I know I know… Editing in Premiere Pro is not a smooth process like we all wish for. We all somehow encounter errors now and then. And one of the most common one is getting this error message when you are trying to import/locate footage from your previous folder/project files, that looks like this..
What causes the ‘The Importer Reported a Generic Error’ Error Message in Adobe Premiere?
- Unsupported Codec: All of the video recording devices use different codecs. In case the codec is not supported by the Adobe Premiere Pro software, you will not be able to import it into the timeline. In such a case, you will have to change the codec of the video files.
- Unsupported Video Files Format: Adobe Premiere is quite generous with the video files format, however, it does not support all of the video files formats for obvious reasons. Therefore, if the video that you are trying to import is not supported by the application, you will, eventually, stumble on the error message.
- Activation Issues: According to Adobe, activation issues can sometimes disrupt some of the functionality of the importer. Therefore, make sure the software is activated and you are logged in your Creative Cloud account.
- Video File Name: In some cases, the issue can also be caused by the name of the video file. There might be some symbols in the name of the file that is causing the issue to pop up.
When I was working with my client’s project; editing a wedding video -I encounter this error and the reasons were because I move the folder around that I previously edited in my external hard drives. When I was trying to edit it in my PC it could retrieve the location of the media properly due to “messy” cache files. So the solution that I did was;
Solution #1 – Cleaning my cache folders
- Close Adobe Premiere Pro and then navigate to the Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common directory. Please note that the AppData folder is hidden by default, so make sure you have unhid it.
- In case you are using a Mac, please navigate to the /Users//Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common directory.
- Delete the files and then launch Adobe Premiere Pro.
- In case you are having difficulties locating the above path, you can also just go to Preferences and then navigate to the Media Cache tab.
Solution #2 – Move the Files to a Different Location or Rename Them
- Move the clips/footage folder that generate the errors to different folder and relocate again
- You can also try to rename them (this will create a new cache distinctively from the previous log cache)
- If it doesn’t work, then just move them to a different location.
**TIP:Â If none of the Methods have resolved the issue for you, I recommend you to re-install/update Adobe Premiere Pro.