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ChancyRat wrote:Why didn't I see that message at the first edit of the first try?

Conforming always happens when you import your clips the very first time, I don't think most people don't even notice it.
As Bob said, if the audio matches the project preset it doesn't need to conform so it doesn't.
If you change the audio in some way that no longer matches the project preset then it will need to conform.
It's hard for us to say what may have changed with the audio at different times as we don't know what all you have done and what changes you may have made Chancy.

Chuck Engels wrote:

ChancyRat wrote:Why didn't I see that message at the first edit of the first try?

Conforming always happens when you import your clips the very first time, I don't think most people don't even notice it.
As Bob said, if the audio matches the project preset it doesn't need to conform so it doesn't.
If you change the audio in some way that no longer matches the project preset then it will need to conform.
It's hard for us to say what may have changed with the audio at different times as we don't know what all you have done and what changes you may have made Chancy.

Well I'm not out of the woods yet. The problem is that the audio conforming happens when I'm processing the final video, not at the beginning of working with a preset. For the video you just helped me with, and for another I processed last night (successfully - 9:36, with 50 GB free space), both began the final processing with showing the conforming audio message, and then proceeded to process the video. And the problem is that all audio was lost. Meaning, on Smugmug I can hear the music clips at the beginning and end with the title slides, but the narrative of the clips is zero volume. I haven't re-opened either preset to see if the audio was reverted to off.

Here's the thing: technically these 2 videos are #3 and #5 of a group. #1, 2, and 4 (all created chronologically) have fine sound, nothing was lost. Remember, same pre-set, same processing, same editing type.

Is there a limit to the number of audio clips I can have in Premiere Elements? One thing I did that I don't normally do is set the gain (from the default of 12 to 15) on all the clips. The two clips that have problems are somewhat larger than the others, 7 minutes and 9:36, but I have processed these lengths in the past without a problem, just without adjusting the audio gain in the some-70 clips in the video.

What could be causing the final processing to loose the audio? Remember, #4, which was done inbetween problem clips 3 and 5, utilized the same clip (as 5), same preset! I saved #3 to #4 and re-edited from there, and then saved #4 to #5 and re-edited from there.

Okay the audio appears to have been fully destroyed. Please tell me if there's anything I can do.
Where's the emoticon for sobbing.
I opened the preset for #5 (which had already been processed once - I described this in a previous post) and saw that the audio gain for all clips had remained at 15, where I had them. I reset them to 12, which was the original value. Then I tried to render the first 30 seconds of clips as a test.
Now, in every other video I've done, changing the audio gain has never resulted in a need to re-render. Is that the norm?
This time, rendering began - except - it kind of froze, in that it didn't tell me how much time it would take - the time had a dash and nothing else. I could see the clock ticking but no other info on the message screen.
I let it go on and after about 20 minutes (normally a 30-second section should take about a minute at most), it appeared to complete.
I set up for the next section to render, and nothing needed to render.
I set up the entire video to render, and no rendering occurred.
I proceeded to process the video (same settings), and this time it didn't interrupt and do an audio conforming first, it just processed the way I'm familiar with.
Processing completed, and now it's smugmug, and there is no audio except for the first and last music clips.
Please tell me what happened and whether the only way through this is to go back to the original clip and re-do the video completely.

This is one of those problems that is really hard to figure out because we don't know everything that is going on in your project. As Bob said previously, the only time the audio will conform is when you first import it into a project and the project settings (audio) do not match the audio being imported. That has nothing to do with volume or any effects, transitions or anything else you change later. The conforming is to make changes in the format of the audio itself.

No matter what the original source files are never changed, that is one of the best things about this type of editing. The original files are still in the same shape they have always been in and will remain that way. I don't know if the only thing you can do is start over, but if you do the audio will not have changed.

Might be a good idea to clear the cache and preferences as a start, there are some files that can get corrupted and cause problems.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Chuck Engels wrote:This is one of those problems that is really hard to figure out because we don't know everything that is going on in your project. As Bob said previously, the only time the audio will conform is when you first import it into a project and the project settings (audio) do not match the audio being imported. That has nothing to do with volume or any effects, transitions or anything else you change later. The conforming is to make changes in the format of the audio itself.

