Guide: diagnose and repair a .prproj with Prproj Doctor
Your Premiere Pro project crashes when moving media, refuses to open inside a Production, or surfaces orphan references? Prproj Doctor analyses the .prproj to surface known issues and proposes safe fixes. Everything stays in your browser. Limits: 400 MB compressed / ~800 MB XML; large projects are analysed directly in the tab (browsers provide no background XML parser), which may freeze for a few seconds. The error-level detectors and those of orphan references, remembered marker deletions and object masks are enabled by default (other warnings and infos must be opted in). A damaged file (truncated gzip, open tags) is recovered first, then diagnosed: Prproj Doctor replaces the former Prproj Repair tool, whose address now leads here.
Steps
1. Back up your original project
Before doing anything, copy the .prproj file. The tool never modifies the original (a separate .repaired.prproj is produced) but a manual backup is still the safest net.
2. Drop the file into the tool
Drop the .prproj into the dropzone. Prproj Doctor decompresses the gzip, parses the XML and computes the inventory (objects, sequences, masters, media) before running every detector. On a large project, a progress bar shows the current phase (decompression, indexing, then each detector): reading can take tens of seconds. If the file is damaged, a “File recovered” log states what was done before the diagnosis.
3. (Production) Load sibling .prproj files
If the project is a member of a Premiere Production, a banner appears. Loading siblings is optional — analysis works without them — but it unlocks precise cross-project ID collision detection and enables a safe fix that renumbers locally while avoiding IDs already used by siblings.
4. Choose which detectors to run
The “Enabled detectors” panel sorts the detectors into three groups: Critical, Warnings and Infos. By default the critical ones are ticked, plus three detectors marked “default” (orphan references, memory of deleted markers, object masks), to avoid drowning the report under cosmetic noise. A group's box ticks or unticks it whole, and “Default selection” goes back to it. On a project >200 MB, untick the heavy checks (keyframe storm).
5. Pick the fixes, act, and download
Every actionable diagnostic is pre-checked, except information items and fixes that must be confirmed one by one (purging the memory of deleted markers, never part of « Select all »). The panel also surfaces dedicated actions when relevant: targeted sequence deletion (SequenceDeleter), in-place font replacement — including inside Premiere 2023+ FlatBuffer blobs (FontManager), and a full Markdown report export. Download the backup first, then the repaired file. Open the .repaired.prproj inside Premiere and verify a few sequences before replacing the original.
FAQ
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Everything stays on this computer: projects are read and written locally, nothing is sent over the network. Here, decompression, analysis, fix application and recompression all run entirely in your browser.
Which issue categories are detected?
Duplicate object / ClipID / MasterClip UID (local AND cross-project via Production), orphan references, offline media, VFR media, mixed frame rates, mixed dimensions, mixed audio sample rates, overloaded master clips, third-party plugins, preview & LUT references, empty sequences, duplicate sequence names, duplicate rushes, orphan markers (entries without a marker: Premiere may report a damaged project), duplicate markers and the memory of deleted markers, badly relinked video and audio clips, reinterpreted frame rate, unreadable numeric values (clip durations and points, time values, numbered lists), object masks (data in the neighbouring « Masks » folder), twin projects in a Production.
Why are some fixes disabled?
When rewriting would orphan references elsewhere (a ClipID also used as ObjectRef, a MasterClip ObjectUID, an unverified cross-project conflict because no siblings are loaded), Prproj Doctor flags the fix as informational rather than making a potentially destructive call.
What's the risk on a Production project?
Without loaded siblings the analysis is locally valid but cannot guarantee there is no ID collision with the other Production .prproj files. For a safe fix in that context, load every Production member before applying any renumbering.
Can I replace a font stored inside a binary blob (« Embedded » badge)?
Yes, since 2026-07. Premiere 2023+ stores typography (FormattedTextData, CaptionDataTemplateStyle, keyframes) as base64 FlatBuffers; Prproj Doctor scans these blobs and rewrites the font name in place. Constraint: the new name must be ≤ the original length (FlatBuffer structural limitation). Skipped occurrences are counted separately in the report (« FlatBuffer blobs: X rewritten, Y skipped »).
My project is above 400 MB compressed — what now?
The limit is 400 MB compressed (~800 MB XML) to avoid saturating browser memory. Above that: (1) open the project in Premiere and use « File > Save a Copy » to purge history and render metadata; (2) trim unused rushes via « Edit > Find unused clips »; (3) split finalised sequences into a dedicated Production project. Above the memory ceiling, Prproj Doctor switches to streaming on its own, in a dedicated panel: inventory and diagnostics are limited there, but the file goes through. For a full diagnosis with no ceiling, the prproj command-line tool reads and writes as a stream (see its guide).
Premiere crashes when I duplicate a sequence, or freezes on open: markers?
Often. Identical copies of markers pile up on clips and sequences: Premiere can crash when duplicating a sequence, and the XML export becomes huge. Two distinct fixes. Removing duplicates: Duplicate markers are deleted: only the first copy of each marker is kept, so no visible marker disappears. Purging the memory: The memory of markers that were already deleted is emptied; no visible marker is touched. Adobe does not document what these lists are for: try it on a copy, and open the project in Premiere before keeping it. Deleting markers from the timeline does not remove them from the clips, and the projects observed carried hundreds of thousands of copies. The purge asks for confirmation and is never part of « Select all ».
What do « badly relinked clips » and « reinterpreted frame rate » mean?
A clip (video or audio) reading past the end of its file was relinked to the wrong file, often a same-name one: the fix sets every stream of that file offline so Premiere asks for the right one. If the out point is exactly the file duration times 25/24, 30/25 or 30/24, the file is probably right but its frame rate was reinterpreted: nothing is delinked, restore the interpreted frame rate in Premiere.
Premiere Pro 2025 crashes when opening a project — what should I do?
Premiere Pro 2025 is particularly strict about .prproj integrity: duplicate ObjectIDs, orphan references and a few missing third-party plugins are enough to crash the loader — where 2023/2024 only raised a warning. Drop the file into Prproj Doctor: the « duplicate ObjectID / ClipID / MasterClip UID » and « orphan references » detectors cover most cases. If the file itself is damaged, Prproj Doctor recovers it first (see « My .prproj is truncated or corrupted »).
My .prproj is truncated or corrupted: can Prproj Doctor read it?
Yes. A damaged file is first recovered, within what is readable: a truncated gzip (crash during save) is read up to the cut, control characters are removed, tags left open are closed. What is lost is stated (the end of a truncated file does not come back), then the diagnosis and fixes apply to the recovered file like any project; the written file is re-read to check it opens. A file containing a DOCTYPE or ENTITY declaration is refused, damaged or not. If nothing is readable, restore an earlier version: Premiere auto-saves (Documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro/<version>/Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save) or a system backup (Time Machine, Windows File History, cloud). A « File recovered » log states each step.
Where do I find Premiere Pro's auto-saves on macOS and Windows?
By default, Premiere Pro writes auto-saves into an « Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save » folder next to the original .prproj. The exact path is set under Edit > Preferences > Auto Save (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Settings > Auto Save (macOS), « Auto-Save Project Location » field. Open the most recent one that loads, then run it through Prproj Doctor.
What about « Unknown generic error » or « This sequence is empty »?
Premiere's « Unknown generic error » is the catch-all symptom of a valid but inconsistent XML (a reference pointing at a missing ObjectID, an overloaded MasterClip, an invalid render entry). Prproj Doctor pinpoints each category in the report. « This sequence is empty » maps to the dedicated detector: the sequence entry survives but contains no clip — often after a massive delete or a failed Production merge. You can delete them (only sequences with no clip that nothing uses are flagged) or keep them.
Premiere reports « duplicate projects » in my Production: what should I do?
A project copied in the Finder keeps the original's project identifier: Premiere flags them as duplicates (« Liste des projets en double.txt » file) and a copied clip pointing at one also points at the other. Load the other project as a Production sibling: Prproj Doctor reports the « twin project » and offers the fix. Twin projects, copied outside Premiere, each get a new project identifier except one, as with “Save a Copy”; sequences, clips and media keep their identifiers. To fix the whole Production at once, duplicate rushes included, use the CLI: prproj production.
Premiere says « project damaged or corrupt » and Prproj Doctor reports nothing else: what to check?
Look for « orphan markers » first: a marker-list entry whose marker is missing (a key with no reference, or a reference to a missing object) is enough for Premiere to refuse the project. It is a critical issue, fixed by removing those empty entries; no visible marker is touched. It happens after a truncated file or a manual purge. If Prproj Doctor sees nothing, the defect is elsewhere: restore an auto-save and, if you can, keep the original and the refused version to compare.
What happened to Prproj Repair, the standalone HTML and the CLI?
Prproj Repair no longer exists as a tool: Prproj Doctor recovers a damaged file then diagnoses it, and the old address leads here. Two versions outside the browser use the same rules engine and are downloaded from the Downloads page (password-protected): a standalone HTML, one file to open with nothing to install, with the same size limit as the site; and the prproj CLI, with no size limit, which also processes a whole folder, sequences, fonts, effects and Productions. In the CLI, the repair command applies what doctor proposes by itself; in the site and the standalone HTML, you tick the fixes yourself.
What are the Light, Standard and Full profiles for?
They tick a set of fixes in one click, from the most cautious to the fullest; each includes the previous one. Light: what removes nothing visible (duplicate markers, orphan markers, preview file refs, twin projects (Production)). Standard: every safe fix. Full: Standard, plus the fixes to confirm one by one (never ticked in bulk). The recommended profile is the smallest one covering the warnings and critical issues. Same profiles as the CLI (prproj fix --profile).