No '+' to add captions in Premiere Pro

The plus symbol does not show if your Text panel is not wide enough. Drag to the right, and you'll see it.

As you noticed, when you click the 3 dots, you see the additional items, including the "Add new caption segment." BUT, as you also noticed (and I did not know), it does NOT work. I tried:

• targeting the caption track by clicking on the C1 in the track header,
• clicking various places to make sure something else in the timeline did not have the focus, and
• expanding the Text panel so I could access the + symbol to make one caption, then moving the CTI (leaving in the old location would prevent a new caption segment), then narrowing the Text Panel and using the 3 dots.

Note that you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Alt-C - "Add new caption segment at playhead".

Your old project did not work for two reasons: 1) you did not have access to the plus button, probably did not know about the keyboard shortcut, and 3 dots options does NOT work and 2) the CTI is in front of a caption segment, so does not allow for adding a new caption segment.

I also tested this in a recent Beta version, and it does not work there. If you file a bug report, add a link here. If I file one, I will.

Stan