. Mine worked fine until I bought new hard drives and rebuilt the computer (with the same drive letters). I tried all the suggestions and so far some of the render files (not all) will not load when opening the file agin. I checked, and they are on the render drive. I don't have 3rd party and I am using the warp stablizer.

[Milan_Michalik]

I have the same issue on Premiere CC, Win7 - previews are lost many times. There is a Premiere CC class on FXPHD and the teacher presents this bug to the audience as a "well known bug" - so I see that there are probably thousands of users who must live with this stupid problem for a long time. Shame on Adobe. Please fix it finally.

[Brit.b]

Ironically I spent a good deal of time and money on new larger Raptor hard drives to make Premiere run faster and to make room for more preview drives. Now I have wasted many hours re-rendering the same file trying to solve this problem ...which didn’t exist before I went through his expensive intensive exercise. And I now see that this probelm has existed for years for soem people yet Adobe will not fix it.

[Brit.b]

I may have found a solution. I took out the warp stabilizer, and then added it back in on the clips in question, and then re-analysed and re-rendered. So far, so good. It seems that bringing in the warp stabilizer effect in the file into the re-built computer needed re-analysing (as I do after this 2 day exercise.)

[MarcNew]

This is very frustrating.  I've actually had this happen to me on CS5, and it's still a problem on CC. (completely different machines.  Completely different OSes)

I'm pretty sure that the work around is a red herring.  You'll probably get the same results if you stand up and run around your chair 3 times while patting your head.  The work around "seems" to work because this issue does not happen all the time, nor with every instalation.  Who's to say what circumstances cause the problem?

This happened to me a couple hours ago, and have been trying to duplicate the issue with another project.  Premiere has some logic that invalidates preview files.  It keeps the files around even if they are deemed invalid for a specific project.  Anyway, this is all happening within the program itself, and it probably happens at load time.

When I watch my (very large) project load I can see it try to load the preview files, but it skips over them.  Since the project file is unchanged since the last time it worked properly, we can assume that there is another mechanism for determining validity.  I noticed that the modified date and time changes on the preview folder every time the project is loaded.  I suspect that this is a checksum, but I have no idea how it's use (or even if it is used).  Though again, we can assume that changing the date on the folder is important, as Premiere does modify it.

Anyway, I have no answer.  I am re-rendering my film, which will take several days.  Unless someone comes up with a work around to fix invalidated previews... I'll just have to accept that this can happened every once in a while.

The biggest thing I've learned from this, and rendering in general, is that pre-comps are your friend.  🙂

[patrickjmcaneeley]

This appears to work, except for Warp Stabilizer effects, which repeatedly become unrendered after restarting application. I am using CC 7.1 and would like to upgrade to 7.2 to see if problem persists, but the company I work for will not allow upgrades until all edit suites and Maya workstations can do it at the same time, so that we are all using compatible software on all systems. Our tech is still evaluating, and we cannot proceed until he gives the OK.

[jim247]

I am having the same problem with any warp stabilized clips in my timeline.

Using windows 8.1, premier pro CC. gopro footage. no 3rd party plugins. No NAS just laptop hard drive.

[FamilyLegacyVideo]

I'm experiencing this problem with a comp I've imported from AE. Using CS6. First time I've seen this issue. One thing I just noticed: I re-rendered the comp on the timeline again. I went to the folder where preview file should be and I don't see it there. Don't know where it's going or if a preview is being created temporarily and then dumped when I close Premiere. The empty sequence technique did not work for me. I'm on Windows 7.

[JonDuke77]

I'm new to Premiere Pro CC coming from Avid.  I'm on Windows 7 Pro and I'm losing my renders every time I close and open the app or duplicate the seq.  I see through the forums that this has been a problem for a long time.  I tried the idea of closing the seq and loading an empty seq to no avail.  I trashed my preferences and it still happens.  This is crazy.  Please let me know if there are any real fixes.  Thanks.

[Nabucodonosor]

Believe or not , it is december 2014!

I am having this problem right now withAdobe  Premiere CC2014.

I can't believe that I am spending more time re-rendering my lost previews

than editing ,and  it is making my work harder and taking me hours of leisure..

   I also have another bug , buttons not working, playback only possible with space bar

and suddenly all viewers get black and only sound playback is possible.

  Playback issues can be due to old fashioned video Board.

     I am using a Mac pro dual Xeon 24 gig ram and Yosemite.

  Yosemite can be trouble as well, never thougth I could  have this kind of trouble,

paying the full Adobe Cloud and using a high end system for Editing, I am miserable !

