Why does Premiere crash so often?

[benwinter]

I've been a Premiere user for about 8 years now, mostly because of my reticence to have to train on another system. I must say Adobe engineers have been very helpful and willing to assist on every problem I've encountered. A handful of my problems dealt with incompatibilities and failures of the Cineform software, which I have since abandoned. But I don't want to add up the hours of hard work this unreliability has cost me, on the phone with tech support or posting messages like these. It's a large number though, I'm sure.

But if I could make the transition smoothly, I would, frankly. I'm astonished if I manage a single day without Premiere crashing at least four times. This has been true since day one, across multiple machines, on different systems, Mac and PC.

Sigsev, Bad access, kernel panic, Sorry an error occurred, we will attempt to save your current project. These and similar phrases have become my lexicon. I remain a Premiere user solely because there are a handful of features not present on other systems that make my job easier, despite the instability.

Am I just unlucky? Have others had a similar experience?

This post is the effluvium of losing about 2 hours of work because of a crash and a failure of the autosave feature. Premiere is reliable in that it is reliably unreliable, and I hope I'm not waiting for improvement that never comes.

A beach distracts me

The only crash that I hear

Not waves but Premiere.

[shooternz]

You asked

Am I just unlucky? Have others had a similar experience?

Yes if your system is in decent spec and setup...No in my experience,

I had to dredge my memory to even recall a crash or a hang or a restart or a project file corruption. ...  (Windows 7, CS6).

Only thing I could recall was a crash to do with an audio effect I applied...and it was a long time ago.

[benwinter]

Brand new Mac Pro 2010, I suppose not so new anymore. A quick look through my console log shows crashes of all different flavors over the past week or two. A while ago I started touching Cmd+S after almost every edit. If I lose a particularly large amount of work or multiple failures in a row I usually go make myself a cup of tea. I go through a box of Tazo in about 10 days. Zen is my favorite, then peppermint.

[al_bergstein]

MAybe being more indepth on what you were doing when crashed would help. I rarely encounter them.

running on W7 64bit. 8 GBs RAM. Mainly mxf and gh2 avchd footage

[Kevin-Monahan]

benwinter wrote:

Brand new Mac Pro 2010, I suppose not so new anymore. A quick look through my console log shows crashes of all different flavors over the past week or two. A while ago I started touching Cmd+S after almost every edit. If I lose a particularly large amount of work or multiple failures in a row I usually go make myself a cup of tea. I go through a box of Tazo in about 10 days. Zen is my favorite, then peppermint.

Give us more details about your system, please.

[Jim_Simon]

Am I just unlucky?

I'd say yes.  This is certainly not the norm, at least not on a properly built Windows machine.  Both the OS and the Adobe suite of programs are extremely stable in such a case.

[lasvideo]

I second Jims experience. I have PrP CS 6 on a HP Z820 for about 6 months and it hasn't crashed once. Sorry you are having so much difficulty with it. If you really want to figure out what is wrong with your set up. Call Eric at ADK. They are experts at setting up and optimizing PCS for use with Adobe software. 

859.635.5762    | Hrs: Mon-Fri 10-7pm EST

[benwinter]

I'm very glad to hear of all your successes on PC machines. I switched to Mac three years ago. If anyone recommends to you switching as well, it wasn't me, I'm not that duplicitous.

Yesterday I was dragging a clip to the timeline (an innocuous action I assumed) when this greeted me

EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: EXC_I386_GPFLT

Before that, Premiere was crashing until I deleted all my media cache files. Two cups of tea while I waited for conform files to rebuild.

On the 11th of December Premiere crashed four times with EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGABRT) because, well who knows, maybe I looked at it funny.

Then there was this problem, until Adobe finally patched it http://forums.adobe.com/message/2767953 (Audioprefetch.cpp crashes Premiere)

And this one http://forums.adobe.com/message/4551305 (Mac Serious Error)

More on that kernel panic http://forums.adobe.com/message/4522951

Cineform files crash Premiere when loading thumbnails in the bin, that still hasn't been fixed as far as I know—although Adobe and Cineform were apparently "working together"—and was the reason I said au revoir.

[lasvideo]

Bummer.

Until last July I had been running CS5.5 and 6 on a 2008 Mac Pro with 24GB. of ram and a Quadro 4000.

Never had crashes with that setup either. It sounds like your system could use a checkup by someone who knows alot about edit systems.

[Kevin-Monahan]

benwinter wrote:

I'm very glad to hear of all your successes on PC machines. I switched to Mac three years ago. If anyone recommends to you switching as well, it wasn't me, I'm not that duplicitous.

