The project could not be loaded, it may be damaged or contain outdated elements

[patrickhagot]

Please I need Urgent help!

I was working on a project when i saved the project then while closing premiere pro the electricity went off with the UPS and the desktop turned off and when i wanted to launch my project back I have this message:

"The project could not be loaded, it may be damaged or contain outdated elements"

Please is there any solution for this problem. My project is very important.

Thank you all.

[Wil Renczes]

Have you looked for an autosave backup?

C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\5.5\Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save\

[patrickhagot]

Yes i did but the last autosave is too old. I must find a solution for the project that don't want to open!

[Alan_Craven]

Try opening a new project with the same settings and then import the old project into that.  If that fails try to import just the sequence that you need to this new project.

For the future, check that Autosave is turned on on the appropriate section of "Preferences" in the Edit menu.

[patrickhagot]

I tried to open a new project and to import it as whole project and as just a sequence and it give me the same message!! My autosave are set to 5 mins to 5project! While I was editing the autosave launched and I stopped it because I was editing multicam and was almost done!! And I always do ctrl s to save!!

I have tried all the solution when it is corrupted but nothing is working I have found that I can downloads XML wrench!! Do you have any idea about it??

http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ:How_do_I_recover_a_corrupt_project%3F

[Alan_Craven]

Of the people mentioned in the page for your link, Dennis Redeke and Will Renczes are Adobe employees, Bill Hunt is one of our community's REAL experts, so all of their advice is sound.  I have not heard of XMLwrench, so cannot advise.

The next thing to try is to hold down the SHIFT key while Premiere starts.

After that try holding down CTRL+SHIFT+ALT while starting Premiere. 

After that the next thing to try is to delete your Preferences file, and let Premiere re-create it when you start it.

[patrickhagot]

I appreciate all of your help I will try this afternoon. Im in Lebanon and thank you very much for your reply so fast. And thanks for creating such an amazing editing software!

[Colin_Brougham]

The project is probably not going to open--or import--in Premiere Pro once it gets to that point. Do you have After Effects, though? There is a workaround there that can sometimes salvage terribly broken project files like this...

[patrickhagot]

Hello Collin,

Yes i do have After Effects 5.5 can you tell me more about it please??

[Colin_Brougham]

OK, good. This isn't a guaranteed solution, but it might be your best hope of salvaging at least most of your work:

Create a new After Effects project. Go to File > Import > Adobe Premiere Pro Project. Navigate to and select your Premiere Pro project file that isn't working. If it's salvageable, you'll see a dialog that lets you select all sequences or a specific sequence, and whether you want audio (you probably do). Hit OK, and your project will be recreated as an After Effects project as closely as it can to what the original Pr project was. It's not a perfect translation; for example, titles from Pr don't really come across into AE, so those would have to be rebuilt, and most effects and transitions won't be preserved either.

In any event, if the AE project is populated with footage and sequences (which are actually comps in AE), you're in the best shape you can hope to be in at this point. So, go to File > Export > Adobe Premiere Pro Project, and save out a new Pr project. This should be a clean project file (obviously, with a few omissions due to a less-than-00% translation) that will open in Premiere Pro.

Let us know how it goes!

[patrickhagot]

Hi Colin I think the project is dead! nothing is working After Effects is giving me this msg:

after effects warning: A NULL interface pointer has been dereferenced

I explain again that i saved my project when while premiere was closing the desktop went out this is why premiere is giving me this issue and only on the project that i saved! should I try something else or move on??

[suicdekng]

I just had this exact same issue develop.  Every error message was the same, including the after effects one.  I NEED a way to open this project, as it contains several months of work.

The only aditional information I can give is that my project and the files for it are on an external RAID 5 array that crashed in the middle of working on the PPro file.  That is when it stopped working.  I had just saved and was about to render the work area when PPro locked up, then my RAID drive stopped responding.  I restarted, it ran CHKDSK on the drive and ever since, I cannot access my project.

[the_wine_snob]

If the PRPROJ file has become corrupted with the RAID crash, there might not be any saving it.

