• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
Locked
0

FAQ: Premiere Elements Hanging, or Crashing - Some Tips

LEGEND ,
Feb 16, 2011 Feb 16, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

There are many things that can be going on with one's system, and even a brand new system (possibly more likely with a new system?). Neale has assembled a checklist that one should explore first:

Work through these basics to see if it cures your problems.

  • Install all Windows Updates.

  • Install latest version of Apple QuickTime (v7.6.9 at time of writing). Even if you don't use QuickTime, PRE relies heavily on it.

  • Install most recent graphics and sound drivers from the manufacturer's web sites.
  • Install PRE9 v9.0.1 update, same for PrE 10, or later, or any patches for your version of PrE - check Adobe's site.
  • Delete BadDrivers.txt (in Windows 7 this is likely at C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Premiere Elements\9.0\BadDrivers.txt)  Note: location will be slightly different for each version of PrE
  • Run Disk Cleanup.*
  • Run Defragmenter.
  • Reboot your PC.
  • Temporarily disable any anti-virus realtime scanning.
  • Check your HDD's free-space. PrE needs about 20 - 30GB, just to run, and when editing, needs about double that, for the working files. *

And give us some information about your clips and hardware:

There are several FAQ Entries, found in Premiere Elements FAQ's, on the right of the main forum page, and these address some of the issues covered above, plus also offer some tips on tuning up your system for NLE (Non Linear Editing) work. Be sure to read all of the FAQ Articles.

In the Tips & Tricks sub-forum, there are many articles related to program/computer hangs, crashes and even the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). They are accessed via the link to Tips & Tricks, also to the right of the main forum page. Here are a few, that might offer some great tips, and things to explore:

Clean, Lean and Mean Editing Machine (with some Win7 Tune Up Tips via the contained links)

BSOD - A Serious Issue (with links to other articles, and also to the MS Web site, for The Case of the Unexplained)

Memory & Resouce Issues - Windows Virtual Memory

For issues with source files, see these articles:

Problem With An AVI File? - The Lowdown (Discusses other formats, which are also just "wrappers")

MP3 Files - Having Problems?

MJPEG - How to Handle it

CODEC's A Primer


Hope that these are helpful, and special thanks to Neale for his assembly of the checklist.

Hunt

* PrE, like most NLE (Non Linear Editing) programs, creates very large working files. These are necessary for it to do the work. Having 30 - 40 GB of defragmented, free space is necessary for the program to work properly. Note: with HDD's, once one gets to about 70% of capacity, the performance will go down. The closer to 100% capacity one gets, the lower the performance. Also, as 70+ % is reached, the mechanical wear on the HDD will increase. As one approaches 100% capacity, the likelihood of catastrophic failure of the HDD will increase greatly, as performance declines. Keeping the use of a HDD below about 70% is important for performance and for the health of the HDD.

Message title was edited by: Brett N

TOPICS
FAQ

Views

48.0K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Feb 28, 2011 Feb 28, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

One user offered this tip, for helping the slow redraw of the PrE 9 GUI on Win7:

RIght click your desktop shortcut > go to properties > click on the compatibillity tab and disable "desktop composition". 

Hope that this helps someone else.

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Mar 23, 2011 Mar 23, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

If one is still getting crashes or hangs, this ARTICLE will give tips on finding clues as to what is happening with the System, or Applications, when the crash/hang occurs.

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Apr 12, 2011 Apr 12, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

If PrE is not launching, then this ARTICLE might offer some tips, especially if one has audio-editing software installed with VST's.

Good luck,

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Apr 12, 2011 Apr 12, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

If nothing is helping, please see this on Got a Problem - How to Get Started.and post the requested details to help in troubleshooting. This information will be very important, as people are trying to help you troubleshoot remotely, and cannot see your computer. Please help then out here, with the full details of your system.

Good luck,

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jul 03, 2011 Jul 03, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

For updating one's video (and audio) drivers, it is strongly recommended that one go to the chip mfgr's. Web site, plug in their card's model and their exact OS version, in the "Driver Download" area. If one relies on Windows, or a driver utility to check for updates, those will almost always result in a driver version that is about six months old - possibly up to six versions back. It is recommended that one go "to the source," and check for updated drivers there.

Some drivers are provided by the computer mfgr., such as Dell, HP, and some others. If one has such a computer, then the computer mfgr's. site would be the first stop. Most such computer mfgrs. are good at getting the latest driver, for say nVidia, and then tweaking it for their particular computers. This would be the exception to the above suggestions.