Yesterday I was dragging a clip to the timeline (an innocuous action I assumed) when this greeted me

EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: EXC_I386_GPFLT

Check your CUDA drivers. Also look at this thread: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

benwinter wrote:

Before that, Premiere was crashing until I deleted all my media cache files. Two cups of tea while I waited for conform files to rebuild.

Necessary sometimes, as media cache files can become corrupt.

benwinter wrote:

On the 11th of December Premiere crashed four times with EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGABRT) because, well who knows, maybe I looked at it funny.

A clean reinstall of OS X, then reinstall your CS6 apps. Those steps should fix this.

benwinter wrote:

Then there was this problem, until Adobe finally patched it http://forums.adobe.com/message/2767953 (Audioprefetch.cpp crashes Premiere)

Great!

benwinter wrote:

And this one http://forums.adobe.com/message/4551305 (Mac Serious Error)

The "Mac Serious Error" thread is a serious error itself. It has problems Mac users have had that are unrelated to the Serious Error warning. This problem should be fixed as of Premiere Pro CS6 (6.0.2). If you are still getting the Serious Error warning, please file a bug report: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

benwinter wrote:

More on that kernel panic http://forums.adobe.com/message/4522951

Cineform files crash Premiere when loading thumbnails in the bin, that still hasn't been fixed as far as I know—although Adobe and Cineform were apparently "working together"—and was the reason I said au revoir.

Have you filed a bug report? http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

Thanks.

[benwinter]

Kevin, thanks for responding. The "wipe everything and reinstall" mantra is becoming tired now. It's clearly not a long-term solution, as I've tried it many times and the errors keep cropping up.

Just now I received a "Serious Error" on my brand new MacBook Pro retina with only Premiere installed. How much cleaner of an install can you get? Should I file a bug report for an error that seems to happen for no apparent reason? I can't even remember what mundane action I was performing when it happened. Dragging a clip to another track, I think.

I file a bug report, I receive no response, errors keep happening. This is not incentive to continue filing them.

I seek a professional editing solution where media cache files stay uncorrupted, where the end user isn't repeatedly reporting bugs, and complete system wipes and reinstalls are not standard troubleshooting procedure.

Bug report...filed.

Edit: I've narrowed down the action to when I drag the playhead across the timeline with the mouse. I can reproduce it consistently and would be happy to demonstrate it to Adobe engineers over screenshare if you'd like. I've filed another bug report with this information as well.

[paragonmedia]

Just a quicky to say that I have had loads of crashes and then today a message popped up saying that Adobe had found a solution - click here for further details. I clicked and clicked but nothing happened.

Thanks for all the info on these forums. I'[m hoping the update will fix everything.

[whatspencerdoes]

My Premiere has crashed approximately 30 times in the last 3 days...it's getting ridiculous now. I completely echo Ben's sentiments...filling the same error report again and again with no reply seems utterly pointless.

It's not even crashing when I'm specifically doing something. Earlier I left my brand new iMac for a few minutes and came back to see another crash had occured....what's going on??!!!

[al_bergstein]

you might want to start a new thread, with your machine specs, and better info. There are so many questions, i.e. is it crashing with other apps? what's changed? what footage are you editing, etc. All in all it's pretty dang stable for most of us most of the time. when stuff like random crashes happen when you are not even editing, something is up but without knowing your specifics, it's not likely to make a correct guess.

[whatspencerdoes]

Cheers Al will start a new thread now!

[dahnab]

Adobe:

my premiere crashes constantly as well. Constantly. All day. All the time. No matter what kind of project.  4k- crash.  HD- crash. My cousin's wedding slideshow- crash.

I appreciate the laundry list of things I can do to potentially make things better. But why.... why ? Oh why?

This has been true version after version, on mac, PC, etc. etc. as "capabilities" increase, we are still stuck on an unstable system that is ridiculously likely to crash when on an important deadline.

Can we expect that your response to this issue will ever be "we are working on stability" instead of "here are 67 ways this is your fault"?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi,

my premiere crashes constantly as well. Constantly. All day. All the time. No matter what kind of project.  4k- crash.  HD- crash. My cousin's wedding slideshow- crash.

I'd want to know a lot more about your system, first of all. The more info, the better: FAQ: What information should I provide when ask... | Adobe Community

I appreciate the laundry list of things I can do to potentially make things better. But why.... why ? Oh why?

My systems are running fine here at work. I am very careful with installation and maintenance, though. I completely wipe disks rather than updating my OS. That helps a lot.

This has been true version after version, on mac, PC, etc. etc. as "capabilities" increase, we are still stuck on an unstable system that is ridiculously likely to crash when on an important deadline.

Again, I need more info. Can you create your own post with details?