First, I would Copy all of my AutoSaves to another folder for later, and then try to Import that into a New Project. If that does not work, In would look at those AutoSaves, and try them from the latest, to the earliest. Remember, AutoSaves are FIFO, and when the number of AutoSaves has been reached, the oldest will be overwritten, but will retain the same name, so AutoSave 3 might be newer, than 5. Change the View to Details, and look at the Date/Time of those files. The resason that I recommended making Copies, is so that none gets overwritten, until you have tested them.

Good luck,

Hunt

[Guest]

Same issue here... The AE solution worked, but we're having to retouch every clip for color correction, audio f/x, and the text graphics have to be recreated.  This is happening with a new client and a time sensitive project (aren't they all?).  So, we have decided to export xml files and finish back on Final Cut Pro 7.  Sorry, Adobe, this was our first foray into Premiere Pro, having heard a lot of positive buzz about the improvements, stability and customer service.  Unfortunately, when a known bug like this is tolerated and when it affects the 'Autosave' feature--an absolutely critical and sacrosanct feature--it completely undermines Adobe's credibility.  AE and PS are bulletproof, industry standard tools, but Premier is neither Pro nor standard.  In our experience, Premiere is just a strange mashup of highly advanced, overly complicated audio tools combined with an inelegant (a term often used for Premiere Pro CS6, btw) video editor that is not yet ready for it's premiere... anywhere.  I'm not just being a troll, I'm hoping that my disastrous experience might get through to someone at Adobe with a conscience and cause them to consider letting their new and established customers know about this and recommend a backup strategy, knowing that this is very likely to happen.  The truly amazing thing is that, having been forced to create an Adobe account at installation, I have yet to get one message of any kind from Adobe. Hello! Wow, this is a case study for how not to do business in the age of social media. Mind blowing, really.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi GRMcutter,

Sorry about your negative experience using Premiere Pro. As I understand it, you had a project become corrupt, with no working back up, yes?

Were the autosave versions of the file also corrupted? Or did you not have autosave enabled?

As far as "getting a message from Adobe," were you expecting us to contact you when you experienced this issue? I'm not sure how you expected us to know about your issue without a bug report being filed. If you have not done so, it would be great to get one from you. Here is the form: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

Unfortunately, projects in any NLE can be subject to corruption. If the autosave feature is not working out for you, I recommend duplicating your project on a daily basis--placing a copy in Drop Box or the like. I was taught to have 3 backups at a minimum at the end of every day: one on your machine, one on removable storage, and one online.

Again, sorry about the trouble you went through.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Guest]

Hello Kevin, Thanks very much for your prompt reply.

Correct, after saving my work yesterday afternoon, I took a break and when I came back the project wouldn't open. It just hanged on the loading project bar.  That's when we started searching for a solution and found this thread. 

Yes, ALL of the Autosave backup projects were also corrupt. I set the Autosave to save every 30 minutes, I was only gone for 45 minutes so I was very suprised that all the previous autosaved projects would not load.

No, of course I don't expect anyone at Adobe to be 'all knowing'. What I mean is that you guys obviously know this is a rather common occurrence, or common enough.  So, wouldn't it make sense to send new registrants a list of known bugs and recommended solutions, such as Mr. Hibbs recommendation to set up a dropbox alternative autosave solution.  seems to be an honest and respectful way to treat new customers, rather than just hope they won't be bothered too much or, by some fortunate chance, won't experience the issue. 

For instance, now you send me (after the fact) this helpful paragraph:

"Unfortunately, projects in any NLE can be subject to corruption. If the autosave feature is not working out for you, I recommend duplicating your project on a daily basis--placing a copy in Drop Box or the like. I was taught to have 3 backups at a minimum at the end of every day: one on your machine, one on removable storage, and one online."

Projects do indeed suffer corruption in any NLE, but to have a known bug that also corrupts your Autosave files?  That is not typical or usual. And you owe it to your customers to let them know that the Autosave feature is not reliable.

I appreciate your kind words. We are in a real pickle today.  Foolishly, we trusted that a feature in a 'Professional' software package from a name like Adobe would be trustworthy. Well, shtuff happens, right?  We will move on, obviously. But please let your newer customers know about this gotcha.  You guys have some good mojo going right now, but something like this could be a dealbreaker for a lot of us.

