Premiere Pro and Media Encoder crash while rendering H.264

[ItsHinchy]

Very recently, a problem's popped up where Premiere Pro and Media Encoder (CC) will crash while rendering H.264.

It's only while rendering H.264 - other formats seem to work fine.

And I don't mean that it returns an error, I mean it hard crashes with a Windows "Adobe Premiere Pro CC has stopped working" popup.

It doesn't crash at a consistent time during the render, even on the same project. Occasionally, it won't crash at all, but this is usually not the case.

I've tried disabling CUDA and my overclock to no avail. Please help!

[Jeff Bellune]

Clean your media cache database -- Edit>Preferences>Media.  Click the Clean button.

Trash your preferences -- launch Pr from a shortcut and press the Shift+Alt keys.  Keep them pressed until you see the Welcome screen.

Try exporting again.

Jeff

[ItsHinchy]

I did both of these, but alas, it still crashed.

[Jeff Bellune]

OK.  When was the last time you cleaned out your computer case?  H.264 is very CPU-intensive, so heat can become an issue.

Jeff

Sent with Mailbird

[pate44352619]

Just compress your computer, to have more space.

And use WMV, instead of AVI and other fancy format to export your project.

[Portpass1974]

Hi Jeff.  Thanks for this.  The rendering in Adobe PP CC didn't even work (the box would open, but then it would say "Rendering Files..." and just hangs), until I cleaned out the media cache database.  I had no idea it was as simple as this.  I didn't even have to trash my preferences.  But what, specifically, does launching the program with the Shift+Alt keys do?  Is that like starting it up in basic mode, or something? 

The only issue is that once the rendering (or exporting to Media Encoder) works, I have to clean out the database again for me to render or export again.  Is that normal?  Thanks again. 

[Portpass1974]

Hi again.  Almost forget to ask you about this: even after I clean out my cache folder under Preferences, I notice that there are still a lot of files there in both the Media Cache and Media Cache Files folders, including .ims, .pek, .cfa and loads of audio files and .mcbd files.

Sould I delete those manually through Windows, or keep them there?  Would deleting them manually make my rendering and exporting work better so I won't have to keep on cleaning the cache database every time?  Thanks.

[Jeff Bellune]

Portpass1974 wrote:

Hi again.  Almost forget to ask you about this: even after I clean out my cache folder under Preferences, I notice that there are still a lot of files there in both the Media Cache and Media Cache Files folders, including .ims, .pek, .cfa and loads of audio files and .mcbd files.

Sould I delete those manually through Windows, or keep them there?  Would deleting them manually make my rendering and exporting work better so I won't have to keep on cleaning the cache database every time?  Thanks.

It cant hurt to try -- if Pr needs those cache files again they will be re-created.  Cleaning out the cache only deletes the cache files that aren't being used any more.  And since Pr, En, AE and the AME all share the same cache, the number of files that will get deleted during a cleaning operation may be much smaller than you expect.

Holding down the Shift key during launch cleans out the plug-in cache and holding down Alt resets your Preferences.

Cheers,

Jeff

[jeff4083402]

I am having same problem, and I'm really frustrated.  I can't create any videos.

I tried disabling cuda, and clearing cache, and deleting preferences, and opening with alt+shift, and it still crashes when trying to export/create the video.

I got on support with Adobe, and the guy didn't know why.

I'm on a pretty new PC, only a few months old.  It's an 8 core processor at 4.6 ghz and 32 gb RAM on a SSD.  For a couple months I created videos in Premiere just fine.  It worked great.  Now, for no reason I can find, everything else including Photoshop works fine, but Premiere crashes every time.

Please help.

[humanbeing00]

Hi all

Have any solutions been discovered for this problem yet?

I am having the same problem trying to render a university assignment that is due in two days. I tried exporting in CC, which worked for a while, then stopped. Then I tried media encoder, which worked for a while, then stopped.

The only thing I have noticed about this problem is that it seems like the length of the export determines whether or not it will crash. Anything over 2-3 minutes seems to fail.

This is frustrating me beyond measure - I could easily take my project into my university 5 minutes down the road from home, however they have gone and converted all of their editing systems to Mac's.... So I can't open a Premiere CC project from Windows on these Apple systems because it is apparently opening from an older version of Premiere CC. Mine is definitely up to date, as are their's.

Please, could somebody from Adobe, or anybody, help us with this?