No matter what the original source files are never changed, that is one of the best things about this type of editing. The original files are still in the same shape they have always been in and will remain that way. I don't know if the only thing you can do is start over, but if you do the audio will not have changed.

Might be a good idea to clear the cache and preferences as a start, there are some files that can get corrupted and cause problems.

Anyone else have any ideas?

If audio conforming happens only at the beginning, why, when I processed this video the first time, did it happen at the start of the final processing (after all edits and rendering were complete)? And - same clips being edited in other videos - no audio conforming ever happened (never in the history of working with this camera, I think).

Thank you for the reassurance about the original clip.

Where are the cache files I should delete located? How do I delete preferences?

Here is a list of 4 things you can try that may help.
viewtopic.php?p=68623#p68623

The fact that the audio never conformed in the past only tells us that the audio has always matched the project audio settings. Add an MP3 clip to your project and you will see the "Conforming Audio" notification at the bottom right of the screen. Once that has been conformed it will not usually happen again as the file is saved as Bob referred to earlier.

Chuck Engels wrote:Here is a list of 4 things you can try that may help.
viewtopic.php?p=68623#p68623

The fact that the audio never conformed in the past only tells us that the audio has always matched the project audio settings. Add an MP3 clip to your project and you will see the "Conforming Audio" notification at the bottom right of the screen. Once that has been conformed it will not usually happen again as the file is saved as Bob referred to earlier.

The conforming happened AFTER all the editing and rendering was done, and I initiated the final processing. It should not happen then, correct? Conforming could have taken place over the 2 days of editing, but never did.
And really something is very wrong about that because the audio of the clip (not the 2 music bits at beginning and end) is 100% gone.

It should not happen then, correct?

Not correct. Normally audio files are conformed when they are added to the project. But, if the files are renamed or the conformed files (the ".CFA" files in the previews folder) are deleted the files must be conformed again. That would generally happen when you render or share/export (which also renders as part of the final processing) the final movie. There may be other conditions that could trigger the need for reconforming.

Try deleting the ".CFA" files from the Previews folder located in the project folder and clean the media cache database ( Edit > Preferences > Media... and click on the clean button).

Bob wrote:

It should not happen then, correct?

Not correct. Normally audio files are conformed when they are added to the project. But, if the files are renamed or the conformed files (the ".CFA" files in the previews folder) are deleted the files must be conformed again. That would generally happen when you render or share/export (which also renders as part of the final processing) the final movie. There may be other conditions that could trigger the need for reconforming.

Try deleting the ".CFA" files from the Previews folder located in the project folder and clean the media cache database ( Edit > Preferences > Media... and click on the clean button).

THANNNKKKKKK YOUUUUUU ALLLLLLL.
This worked! On both of the problem files!

So that I am a smidgen better prepared for these kinds of problems: I think I learned some time ago via this group that one can delete the full folders - both the preview folder and the cache folder, for a preset, which are all temp files, and still re-render a preset and proceed to re-process without a problem. Is that correct?

I have deleted these folders in the past only when a video was completely done and I knew I'd never need them again. But during current editing, I've been hesitant to delete anything.

I also have deleted the folders from the desktop, not through PE - is that a problem?

This time, after I deleted the cache via PE, I went back to the desktop folder for Media Cache and saw that the folder for this preset was still there. What was actually deleted then (where are the contents located on the desktop)?

THANK YOU!! Bob if you didn't have such a scary looking head I'd kiss you silly.

Glad that worked out for you!

Yes, that's correct. You can delete those folders and/or the contents safely and they will be recreated if they are needed. It's ok if the folder is empty.

Running the Clean media cache database command does not delete files from the drive. It validates the media database and removes entries for projects and files that are no longer present. You should run the clean command periodically.

It sounds like you are creating your project on your desktop. That's fine, it will work, but it's better if you create a folder to place your project and files into and specify that location when you create your new project. If you have a second hard drive, it is preferable to place it there rather than on your system disk.