LIfe is too short, my friend.

Best!

[Kevin-Monahan]

GRMcutter wrote:

Hello Kevin, Thanks very much for your prompt reply.

Correct, after saving my work yesterday afternoon, I took a break and when I came back the project wouldn't open. It just hanged on the loading project bar.  That's when we started searching for a solution and found this thread.

HI GRMcutter,

Wow, that's too bad. Sorry to hear it. I think we've all had that happen to us at one time or another.

GRMcutter wrote:

Yes, ALL of the Autosave backup projects were also corrupt. I set the Autosave to save every 30 minutes, I was only gone for 45 minutes so I was very suprised that all the previous autosaved projects would not load.

Unfortunately, Premiere Pro keeps saving your project (even if no changes were made) so that it's possible that a good autosave backup could have gotten erased and replaced with another corrupt project. Soon, it's quite possible that you'd have no useful backups!

Premiere Pro should really not autosave over an existing project that had not yet been changed. Autosave should only kick in when you make physical changes to your project. Others have gotten bitten by the very same behavior. We do know about this issue (and I have added my voice on behalf of you and folks like you), but it would be great if we could get more bug reports to add weight to the issue. Here's the form:

http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

GRMcutter wrote:

What I mean is that you guys obviously know this is a rather common occurrence, or common enough.  So, wouldn't it make sense to send new registrants a list of known bugs and recommended solutions, such as Mr. Hibbs recommendation to set up a dropbox alternative autosave solution.  seems to be an honest and respectful way to treat new customers, rather than just hope they won't be bothered too much or, by some fortunate chance, won't experience the issue.

We do have a list of current bug fixes, but nothing for known issues: http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2013/07/a-list-of-bugs-fixed-in-the-premiere-pro-july-2013-update... Good suggestion for some documentation about known issue and workarounds.

GRMcutter wrote:

Projects do indeed suffer corruption in any NLE, but to have a known bug that also corrupts your Autosave files?  That is not typical or usual. And you owe it to your customers to let them know that the Autosave feature is not reliable.

I'm not sure that it's autosave that specifically corrupts your files, however, if you do have auto save engaged and your project file becomes corrupt for any reason, auto save can and will copy over existing files that are still good (which in this case, you're right, is not typical or usual). However, if you have a repeatable bug about auto-save causing file corruption, please file a bug.

GRMcutter wrote:

I appreciate your kind words. We are in a real pickle today.  Foolishly, we trusted that a feature in a 'Professional' software package from a name like Adobe would be trustworthy. Well, shtuff happens, right?  We will move on, obviously. But please let your newer customers know about this gotcha.  You guys have some good mojo going right now, but something like this could be a dealbreaker for a lot of us.

LIfe is too short, my friend.

Best!

Thanks for the feedback. I remember when I first learned digital video editing about never trusting auto-save and to always have solid backups. And this was on a competing NLE of all things.

Hope you can back on track soon and thanks for your concern and feedback.

Kevin

[al_bergstein]

I too have just tried to open a project file that was fine yesterday (it's a 56MB project with multiple nested sequences but no real FX). Premiere 6.0.4 (009). 16 MBs of RAM, Windows 7 Ulimate 64 SP1. Running on an OWC RAID array that has been fine and seems fine. And now find that the version I had been working on is corrupt. "Project could not be loaded could be damaged or contain outdated elements." This after working on this particular project (not just the version) for over six months. I do have *backups* to fall back on, but I just rendered this project yesterday afternoon with no issues encountered. This is the first time in using Pr 5.5 and 6 that I've had this happen. Is it indicative of other issues?

I was able to load an autosave file from yesterday that does seem to work. (sigh). Now the questions I have for Adobe:

•      Is there a tool that you can have us run (or you can run) that can tell us what component became corrupt?
• Is this possibly indicative of failing RAID? Is so, how could we know and what tools do you folks (or your larger customers) run for best practises to stay up on this?
• I recently (last week) ran Chkdsk on my RAID array to see if anything came out, but all was fine. I'm not sure that there are better tools to use to see if a RAID in particular is having problems.

