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Needs More Info

P: Mask tool keeps showing a watch symbol and freezing

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Bug Description below

Since updating to the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro, the masking/object tracking tool has become extremely slow or completely unresponsive.

When I attempt to create or track a mask around a moving object, Premiere displays a watch/stopwatch-style loading icon and appears to get stuck processing indefinitely. In previous versions of Premiere Pro, I was able to perform the same masking tasks quickly and reliably on the same system and with the same type of footage.

Steps to Reproduce

Open a project in Premiere Pro.
Select a video clip.
Attempt to create/use a mask and track a moving object.
Premiere displays the watch/processing icon.
The masking process becomes extremely slow or appears to freeze indefinitely.

Expected Behavior

The masking tool should begin processing/tracking the object within a reasonable amount of time, as it did in previous versions of Premiere Pro.

Actual Behavior

Premiere becomes stuck displaying the processing/watch icon, making the masking feature effectively unusable and preventing me from continuing work that depends on object masking.

Additional Information

This behavior began after updating Premiere Pro. I did not experience this issue with the masking workflow before the update. I have also seen reports from other Premiere Pro users describing similar problems with masking/tracking performance.

The September update does not appear to have resolved the issue. Because masking is an important part of my editing workflow, I would appreciate it if Adobe could investigate this as a potential regression and address it in an upcoming update.

D

defaultb7kti39thahr

Participant

Fails completely, M1 Sillicon 26.5.2. Click and get the clock no chance of it ever working. No mask appears in effects panel. Any patch yet?

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gifted_Twinkle097d

Participant

The Object Mask Tool is very slow to process after the recent update (26.5.2) Specially when you want to start the masking, takes time to initiate not like before.

The Object Mask Tool is very slow to process after the recent update (26.5.2) Specially when you want to start the masking, takes time to initiate and sometimes freezes showing a watch symbol.

[merged by moderator]

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Amy the Stuv

Community Manager

Hi @gifted_Twinkle097d

I merged your post here and see you also commented below too. For all of these we need systems specs.

Operating System: Specify Windows or macOS, along with the version.
Chip (Mac Only): Specify which M-series Chip or CPU/GPU combo.
GPU and Driver (Windows only): Please let us know your video card and driver version. We recommend updating to the most recent version; for NVIDIA users, we strongly recommend the Studio version of the driver.
Video Format: If the issue relates to playback or export, please specify the format (and ideally share a sample video).

For this specific issue I would like to know about how long it takes and if it fails to make a selection entirely.

We have improved the quality of the object mask algorithm and the newer one is a little bit slower than the older one, but is better quality. You can change it to a fast option, but the quality may not be as high.

Hoping to help,

Amy

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J

Joe5E28

Participant

Anyone found any solutions to the bugs? The mask tool has been unusable for me for about a month. Just shows a stopwatch symbol.

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J

Joe5E28

Participant

Reverting to version 26.3 has seemed to resolve the issue for anyone wondering.

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Amy the Stuv

Community Manager

This is good to know. If possible, could you share the following information and we would truly appreciate a project and clips where this issue is present. I have not been able to get a proper reproduction of a complete failure to create an object mask on my M4 Mac OS 27 Golden Gate or Windows 11 NVIDIA RTX A1000 Enterprise driver 596.72

Operating System: Specify Windows or macOS, along with the version.
Chip (Mac Only): Specify which M-series Chip or CPU/GPU combo.
GPU and Driver (Windows only): Please let us know your video card and driver version. We recommend updating to the most recent version; for NVIDIA users, we strongly recommend the Studio version of the driver.
Video Format: If the issue relates to playback or export, please specify the format (and ideally share a sample video).

If you’re willing to share, I can DM you a private upload link to share with our engineering team to try and identify the source of this issue.

Thank you for posting.

Amy

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Mattgdj17485936

Participating Frequently

I am getting the same the mask tool keeps showing a watch symbol.

Apple M1 Pro

15.7.9

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Amy the Stuv

Community Manager

Hello @Mattgdj17485936

May I ask if the mask tool fails completely as in this is a freeze or hang or does it eventually work? If it just takes longer, this may be caused by the improvements we made to the object mask.

