Premiere Pro 26.5.2 freezes my entire laptop after a few minutes of use (Windows 11, Intel Iris Xe)

Question

Premiere Pro 26.5.2 is completely freezing my whole laptop. This isn’t just the app not responding; the entire system locks up and I can’t do anything. No other program does this, only Premiere.

When it happens

Not immediately. It freezes after some time of use, usually between about 2 and 10 minutes, and sometimes up to about 15 minutes.
It happens while editing, not during export.
It happens even with low-resolution 480p footage.
The same file plays and edits with no problems in Avid and DaVinci Resolve, so it seems specific to Premiere.

System

Laptop: HP Pavilion x360 2-in-1 14-ek1xxx
CPU: 13th Gen Intel Core i5-1335U
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated), driver 32.0.101.7092
RAM: 16 GB
Media storage: 500 GB SSD
OS: Windows 11 Home Single Language, version 10.0.26300

Media and project

H.264 footage from an iPhone
Sequence settings: ___

What I’ve already tried (over the past 3 days)

Reset Windows completely for a fresh install
Updated the Intel graphics driver using Intel’s installer with “Clean Install” ticked
Rolled back to an older version of Premiere Pro
Rolled back to an older Intel graphics driver
Turned off GPU hardware acceleration

None of these helped.

PaulMurphy · Answer

iPhone footage is usually variable frame rate (VFR), which Premiere Pro doesn't handle well. It's also long-GOP H.264, which depends heavily on your system's CPU and GPU for decoding.

Try these tests one at a time, and note after each whether the freeze still happens.

Test 1: Turn off hardware decoding

Choose Edit > Preferences > Media.
Deselect Enable hardware accelerated decoding.
Restart Premiere Pro and edit with your original footage.

Note: This is a separate setting from the GPU acceleration you already turned off under Project Settings, so it's worth testing on its own.

Test 2: Convert the footage to constant frame rate (CFR)

Convert one of your clips to a constant frame rate using a tool such as HandBrake (select Constant Framerate in the Video tab).
Import the converted clip into a new project and edit with it.

Test 3: Create proxies

In the Project panel, select your clips.
Right-click and choose Proxy > Create Proxies.
Choose an intra-frame format such as ProRes or CineForm, then click OK.
Once the proxies are created, turn on Toggle Proxies in the Program Monitor and edit as normal.

Important: Intra-frame files are much larger than H.264, so check your free disk space before creating proxies.

It would also help to know two things:

In Avid, did you link to the original files, or did Avid transcode them on import?
Are you using the free version of DaVinci Resolve or Resolve Studio?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.