Any best practices on this other than falling back to the auto-save (which I'm very glad seemed to work in my case) would be great.

al

[Aldy Waani]

Hi, this issue happening to me twice. The first issue was last week but then the autosave saved my project at it's last state. Then it happened again just now.

I'm working on a Macbook Pro Early 2011 17inch Core i7 8GB, OSX Mountain Lion 10.8, Thunderbolt Promise Pegasus R4 4TB RAID 0

1. After the first issue and recovered successfully using Autosave, i did back up of the project file using 'Save as a Copy' command, and start working with that Copy project.
2. Everything went ok untii just now it happened again. but this time Autosave can't help me because its not the newest state (I set autosave 20minutes).
3. All project files were stored in the default Adobe PP directory (Internal Drive), RAW files, Previews, Media Cache & database were stored in the Pegasus RAID
   
4. I have 800+ RAW Canon 5D footages imported to project in at least 10 open bin tabs

What i've tried is:

1. Delete the files inside Layout & ArchivedLayouts (/Users/(userhome)/Documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro/6.0) -- Still does not work
2. Delete manually the files inside Media Cache & Media Cache Database -- Still does not work
3. Hoping from the Time Machine backup is useless because it's only backed up until midnite when the computer is on idle.
4. Open another project that have the same saved location & RAW location - Loaded & Working normaly
5. Tried to open Application with Holding Shift+Alt to flush cache & settings --- No work (but it does reset all settings)
6. Tried to open the project in PC. Same Premiere Pro CS6 version --- Still no work (To see if only the project were successfuly open at least i can export to XML and save my edit and do a relink)

How could this happened to the same project twice? Even if this project has 800+ RAW 5D files loaded, my workflow is normal, no effects applied yet to the footages in the sequence, and the Pegasus R4 is in healty condition (3 months old, 2.8TB free)

If this is a bug, is it Fix yet? I see the someone having the same issue on 2009! he posted on Adobe forum http://forums.adobe.com/thread/439322

"The Project could not be loaded. It may be damaged or contain outdated elements."And this issue was not on the bugs list fixed. or did i miss something?

And last thing, Yes we all do rely on the 'Autosave' for things like this, and not all of us or in any conditions do remember to make a backup copy(s).

If possible, please advice whats really caused this issue so i can avoid it to happened again.

Many Thanks,

A.W

[Damarco4u]

Colin, please let me tell you how much I appreciate your response!  Fortunately for me, your importing to After Effects worked like a charm!  I had lost all hope on resuscitating a Premiere file when I found your instructions. The things like "Cross Fade" or "Gradient Fade" are gone and have to be done over again, but that's simple. And in AE, I have more options. You have saved my project and my week!  Thanks so much!

[gallocesar]

I am not sure what caused the error on my file but at least I had a somewhat recent autosave file. Thank you for suggesting this and good luck to others facing this issue.

[AjivaLubem]

Thank you so much. I am from Nigeria. Your advice just saved me a lot of damage.

[dkaplowitz]

I've just had this problem as well, Premiere Pro 6.0.2. Not acceptable Adobe - this wasn't so bad as I've only lost 30 minutes of work and yes I should have had my auto save set to 5 min or something but for a project to just up and not open out of the blue? That's simply not falling into the "professional software" category, and combined with other problems I'm now having with Premiere Pro 6.0.2, I'm considering dropping the software altogether and just moving to Avid.

[Nellyvader]

I just woke up this morning to the exact same problem. A project I was working on last night will not open this morning. I get the "damaged/outdated elements" dialog box. Thankfully I do have Auto Save turned on and I only lost a small amount of work but this is the second time that a Premiere project has suddenly become unusable.

I do have a couple of factors worth mentioning here:

-I downloaded trial versions of the following software and was using them last night:

-Film Convert Premiere Pro plug in

-Film Convert stand alone

-Technicolor Color Assist stand alone

-I have Magic Bullet Looks 2 plug in installed in full version and was using that too

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Niels

[dkaplowitz]

Nellyvader, I have a feeling you may be on to something there with the plug ins - i have a feeling it was a trial version of Magic Bullet Colorista that could have casued the problems. I have no proof however, just a hunch.