Premiere won't import a video from your camera? “File importer detected an inconsistency in the file structure”

If the message appeared on import

Premiere reads the file's “map”, the part that says where each frame sits, and finds it doesn't match what's in the file. With camera footage that is almost always a recording that was cut off before the camera finished writing it (on Sony cameras the file sometimes ends in .RSV instead of .MP4), or a file that came through a transfer that stopped halfway.

Quick test: open the same file in VLC and play the last minute. If VLC fails too, the file is broken and Premiere is only the messenger. Go to the steps below. If VLC plays it normally, including the end, the likely culprit is Premiere's media cache: Premiere keeps a temporary copy of every file for itself, and sometimes it gets confused. Clear it (Preferences → Media Cache → Delete) and import again.

If the file is broken: what to do, step by step

1. Copy everything to the computer. The broken file, and while you're at it a healthy clip from the same card. From now on work only on the copies. The card stays aside.
2. Prepare a “sample clip”. A healthy recording from the same camera at exactly the settings the broken file was shot with: same resolution (4K, say), same frames per second (25, 50 or 100), same recording quality. Simplest: a clip you shot the same day, just before or after the broken one, without changing settings in between. The clip you copied from the card usually fits. If there isn't one, put a card in the camera, lens cap on, and record 30 seconds.
3. Run a free program called untrunc. It takes the map from the healthy clip and builds a new one for the broken file. Download it here (Windows. A normal program with buttons, nothing to type). On the page that opens, download untrunc_x64.zip, unzip it, and run untrunc-gui.exe (not untrunc.exe, which is the version without the window). Pick the sample clip, pick the broken file, and run. If the file that comes out won't open, run it once more, that happens. How you know it worked: a new MP4 appears, and it opens in a player.
4. Check the whole file, not just the start. The length should match what you shot. Scrub to five or six points along the video, especially near the end. At each one stop, play a few seconds, and check the picture moves smoothly and the lips match the speech. If the picture jumps or the sound drifts: the sample clip doesn't match closely enough. Find a closer match and run again. Don't switch programs. Then import the new file into Premiere, not the original.

If the message appeared on export

Then it isn't about your footage at all: Premiere is failing to write the export file. Adobe's own forum lists the usual causes:

• The destination folder name has non-English characters (Hebrew, for example). Export to a folder whose whole path is plain English letters.
• The drive ran out of space. Free some up, or export to another drive.
• Hardware encoding on some versions. Version 23.1 had a known bug, fixed in 23.2. In the export window, under the video settings, there's a choice between Hardware Encoding and Software Encoding: switch to Software, or update.

How you know it worked: the export finishes without the message, and the file opens.

Short answers

• Premiere shows the error but VLC plays the file? Then the file is most likely fine. Clear Premiere's media cache and import again.
• It only happens when I export? That's a writing problem, not a footage problem: a folder name with non-English characters, a full drive, or hardware encoding on an affected version.
• What about “The file has an unsupported compression type”? Premiere shows it for the same broken files, when it can't find a readable map at all. Treat it the same way: test in VLC, then rebuild.

If you're stuck

If the file is big, if the second run also came out jittery, or you just don't have the head for this right now, send me a link to the file and to a healthy clip from the same camera. I first check whether the footage is actually in the file and tell you where you stand. That check is free. If there's something to recover and you want to go ahead, you get a price for the file. You pay, and then the work starts. And if I couldn't recover it, you get your money back, all of it or part of it, depending on the result.

The details you leave are used only to reply to you. Privacy.

Prefer email? avihaiteram@gmail.com

More short guides on the same problem

• Sony .RSV file won't open
• “moov atom not found”
• 0xc00d36c4 “This file isn't playable”
• VLC “can't recognize the input's format”
• DJI or GoPro video won't open
• untrunc didn't work?
• The full guide: what happened, what not to do, the three cases