Thanks in advance for any help anybody can provide. Offering a carton of beer to the first person who can help.

Justin

[theeccentric]

I just started having this happen, and I may need to re edit a whole f-ing project in the next day if Adobe doesn't take care of their problem. Not happy.

[humanbeing00]

On the topic of opening a project on the exact same version of Premiere Pro CC 2014 (yes it is definitely up to date, and the 2014 version), to overcome this export crash problem that ZachHinchy has brought up - you can't. Technically speaking, one should easily be able to open a Premiere Pro CC 2014 project from one system on another system running the exact same up to date, legitimate version of Premiere Pro CC 2014 without any kind of error. But for some reason, this has been disallowed(?) by Adobe. It has facepalm written all over it. Does anyone agree that this is at least a little bit silly?

I have tried exporting a Final Cut Pro XML from my project to try and open the sequence at uni on a Mac, so I can render my project when I finish my edit. It half works - the clips are there, but the sequence is gone - i.e. 12 hours of painstaking sequencing and micro-edits that had me at several points in time wanting to insert my hand through my monitor with enough force to make a large hole. I really cannot afford redo this sequence, as my assignment is due tomorrow, and I have to work at 6 oclock in the morning, so I also cannot afford to stay up till the early hours of tomorrow morning. Wish me luck that some miraculous event has taken place overnight that will somehow allow me to just open my project, on the same version of Premiere, on a Mac, without hassle. (Apple OS is not friendly to anything but its own selfish nature, so I am having doubts).

Adobe please, if you can do anything at all to help, you will save my assignment, and my faith will be restored. Otherwise, I'll just get my money back and buy Final Cut instead.

I cant even

If I find a way to fix either of these problems, I will post straight away.

[humanbeing00]

So Adobe has updated the cross-same-version compatibility problem. Projects can now be opened on other systems on Windows or AppleOS. Might have helped that I logged in at the create project screen and transferred my settings across to the system I am on at Uni.

As for the rendering problem, I will try to figure out an answer to the problem beyond just saying that the highest you can render is H.264 720p 25.

Good luck to you all

[InterimAD]

Hi All,

I have exactly the same behavior - Premiere Pro CC crashes during rendering and export. I have a iMac 27" with:

Model: iMac14,2, BootROM IM142.0108.B02, 4 processors, Intel Core i5, 3.4 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.15f2, TOSHIBA 512GB SSD

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M, PCIe, 2048 MB

• The Adobe Premiere and all other CC Programs are all updated

• I tried it with CUDA, without (per Software and OpenGL rendering)

• I erased the Premiere cache and started with Shift + Alt

• I make a complete new project and sequence and tried to export old films, that I exported before

• I deinstalled CUDA

• The Adobe folder inside the preference folder (Library) is set to read&write for me 

• The hard drives are all checked with disk utility

• The OS X is Mavericks and started several times with cmd + alt + p + r for cleaning the processor ramm

• My iMac is clean and stays cool during rendering and exporting

What else can I do?

[CBCreator]

I was running into a similar problem - fortunately cleaning the media cache database and trashing the preferences worked for me. Hope others who this doesn't work for can find a fix.

[thnord]

So I'd like to take a crack at getting to the bottom of these issues. To do that, I'd like to gather some more information. Please be as thorough as possible as it will help us better understand what's going on so we can investigate any bugs.

• What version of Premiere Pro/AME are you using?
• What type of system are you on? Hardware, OS (please be as specific as possible)
• What is your source? Is it a Premiere Pro sequence?
• Have you ever reproduced with anything other than a Premiere Pro sequence (ie. just a single file being transcoded in AME)?
• What type of media is in your sequence?
• Are you using any 3rd party effects in your sequence?
• Does the problem go away if you export to another format? If so, a possible workaround for the time being would be to export to an intermediary format then transcode that file to h.264.
• It is also helpful to distinguish between rendering and exporting. Please let us know if you see the crashing when rendering your timeline or exporting either through Premiere or Adobe Media Encoder (or both).

As noted above, trashing your preferences may resolve the issue:

1. To trash preferences, hold down the Shift key while launching Adobe Media Encoder.

2 (mac). To delete the Media Cache on the Mac, navigate to: (your user directory) > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Common > Media Cache Files, and delete the contents of that directory.