[florianlippke.tv]

My solution for the problem with render files is to put always the render files and cache files on the system harddrive.

If the folder is located there you have much less trouble with dynamic link and all adobe programs.

I'm working on a mac pro 5.1 with osx 10.10.1 and Geforce 680 GTX.

Hope this helps...

[Nabucodonosor]

Thank you , my render files are in an internal ssd drive, maybe this didn't

help.

On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 2:55 AM, florianlippke.tv <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[alexdejesus]

Hmm, I have my renders and cache on a separate SSD. Should be on the fastest drive available, but I suppose any SSD would do. I did not consider the dynamic link troubles being on a separate drive. With cache and renders AND Windows on a 250 GB system drive, the drive would fill up pretty quickly. But if 500 GB SSDs are becoming more affordable, that may not be an issue.

[robertchapin]

Can't believe this is still a problem.  I chose Premiere to cut my feature film on 5K Red Epic files and it now takes 24 hours every time I lose preview files.  And yes, I'm using the empty sequence workaround with preview files rendered to my hard drive.

It definitely has something to do with the auto backup / recovery.  When I pull up the recovery file, links to all the preview files are gone.  But if I pull up a previous version, they're all there.

This can totally sink Premiere as a NLE.  Hope someone from Adobe is actually reading this stuff.

Bob

[Finnball]

Still no fix? Mine was fine till recently,  I got an update from nvidia,  and had an update for premiere,  now it will not render at all. Also if I use AE and create dynamic link to premiere, it will not export the project at all. It will freeze or just simply lose the media. Any thoughts?

[Guest]

***FILE PATHS***

Something that may contribute if not be the cause of lost renders is the file path interpretation.

We have a Mac with OSX in Portuguese.

Paths on the command line in OSX Terminal are shown in English...  e.g. /Users/rob/etc/etc...

Paths in Finder on the OSX Desktop are shown in Portuguese...   e.g. /Usuários/rob/etc/etc...

Adobe Premiere (CS5) (which is in English on the Portuguese Mac) uses paths as follows...

Under Preferences > Media, the paths are /Users/rob/...

Under Project Settings > Scratch Disks, the paths are /Usuários/rob...

(Same on a Windows system in Portuguese using Adobe CS6)

Different parts of Premiere therefore interpret paths differently - this may also be the problem with Third party add-ons.

What I have done on the Mac is to change the Preferences and Project Settings to a simple path of, for example "/Adobe/Temp" which cannot be interpreted by OSX or Premiere in any other way than "/Adobe/Temp".

I've made sure that the path is short (to avoid truncation of the path + render file name. Some older office software for example, couldn't open files with

a path name longer than 256 characters). Maybe Render files are saved OK but can't be opened by another part of Premiere / Third Party software??

I removed special characters e.g. ã à í ô ü @ from this path (I had a media file fail to open on the Windows system until I changed á to a).

Once I changed all the paths under....

Preferences > Media

and   

Project Settings > Scratch Disks

I let Premiere index / conform all the media again before running a full render again. Yep again !!

I'm following Preston Herrick's step by step advice (30/01/13) (Thanks Preston!!) by saving and closing the project with a blank sequence selected.

When I open the project, I wait for all the media to load and the External Disk light to stop flashing.

(I've had to save capture files on an external disk because of disk space).

IMPORTANT

(and this helps if you have an External Disk)...

Premiere reports what Media it has LOADED - NOT what it is LOADING (You may think Premiere has finished because there is nothing written at the bottom. Because of this I wait for the External Disk light to stop flashing.

(My External Disk is only used with Premiere).

Once all is done, I click on the Main sequence tab.

GREEN !!!

I hope this helps and explains why the problem occurs with some projects and in some folder locations...

Rob

[dfconn2]

Hi Preston - this does NOT work for me - editing on a MacBook Pro w/ external LaCie 4TB raid

[slate612]

I've just been reading this thread because I had the same problem with PP CC15 on  a Mac Pro with 28 gig Ram on Yosemite. This is the first time it had happened to me. It's a 3 minute promo with everything shot green screen. I'd used the dynamic link to treat 39 clips in AE - some very processed  - Magic Bullet, flares lights etc. Rendered everything - took 3 hours - then had to switch out of the project to another edit. When I came back - no renders. Went savage - searched the threads - shouted at the machines etc. Then realised that when I'd switched projects I'd closed down AE to save memory. Re-opened it - boom, up came the renders in PP. All red lights gone green. Not saying it's the whole picture - but it sure has saved my day! Might help others.