I'm editing a large project on a Mac with an i7, 16 GB of RAM, 1TB HDD. I have 3 external HDDs at 3TB each. I have my source files on one external drive, my premiere project folder on another, and my media cache and scratches files on the third external HDD. I had a similar issue before, to the one I'm having now. I imported all my clips into my project and separated everything into bins, it's all very organized. As I started editing I noticed, that out of the 170 clips that I have, 5 of them have their audio condensed into half of the clip (when you play the clip the out skips and skip still there is no audio left and about half way through the clip, the video is playing but there is no audio). I had this happen to me once before. I simply deleted the media cache files and Premiere automatically reconformed all the audio and it fixed it.
Here's the problem. When I go to "Premiere Pro > Preferences > Media > Media Cache Database " (then it shows me the folder my Media Cache Database is, I find said folder in Finder) there isn't anything to delete and when I clean the media it doesn't make a difference. The audio is still messed up and I can't get Premiere to reconform the audio. I tried deleting the assets out of the project and reimporting them, it didn't work, Premiere still used the old audio conform file. I tried deleting the assets out of the project, "cleaning the media," and renaming the clips and reimporting them... PREMIERE STILL USES THE OLD CURROPTED AUDIO CONFORM FILES!!! I tried searching for all files with the extension *.cfa and there simply aren't any. I even did the terminal command to show all hidden files on the mac, it still didn't find any cfa files. I don't know what else to try.
Even if I create a new project, Premiere still uses the old conformed files. I tested the clips in a standalone player and everything is fine. I even tried the clips on a different computer they still play the audio just fine, I'm positive the conformed files are corrupted but I have no idea how to delete them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------
I found this article (and many like it) in the help file:
Move or clean the Media Cache Database
When Premiere Pro imports video and audio in some formats, it processes and caches versions of these items that it can readily access when generating previews. Imported audio files are each conformed to a new .cfa file, and MPEG files are indexed to a new .mpgindex file. The media cache greatly improves performance for previews, because the video and audio items do not need to be reprocessed for each preview.
Note: When you first import a file, you may experience a delay while the media is being processed and cached.
USING ADOBE PREMIERE PRO 50
Workflows and setup
Last updated 1/16/2012
A database retains links to each of the cached media files. This media cache database is shared with Adobe Media Encoder, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore, and Soundbooth, so each of these applications can each read from and write to the same set of cached media files. If you change the location of the database from within any of these applications, the location is updated for the other applications, too. Each application can use its own cache folder, but the same database keeps track of them.
❖Choose Edit > Preferences > Media (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Preferences > Media (Mac OS), and do one of the following:
•To move the media cache or the media cache database, click the respective Browse, button.
•To remove conformed and indexed files from the cache and to remove their entries from the database, click Clean. This command only removes files associated with footage items for which the source file is no longer available.
Important: Before clicking the Clean button, make sure that any storage devices that contain your currently used source media are connected to your computer. If footage is determined to be missing because the storage device on which it is located is not connected, the associated files in the media cache is removed. This removal results in the need to reconform or reindex the footage when you attempt to use the footage later.
Cleaning the database and cache with the Clean button does not remove files that are associated with footage items
for which the source files are still available. To manually remove conformed files and index files, navigate to the media cache folder and delete the files.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I've tried all these steps, but nothing seems to delete or remove the conformed files.
My question is, does anyone know how to delete these files? Or is there a way to delete this whole data base? I'm at my whit’s end and my project deadline is fast approaching. I've spent the last 4 hours trying to fix this.
