Named Clipboards emptying or switching in Adobe Premiere

I’m trying to write a macro that automatically inserts one of 2 clips based on the number in the title of the sequence.

I’ve attempted this by copying the 2 clips to their own named clipboards (“Start” and “End”) and have an If/Else which chooses which clipboard to paste from as well as applying some moves on the footage. I use a RegEx on the title of the sequence to get the number at the start.

This works the first time I try it, but it soon becomes buggy. Sometimes it will paste the “End” Clip even if the conditions and actions should give “Start”.

And sometimes, noticeably if the regex fails and the macro is aborted, but sometimes at random, the clipboards are both emptied, and cannot be pasted from even with the designated hotkeys I have assigned to these functions for testing.

Is this just a limitation of the Named clipboards? I’ve had issues with losing formatting of text when trying to recall auxiliary clipboards in PowerPoint as well.

Any advice much appreciated! If there is a solution to this there is a lot of potential to use named clipboards to save and paste all sorts of things in Premiere!

Hey @quickreactor,

We can probably help with this, but for best results, you’ll need to post your full macro (you can find instructions for that here and explain your current/desired workflow in more detail before we can do so. For example, how exactly are you using regex to determine the title of the sequence in your macro?

Thanks @gglick.

Start and end Bumpers ADD.kmmacros (20 KB)

Here is the macro

Unfortunately, it's very difficult for someone who doesn't know what you're using this macro to do in Premiere to say what might be going wrong when running this multiple times. Still, I did add a few actions to help ensure that the macro will at least wait until the clipboard changes before proceeding with the regex search, and I also added a Set Action Delay for this macro (disabled by default) that you can try turning on to slow everything down in case part of your problem is a timing issue:

Start and end Bumpers ADD 1.1.kmmacros (21.3 KB)

I can also suggest that wherever possible, you use Select or Show a Menu Item instead of simulated keystrokes, as this is generally a more accurate/reliable way of making the program run the commands you want. As for the clipboards not pasting, if you're only using them to store plain text, I would suggest using variables instead and see if that improves their consistency (of course, if you're using named clipboards for rich text or other non-text objects, variables won't work, so feel free to ignore that suggestion in that case).

EDIT: I have confirmed it is a problem with the clipboards. I made separate macros that simply copy to and paste from 2 different named clipboards in premiere. It seems that after pasting from a named clipboard, any future attempts to paste from ANY named clipboard will give you the same thing again.

Thanks for that advice! I will definitely go through some of my macros and change to menu items where applicable.

I have tried the macro with the suggestions you made and it is still doing the same thing!

It works properly the first time no matter which branch is chosen eg pasting start in a start timeline, but then if if I try the other situation eg it should paste End it will paste Start in the end position!

I even tried it with each branch copying the named clipboard to the regular clipboard before pasting, with your clipboard change checker in action on each.

Does that make sense? I can post a video if it would help? Or descriptions of the different actions? It definitely seems to be a clipboard issue thogh

If you've confirmed that the rest of the macro works and it's only the named clipboards giving you problems by not working as expected, that sounds like a bug, and it probably would be a good idea to screenshot or make a video of the unexpected behavior occurring so that @peternlewis can fix it.

In the meantime, as a workaround, I have to ask again if using variables instead of named clipboards might work, assuming the clipboards don't contain something that wouldn't work as plain text. If they don't, then one more suggestion I can make is to explicitly set the clipboard to the named clipboard contents and use a standard paste action instead of the Paste from Named Clipboard action, and see if that makes any difference:

32 PM

Here's a new version of the macro with that change enabled:

Start and end Bumpers ADD 1.2.kmmacros (21.8 KB)

1 Like

@quickreactor:

I agree with @gglick on both counts:

  • Use KM Variables unless you need to store rich text, images, or objects.
  • I have found that sometimes (perhaps due to how a particular app handles the clipboard) that setting the clipboard to the named clipboard contents and use a standard paste often (always?) solves the issue. So I just use that as a matter of course. IAC, the System Clipboard is always set to the contents first.
1 Like

@JMichaelTX

Thanks but this is not text that needs to be stored. It’s copying and pasting a video clip in an editing timeline. I have tried both ways, directly pasting the named clipboard and changing the system clipboard and then pasting. Both exhibit the same behaviour. I will make a video of it and post it later today.

Yep, that's exactly what I indicated:

In that case, it sounds like your app is not recognizing the Clipboard properly, OR, the CB is not being set properly.

Perhaps I missed it, but I did NOT see a Paste from either the System Clipboard or from a Named Clipboard in your above macro.
Could you please upload an image of the macro where this is done?

I did note one thing: You used a ⌘C to copy. It is much better to use the KM Copy action, as it will wait for the copy to complete before moving to the next Action.

I updated the macro after @gglick gave me the advice to change all key press actions to menu clicks or proper actions like copy or paste. There are some things in Premiere that aren't in the menus but can be mapped to the keyboard so I have kept those as they were. I also kept @gglick 's clipboard checking pause action for the subsequent clipboard transfers.

It could absolutely be something to do with the way that Premiere handles the keyboard. It's just a shame because you could do many powerful time-saving things with that functionality.

Keyboard Maestro 8.1.1 “Start and end Bumpers ADD (old not working)” Macro

Start and end Bumpers ADD (old not working).kmmacros (24 KB)

Just my 2 cents. I confirm updating the System Clipboard with a named clipboard then pasting solved an issue for me. When pasting directly from a named clipboard into Adobe Illustrator I was sometime getting SVG text instead of the vector content. In addition, I could not use the Paste in Front/Back feature. By updating System Clipboard "Past in Front or Back" works, even maintaining the original coordinates of the clipped item.

I know I'm really late but I am having the same issue and haven't been able to find a workaround. Does anyone know if there was a bug report made?