Thanks,

Kevin

[jetdyl]

Mine crashes a lot but not four times a day, three at most. However, Premiere always manages to save my work. So it isn't a standout problem to me. I just assumed it happens with all NLE's. It would be great if they could fix the problem, though.

[ScienceTech_2011]

Hi folks,

   Old post but I can see folks still find it when searching here's what increases stability for me running Premiere on Mac.  My tips would be different for PC users.

1)  Honestly, transcoding ahead of time solves 90% of crashing issues in Premiere (the irony is that's why folks like Avid it forces a conform on import and that's why it's more stable).  It's a time suck up front but saves on the backend.  Don't import .MTS files, they cause a ridiculous amount of issues.  MP4s can also be problematic.  Anything that comes off a Sony or Canon camera in a proprietary format is problematic.  First covert the clips to ProRes (I use ClipWrap).  I find ProResLT to be a good mix of quality with low bandwidth requirements.   Can you edit without transforming?  Sure but you'll run into a higher than average number of corrupt render files, cache files and the like.  It's just not worth it especially on a longer project.

2)  Always save before you render or run warp stabilizer, for whatever reason those two actions tend to be when Premiere wants to crash or hang.

3)  Keep your graphics card drivers up to date.  Try turning off graphics acceleration in your graphics card settings.

4)  Make a Mac OS user account for editing, keep it slim, kill every unnecessary service.  Make it an Admin account.  Disable anything you can under Accounts> Log-in items.  Make sure Time Machine is set not to auto-backup.  Adobe products hate all of these things for no apparent reason.

5)  Don't use the Dropbox app or make sure the sync folder isn't anything Premiere is reading to, writing from etc.

6)  Set your scratch disks to an external drive, not a network drive, not the one with the OS on it either.  You need to use at least FW 800 on a Mac (USB 3 doesn't cut it even though the burst speed is faster over USB 3 it can't hang with the sustained read/write speed needed by video go FW or Thunderbolt).

7)  Open Terminal and type this command  "top" no quotes.  You'll see what's running on your computer take note when Premiere crashes is there something sucking up your processor (appears near the top of the top command).   For me stuff like Microsoft Outlook and Dropbox were stealing too many system resources.  So I can't run them in-tandem with Premiere.  I have to close and open them. 

Honestly Adobe does a terrible job of stability- they just don't focus on it at all.  I've used the suite on Mac and PC for 10+ years they have never had stable products on either platform.  Especially once you start pushing anything robust or noteworthy through them (e.g. 4k imagery, high resolution video, HDR etc).  For lords sake look at the over inflated size of the Adobe installer!   I was hoping Creative Cloud would mean better stability, alas no, Adobe seems to only focus on catchy effects or minor cosmetic changes.  Really what we need is an overhaul.  Get rid of their old clunky legacy code and build some apps from the ground up that are first and foremost stable.  

[bryanjames3004]

This is the most useful post I've ever seen here.  Great curation of important tips.

We hope for an overhaul but what we'll get is a darker UI yet again.

[UTS_Blueberry]

Premiere Pro (Creative Cloud)  is now unable to open any file. That is, any time I try to open any footage file Premiere Pro crashes with "Adobe Premier Pro CC 2014.2 has stopped working. A problem has caused the program to stop working. Please close the program." Closing the program is the only action possible. Naturally this makes it really difficult to use Premiere Pro for its intended function and really difficult to determine the cause and possible fix.

I have checked the system it meets or exceeds Premiere Pro requirements. I am do not have permission to uninstall and reinstall the program and, besides, that is about the most useless advice I can imagine. Surely Adobe support can do better than that.

This program was installed last week and used for three days to edit some short footage taken with a Canon XF100 camera. All footage is .MXF format. To check, I imported a .MP4 file and tried to open that with exactly the same result.

Clearly something basic is wrong. Does anyone have a better suggestion than "uninstall and re-install the program."

Thanks

Tom McBride

[benwinter]

Tom, go through the motions of deleting preferences and media cache and report back. Usually that kind of problem is related to corrupted media files.

By default the Adobe media cache folder is here on a Mac:

Users/(Your user name)/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Media Cache Files

Ben

[Chris Cox]

Does it crash in the OS open dialog?

What does the long, detailed crash report say?

(MacOS 10.10 has some well known bugs in the OS open/save dialogs that can crash any application)

[UTS_Blueberry]

There isn’t a long detailed crash report so far as I can tell. This is Windows 7 enterprise.

Regards

Tom McBride

[Chris Cox]

Bah, got confused with platforms reading the replies (and trying to fight SPAM).

On Windows, there is still a crash report (not as detailed, but useful), under the system event viewer or reliability reports.