We have improved the quality of the object mask algorithm and the newer one is a little bit slower than the older one, but is better quality. You can change it to a fast option, but the quality may not be as high.

If it’s just failing, it could help to know the video format it was trying to detect objects on and if you’re willing to share some test media with us, we can provide you with a private upload link via DM to troubleshoot this issue further. Thank you for posting.

Please check out What’s new in Adobe Premiere on desktop for more information.

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M

Mattgdj17485936

Participating Frequently

It used to work fast but for some reason it compleatly stopped working. My only fix was to update from seqota to the new osx. I was avoiding this incase it created any other issues but so far its working correctly again. Maybe its an issue with M1 chips and seqota? The other mask tools worked fine, it was just the object mask that stopped. I tried beta and re installing etc. No dice, just the osx update.

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denis_6929

Participant

Same problem with object mask – it became extremely slow after update from 26.3.2

Mac Sequoia or Sonoma

Macbook m1 pro

All video formats

Premiere 26.5.2

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Amy the Stuv

Community Manager

Hi again @denis_6929

I see you and just wanted it mentioned that your post is noted here. Increasing the speed of the new model is in development.

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Joe5E28

Participant

Been having the same exact issue for the last few weeks. Whenever I hover over my footage with the object mask tool it just shows a stopwatch symbol.

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gregk98038575

Participant

Exact same issue here. No solutions?

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Amy the Stuv

Community Manager

That depends, would you mind sharing your Premiere version and system specs?

Premiere Version: How to find the exact version of Premiere you're using.
Operating System: Specify Windows or macOS, along with the version.
Chip (Mac Only): Specify which M-series Chip or CPU/GPU combo.
GPU and Driver (Windows only): Please let us know your video card and driver version. We recommend updating to the most recent version; for NVIDIA users, we strongly recommend the Studio version of the driver.
Video Format: If the issue relates to playback or export, please specify the format (and ideally share a sample video).

Helpful Context

Comparing when and where the issue occurs helps us narrow down the cause:

Does it affect all projects or only some?
Does it affect new, empty projects?
When did the problem first begin?
Does this happen on all clips or just some (in which case, format of that clip would be good to know)
Was 26.5 the version that did not have the issues or was it 26.3.2?

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gregk98038575

Participant

I’m running the 26.5.2 on my M1 Macbook Pro running Sequoia 15.5. Previously I was using the 2025 Premiere build and it ran smooth as butter, never a crash or a hitch on massive projects. I had to upgrade for the first time for a client’s simple project and suddenly Premiere is running like malware. Can feel my computer rising in temperature dramatically. What gives?

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josiah_4917

Participant

I’m having an identical problem, and hope you hear back soon with a solution. I’m currently using Premiere version 26.5.1 with an M3 Pro chip on MacOS Sequoia 15.7.9. I’ll be updating my computer software to see if that fixes it.

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Amy the Stuv

Community Manager

Please let me know if that resolves it. It could also be helpful to know if it happens in a freshly created project with a freshly imported clip.

Thank you,

Amy

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Amy the Stuv

Community Manager

Hello @intuitive_Miracle475c

Welcome to the Premiere Forums. Sorry to hear you’re experiencing this issue. We still need a little more information to help us identify and reproduce this issue internally or find a pattern with these reports.

Premiere Version: How to find the exact version of Premiere you're using.
Operating System: Specify Windows or macOS, along with the version.
Chip (Mac Only): Specify which M-series Chip or CPU/GPU combo.
GPU and Driver (Windows only): Please let us know your video card and driver version. We recommend updating to the most recent version; for NVIDIA users, we strongly recommend the Studio version of the driver.
Video Format: If the issue relates to playback or export, please specify the format (and ideally share a sample video).

Helpful Context

Comparing when and where the issue occurs helps us narrow down the cause:

Does it affect all projects or only some?
Does it affect new, empty projects?
When did the problem first begin?
Does this happen on all clips or just some (in which case, format of that clip would be good to know)
Was 26.5 the version that did not have the issues or was it 26.3.2?

This information will be invaluable to the investigation.

Hoping to help,

Amy

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D

denis_6929

Participant

Same problem with object mask – it became extremely slow after update from 26.3.2

Mac Sequoia or Sonoma

Macbook m1 pro

All video formats

Premiere 26.5.2

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