2 (win). To do it on Windows, go to: (your user directory) > (your name) > AppData > Roaming > Adobe > Common > MediaCache and do the same thing.

One other possible solution: Look at your sequence and find any gaps between clips and replace them with black video. This has caused issues for some users in the past. Please let us know if that resolves the issue.

[kengullette]

I am also having this problem. I had no issues at all using Premiere CC 2014 but after the upgrade, it closes when I try to export.

I will try some of these suggestions but I am disappointed that this is sucking up so much of my time.

[gjhbfgkvjioq]

Hi,

I'm also having problems with Premiere Pro crashing on export.

When I export, it goes for a while (this can be any amount of time - it's not consistent), then my computer completely crashes. No warning or error messages are given. One second it is ticking along, the next the computer is dead like someone's pulled the cord out.

It happens less often with shorter films - just managing to export a 15 minute film if I cleared the cache and preferences as has been suggested. But currently I have a 40 minute film and this has me stumped. Nothing is allowing it to export.

I was able to export shorter films without issue on earlier versions (I did not try for 40mins).

------------

Here are the details you asked for:

What version of Premiere Pro/AME are you using? PremierePro CC, updated June 2015

What type of system are you on? Hardware, OS (please be as specific as possible) PC,Windows 7, Service Pack 1, AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Processor 2.80 GHz, 12.0GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 68000 Series

What is your source? Premiere Pro sequence

Have you ever reproduced with anything other than a Premiere Pro sequence (ie. just a single file being transcoded in AME)? No - not tried this.

What type of media is in your sequence? MVI - QuickTime Movie files taken on DSLR camera.  JPEGs.

Are you using any 3rd party effects in your sequence? I am just using basic effects that come with PP (transitions) and I've used the synchronise and multi camera functions.

Does the problem go away if you export to another format? No, I have tried exporting to other formats and it still crashes.

It is also helpful to distinguish between rendering and exporting.  When I press "Enter" to render it also sometimes crashes the program, with an error message. I have not tried the queuing option to render it in Media Encoder.

------------------

My husband is a programmer - he says he feels for you working on this at Adobe as  he knows how hard it can be to nut these things out!  Good luck and please find a fix soon.

[niekvanzon]

There's a bug fix update for media encoder. Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015 (9.0.1) bug-fix update | After Effects region of interest

Just go to help in premiere or another adobe programme and check for updates.

If you run this and then export your sequence via the mediaencoder the h26 exporting bug doesn't occur.

Hope this helps!

[gjhbfgkvjioq]

I thought I'd give an update on my problem with PP crashing on export as it is now - finally - fixed.

After trying every trick in the book with the great people at Adobe support, including re-installing my operating system, they eventually suggested having the hardware checked out.

I took it to the two guys in my local computer shop. They thought it was most likely something to do with the power because of the way it was crashing (i.e. total crash, power off, no restarting). They proved to be right. After simply installing a larger power supply it stopped having the problem. This morning I could even export my large and complex 40 minute sequence successfully.

They replaced a 550w supply with a 750w power supply. That did the trick.

I'm not sure if this solution will help anyone else as everyone seems to have different issues, but it helped my problem.

[MarcusJ2001]

Well that ROYALLY messed up my project! Now most of my footage is unlinked, when I try and link it up it tells me that the audio is not detected and that if I continue the deletion of the audio track cannot be undone. Then there is the whole crashing every time I try and relink it up anyway to try and build everything back up. So what on earth am I supposed to do NOW!

[MarcusJ2001]

Oop! Whadya know!

[jeff4083402]

I also will reply, if this helps others.

I was able to solve the issue of Premiere Pro.  After spending hours working with Adobe support, they were not able to identify what was wrong.

I am running a newer 8core 4.6ghz AMD processor with 2gb video card and 32gb RAM, but why was PP crashing when editing a video?

I figured out that if I copied all my project files to the local SSD drive, and did not have any working files on a local standard harddrive or usb drive, then it worked fine.

So now I just move all my project files off of usb and regular drives to the local SSD drive before I start a new project, which is the same drive where Windows and PremierePro is installed, and then it works fine without crashing or other issues.

Just wanted to share, and hope that helps.

[Pjc-Photo]

THis was the answer for me and I knew better but was being lazy!

Keep all your files in the same directory on the same ssd drive!   TY

[Pjc-Photo]

‌ANd export to a different sad drive too if possible!! 😉