Some computer mfgrs., such as Toshiba in years gone by, rewrite the drivers in a proprietary form. ONLY their version of a driver will work. One is totally at the mercy of those particular mfgrs., and will usually find that the driver from the chip mfgr., say nVidia, will not install. Unfortunately, some companies, that do issue proprietary drivers, are not good at updating them. This can be a major problem. There is a Web site: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers, that will allow one to "customize" a new driver to meet the requirements of their proprietary computer. I used this site years ago, with a Toshiba laptop, and was able to update its nVidia chip over the years. It's a bit of work, but I was always successful in doing this. It was necessary, as Toshiba never updated the proprietary version of the nVidia driver, over the five years that I used that machine. Though it has been retired for almost five years, I saw that Toshiba still had never updated it. At least I got five years of service, by customizing the releases from nVidia. I do not know if Toshiba still completely rewrites their video drivers, and in a form that cannot be directly update - I hope not.

Good luck,

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jul 03, 2011 Jul 03, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Probably the easiest way to find out exactly which video card and driver, one has installed, would be to run "dxdiag.exe" (without the quotation marks) from the Start>Run menu on the PC. Here is a look at the screen w/ the Display Tab chosen:

Dxdiag_Screen.png

Good luck, and hope that this helps,

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Aug 10, 2011 Aug 10, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Though referenced inside other articles, via links there, this List of Useful Tools, for all sorts of info gathering and testing, is worth a separate mention.

Thanks to Harm Millaard for compiling it.

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 14, 2011 Dec 14, 2011

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

MaggieKat posted of problems when starting PrE in this THREAD. She went on to give two helpful Adobe KB Articles, and also the instructions to get around a corrupt Organizer Catalog, which Adobe T/S suggested. If one is having trouble launching PrE, her detailed steps might be useful.

Thanks to MaggieKat,

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jan 22, 2012 Jan 22, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Also, see this Adobe KB ARTICLE for some format-specific tips.

Good luck,

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jan 29, 2012 Jan 29, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

For system crashes on Windows machines, running Adobe software, this Adobe KB Article migh be useful. Note: it is general, regarding Adobe programs, so there will be some "solutions," that might be unique to say After Effects, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, or one of the Premiere programs.

Good luck,

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Feb 09, 2012 Feb 09, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Let me contribute some additional details to the discussion.

The program won't even run. I can launch it, but once I choose to stat a new project or open an exisitng one, the sofware immediately fails.

"Adobe Premier has suffered a serious error and must close. Please restart."

I can't even get it to run well enough to get into it. Does that help?  I need to get this solved soon as I'm under deadlines.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Feb 10, 2012 Feb 10, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Not sure that is a "contribution," and I would post to the forum. First, I would look over this ARTICLE, for what info would be useful.

Then, I would start at the beginning of this article, and follow every step in the checklist. Next, I would follow each link in the "tune up" section, and finally, if nothing has helped, I would follow all the links in the "troubleshooting" section. They sort of work up, in "degree of difficulty." When done, if absolutely nothing helped, and you have not found out the cause of the crash, or hang, I would go to the bottom-right of the forum page, and "Contact Adobe," as something is horribly wrong.

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Feb 24, 2012 Feb 24, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Some crashes and hangs can be traced to problems with the computer's I/O sub-system, as that is very important for many aspects of Video editing. This ARTICLE goes into more detail on the I/O sub-system.

Video editing requires a lot of HDD real estate, and having that available, and defragmented, can be very important.

Knowing what the I/O sub-system is comprised of, how the HDD's are allocated for use by the NLE (Non Linear Editor), how much free-space is available, and if it has been defragmented, can be very, very important.

Besides having space for the program to work (working files can be very large), the performance of a HDD deteriorates, as ~ 70% of capacity is reached, and then deteriorates very rapidly, as one approaches capacity. Also, the closer to capacity, the greater the likelihood of a catastrophic failure - not a pretty thing.

The exact necessary free-space differs by NLE program, Project size, and also the Assets used, but having at least 40 - 60GB available is a good place to start. Remember, at about 70% of capacity, performance declines.

If one is having issues, posting the full specs. of their computer's I/O sub-system might point up bottlenecks and issues. That is why this portion of a system's specs. is so often asked for, and is a prominent part of the "Got a Problem - How to Get Started" article, linked above.

As Windows uses Vrtual Memory, i.e. the Page File, which is often (default) dynamically managed, HDD free-space, where the Page File is located, can be very important, and is talked about in the "Memory & Resources" article above.

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
May 30, 2012 May 30, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

If all else has failed, then The Case of the Unexplained might be useful.

Hunt

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines