Premiere Pro project is saving very slowly, and sometimes not at all.

[HarryA82]

Hello,

I have a problem with a project that I’m working on in Premiere Pro CS6 on a Mac Book Pro. The project is 1GB in size. The project is saving very slowly, and sometimes not at all. (The save icon will come up but the progress bar never turns yellow) Average save time is 3-5 minutes.

The project is saved on an external hard drive … (Both the media and the project file on the external drive).

I have tried trashing preferences. And I have tried creating a new project and importing the old project into the new one. But the problem persisted!

Looking at an earlier post on this forum, I found this advice for someone with a similar problem:

Open the project

select project panel and go to file/export/final cut pro xml

Export it as an XML.

Create a new project and Import the xml in that new project. Open the sequence and then try to save the project again.

I tried it. When I exported the XML file, an error message came up. "Please check the FCP Translation Results report for possible issues encountered during translation." I looked at the report but wasn’t sure how to resolve any of these issues – or even how to translate the report. So, I went ahead and created the new project, and imported the XML as directed above. Still, the project is saving super slowly. I’m not sure if the reason for the slow save is related to the “issues” in the FCP Translation Results report or not.

The project also takes forever to load… I’m at a loss… Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Jogen]

Hello Harry,

I wonder, how did you produced a 1 GB big project?

Although I´m on CC and not in CS6, I never had a project size above some two-digit MB...

So check, if there is really only needed footage in your project!

If you have just one external drive, it will be better to work with a copy of your project on your internal HD, this should increase loading- and saving-speed a lot.

And the warning "Please check FCP...." appears at every XML-export - it is a reminder, to check for integrity, so it is no error message.

best,

Jo

[Dean_Utian]

Hi Harry,

Following Jo's question - when you say your project is 1GB, do you mean the sum of all content in your project rather than the Premiere file?

I'd suggest you try transfer the content into a clean file. Options are:

- Just try a 'Save as' to create a new version.

- Select everything on your sequence timeline and then copy everything, create a new file with a new sequence and paste.

Dean

[HarryA82]

Thanks Dean and Jo!

Yes. The Premiere file itself is 1GB. It sounds like from what you are saying that this is very unusual. To be clear, the project is a feature length documentary originally created in FCP7, and when that became a dinosaur, project was brought into Premiere Pro. The external Drive is 4TB, and The Media files on the external drive occupy 2.5 TB of that space. Knowing that, does the 1GB project file still seem unusually large? What could be making the project so large? Any suggestions on best way to proceed?

Thanks!

Harry

[shooternz]

Does the project contain "stabilised" footage?

[HarryA82]

Hmmm... What do you mean "stabilized"?

I have copied and pasted four of the most important sequences of the project into a new project as Dean suggested above. Here is what happened:

When I brought in three short sequences (one is 3 min in length, a second is 2 minutes in length, and a third is 10 minutes in length) the new project size grew from 0 to 11MB. When I then added a fourth sequence (43 minutes) the project size grew to 35MB. Does that seem normal? Obviously, its better than 1GB, AND the new project is saving in a reasonable 15 seconds, BUT... I have not even brought in many other sequences or the bins with the media clips yet!!! 

Also...When I copied and pasted these 4 sequences from the old project to the new one, Premiere Pro automatically copied associated media files into my project bin. Is that normal?

Thank you!

[shooternz]

Also...When I copied and pasted these 4 sequences from the old project to the new one, Premiere Pro automatically copied associated media files into my project bin. Is that normal?

Normal yes...because those are the pointers to your assets

[shooternz]

Stabilised means the use of the Stabiliser "effect" to ....hmmm...stabilise wobbly/shonky  shots.

It creates large files.

BTW - Try DELETING your Preview and Render Caches from your large file project.  (Menu Bar Option)

[chrisw44157881]

if you have arri footage, you could have amira luts in every single clip.

Amira LUTs and project bloat — The Premiere Pro

[HarryA82]

I don't think that's the issue. The majority of the footage was shot in SD in 24P at 4:3 ratio. I also have a good amount of HD footage - shot in 16:9 on various cameras - including a canon eos c100 mark ii. Other cameras were used as well, but nothing shot on an Arri.