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Plisko
Participating Frequently
January 8, 2020
Answered

Media Encoder is next to useless on my Mac Pro

  • January 8, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 2748 views

I installed Media encoder 2020 hoping that Adobe fixed the things that broke it for me when I "upgraded" to 2019.  ...but all the same exact problems are there.

I tried to do and "add to queue" from Premiere 2020.  Media encoder took forever to open... then it took forever to IMPORT the Premiere project... literally longer than it would take to export from Premiere.... then it crashed.  Premier 2020 also had a bunch of crashes... so I switched back to Premier 2019 because I have work to do and trouble shooting one application is enough.

 

Then I opened Media encoder again by itself.  Again, forever to open.  Then I got a message that said 'The last time you opened Media Encoder it unexpectedly quit while re-opening windows. Do you want to open them again" and gave me  the option to open them or cancel.  But it was totally non responsive.   Force quit... open again... same message same non responsive beach ball.....but the message vanished...  OK that's progress.

Then I tried to "Add to Media Encoder queue" from After effects 2020.  It was a 10 second animation.  It took longer to export to Media Encoder than it would have taken to just export it from AE and move on.  It imported the document... but then I couldn't do anything with it.  Beach ball, Beach ball, beach ball... force quit.

This time I did "Add to Media Encoder Queue" with Media Encoder 2020 closed and had AE 2020 open it up and do the export.  The same exact thing happened.  It took forever... did the export... the project showed up in the ME window after way longer than an export would have taken from AE... but then if I click anywhere on the ME window I get a beach ball.   It seems unresponsive but it is actually just making every step take 2 minutes with a beach ball.  Click to name the video... beach ball for two minutes.. name interface comes up.   Click in the name box... beach ball for two minutes... then the name can be changed.   Click the format selector... beach ball for two minutes.... then the format window comes up... etc.

This is infuriating.  I have work to do...  now I am troubleshooting software when I am on a tight schedule.  So I am going back to the original applications and exporting directly because Media Encoder is a giant bag of hurt.  Has anyone had this happen or solved it?  

I'm on a late 2013 Mac pro running 10.14.6.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jeff Bugbee

Fair enough.  I appreciate your time.  It's weird that Adobe leaves it's users to vent at each other because they are the ones that deserve the initial customer anger, not other users.  I apoligize for misinterpreting the title: "Adobe community professional".  I now assume it isn't related to anything except being a professional who visits the community.

I never edit off of cards.  I do use external drives for my media because the SSD has very little space.  They are the same drives I was using when earlier versions of Media Encoder worked.  This behavior happened immediately after an upgrade to the last version of Media Encoder and it never improved when I upgraded again to 2020.  Whatever has crippled it is here to stay.  I guess I can do some drive experimenting... but I am jammed up right now which is why I needed MC to render while editing...

I have been using Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator all along on this same computer setup for at least 4 years now.  I bumped up the RAM at one point but that is it.  Premiere has occasionally been a hassle but only with crashy kinds of things.  Media Encoder is the only one that has failed at this level an it appears to be something with the basic control of the interface.  Once it is ready to go it masters just fine.   It doesn't seem related to the dynamic link.   I don't know what the difference would be between our computers.  I deleted the past version when I upgraded because it wasn't working anyway.  I assumed that this meant it was a clean install... but I guess I can delete more things and try again.


Have you opened AME and examined the Preferences? Make sure Import Sequeneces natively is checked or unchecked, depending on your workflow (hover your cursor over the item for more info).

 

For the Video Render, you may want to use OpenCL vs Metal as I've found OpenCL to have better performance (depending on what I'm rendering) using the 2013 MacPro.

 

Also, be sure to check Audio Hardware. Occasionally, an odd device can get defaulted in there (usually a bluetooth device) that can hang AME when it can't detect it (even though you never even use it).

1 reply

Jeff Bugbee
Community Expert
Jeff BugbeeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 8, 2020

This should go without saying but... never upgrade software during a project. This is like packing your parachute after jumping from the plane. Is it possible? Probably. Would anyone in the right mind do it? Absoloutely not.

 

That said, close Premiere, Close AE, close Media Encoder. Restart you computer. After logging in, launch Media Encoder by itself. Does it take a long time to launch?

 

 

P
PliskoAuthor
Participating Frequently
January 8, 2020

I understand why you give this advice... but this is software for professionals.  Professionals work all the time.  Upgrading between projects still makes the next project late.  This is not a video game where they can release it barely working and then people expect to wait around for patch after patch.  Professionals depend on stability NOW to make a living and deliver on time.  Period.  That should also go without saying.  Release stable, professional, software at professional prices or downgrade yourself to unstable consumer software at consumer prices.    Back when I could buy Adobe software and use it for as long as I wanted they actually had an incentive to do good work if they wanted more money for an upgrade  Now they collect my money for a new product even it sucks and I keep using the old version.  It's outrageous... and it makes perfect sense that they keep releasing glitchy products too early without enough testing. 

That being said... yes I have restarted everything and opened Media Encoder by itself and it avoids the import delay but it is still a beach ball mess.  So was version 2019.   That's why I upgraded.  I hoped they had fixed whatever is doing this.  The last one that worked for me was the version before 2019.  That version worked fine.  When I can actually get version 2020 to work it encodes just fine...  It just takes forever to set it up and my mouse pointer is a beach ball.

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