Adobe’s Premiere Pro is one of the most popular video editing software on the planet with everyone from beginners to professional media houses using it to edit their movies. However, it’s far from perfect given the frequent bugs and crashes it faces.
In this article, we’re taking a look at the “the importer reported a generic error in Adobe Premiere” error in Premiere Pro, its causes and what you can do to solve the problem.
Also read: How to make text more readable in videos using Premiere Pro CC?
What causes this error?
The error generally gets triggered when you’re trying to import corrupt or incompatible video files. Some of the most popular reasons include:
- Unsupported codecs
- Premiere activation issues.
- Incompatible file name
- Unsupported file format
How to fix this?
Here are four fixes you can try out.
Check the video format and codec
The first thing to do is to check and see if the video format and codec that you’re trying to support are actually supported. You can refer to this page for a list of all supported video formats and codecs.
If the video you’re trying to import isn’t compatible with Premiere, you’re going to have to convert it into another format. We recommend using MP4 with H264 encoding as that’s the most hassle-free format and codec in Premiere.
Check the file name or location
The next thing to do is to check the file name or the location. Several characters that may be acceptable as file names in Windows or macOS might not work in Premiere Pro. Additionally, if the file is stored in a location where Premiere doesn’t have read access, you might not be able to import anything from that specific location.
The easiest way to get around this error is to just rename the file to a simpler name (preferably without any special characters) and move it to a more accessible location such as the root folder of a drive partition.
Clear the media cache
A corrupt media cache is the cause of a lot of different headaches in the program. Try clearing it to see if that makes a difference.
Step 1: Open Premiere Pro and head over to Edit, followed by Preferences and then Media Cache.
Step 2: Under Media Cache, click the Delete button to clear out your media cache.
Now restart Premiere and it should work just fine.
Reinstall Premiere
If nothing else works, try reinstalling the software from scratch to fix your issues. Reinstalling Premiere is also rather easy, although we recommend you do it from the Creative Cloud panel and not through Windows settings.
All you have to do is open Creative Cloud. head over to All Apps and you’ll see Premiere listed below. Click the three horizontal dots next to it and select Uninstall. Once the uninstallation is complete, you can use the Creative Cloud panel to install Premiere again and hopefully resolve any issues you’re facing.
Also read: How to make a Screen Mask Transition in Premiere Pro?
