Premiere Pro v 23.4 lacks stability and performance

Hey, sorry you've felt that way. Do please feel free to post issues, and to disagree. As a user forum, the wider the base routinely posting, the better off we all are.

I've got perhaps a different feel of this forum. I think maybe because I've always gone by the dictum that everyone's mileage always varies. I don't expect anyone to share my views or workflow. I don't expect that because I'm getting X behavior, that anyone else is. And I expect nearly everyone to disagree on anything. In fact, I enjoy the differences. It's how I learn.

I see the incredibly diverse set of operating systems, hardware, media, and workflows used ... and am actually amazed this and other apps work as well for most users as they do. The only "totally stable" apps I know of are on turn-key systems, like Baselight. You spend say $17.000 with them for the computer, another $1500 a year for the license, NOTHING but Baselight is ever on that computer. Yep, totally stable.

And ... I personally don't see any reason to invest emotions in a stupid application, no matter the app, the company ... or the hardware either. They're tools, fancy hammers. That's all.

The initial thing here, on a performance/stability discussion, is understanding that the hardware, media, and workflows used do affect stability and performance ... no matter the app. No matter whether a version of the app even has more troubles than another. Those details do matter.

I use Premiere, Ae, Audition, and Resolve most any day I'm working ... and all of them will work better under X conditions than Y. So it's always helpful to be able to recreate ... to replicate ... each other's problems.

And besides that, basic troubleshooting 101 requires knowing the exact setup where X happens, when Y is expected. Just posting that "this sucks, fix it!" doesn't help anyone figure out what sucks for that user. And any particular issue, is quite often affecting only a smallish group of the total user base. So why anyone gets mad at being asked the details of their issues is just something I'll never understand.

However ... though you explain your frustrations, your post doesn't give me, another user, any way to even start to help you. Which is the only reason I post here. I want to try and help.

And also realize, that I've posted epic rants here myself at times. Some things like killing SpeedGrade ... you wouldn't believe how much I infuriated up to the then-program head over that issue alone. Or the lack of keyboard shortcuts when they intially rolled out the Essential Graphics panel ... I argued that should have had ALL keyshorts of the old Titler also working in that, at rollout. If it was expected to be a professionally used tool.

Post away any issues, please ... your frustrations also. Hit the Ideas and Bugs postings also. And always, give the details of hardware, media, effects, and processes used. It's simply more and better data for data points and for troubleshooting.

Neil

I have refrained for years for posting here. Mostly due to the arrogant shills that lurke in waiting to discredit reports of issues. Thats my external perception when ever I discover a forum post with a similar issue to mine. Somewhere, someone is saying the poster is the problem. Sometimes they are. A lot of the time they're not. 

I have a similar and almost identical machine as the original poster. It's home built which I've done for 20 years. It's an absolute beast of a machine and cooled via water. Cinebench render scores are through the roof. Blah blah. My experience with premier 23 has been abysmal. Mostly when it comes to any kind of rendering wether to export or just render in the timeline. Hours. Hours and hours of rendering with little to no hardware utilization at all despite ensuring all hardware acceleration is implemented. Is there something breaking the hardware acceleration or use? I've had to ditch premier on my latest project for Resolve which I refuse to learn after years mastering Premier. Hoping for a fix soon

@Cross Aerial Photography I do understand what you're saying. That's why I'm trying to help you. But just because many others are reporting results that sound the same, that does not mean they all share a common cause that we could just fix if we really wanted to and make everyone happy. Problematic conflicts can come from anywhere, so what we need here is a real clue to what may be causing your particular problem.

So let's try this... (you're on Windows, right?)

Next time Pr gets into an unresponsive state, use ctrl+alt-delete to summon the Task Manger and find Adobe Premiere Pro in the process column. Right click on it and choose "Create Dump File". Then find that file, compress it if you can, and send it to me. This is an older article but it should illustrate what we need from you to have something to go on:
httpss://supportplexxtvv/articles/201373203-gather-a-process-dump-or-sample-process/

It's possible that a dmp file could reveal a root cause, but I can't make any promises here.

I've been hammered by a Premiere version myself, I certainly understand your frustration and angst. Most of us have.

But they have apparently several million daily users. Most of whom are not having any notable troubles. As someone who loves troubleshooting myself, I do understand also the frustration of the devs trying to run down something they can't figure out how to replicate.

I use both Premiere and Resolve on a daily basis. And am on the LGG colorists forums and the BM forums also.

And there are a few (percentage wise) Resolve users also getting freaky behavior at this time. So perhaps there are just so many possible variables to make what we users all need for stability darn hard. At this time.

The only completely stable post app I know of is Baselight, the high-end grading app.

But that's very old school. You buy your choice of three computers. Roughly $14G to $19G. They come with Baselight installed. You never ever add an app to that machine.

And pay something like a couple thousand a year to use the program. And yes, I know people using it. Very awesome app.

Give the Premiere devs any help you can, please? Tough job they have.

Hello @jstrawn 

I am very glad to hear that you are hear to help. Unfortunately, it seems that the main point of my post is already becoming embodied in this reply. 

I understand that some dry sarcasm might come across as me just be snarky or childish, but it is rooted in the frustrations that I, along with many other uses, face daily. 

I glad to hear your installation of 23.4 has no issues. I would really hope that Adobe would not just release broken update with known issues as a release version instead of a beta. 

However, just because your copy works fine does not discount my, and others, experience. 

You stated that you "tried following the only steps I could find in this thread" and failed to recreate my issue. That alone shows the point I intended was never understood. Maybe I worded it too poorly or was too verbose so let's try this:

• I installed a clear update of version 23.4, reset all preferences, have no plugin's, no HID Devices that cause issues, have correct drivers and multiple pieces of media
• Despite all of that, I still get crashes or Premiere Pro not responding. 
• I get latency of 2-10 seconds on the timeline trying to anything from clicking a menu, to scrubbing, to playback. 
• Premiere surpasses the allocated amount of RAM granted to Adobe applications. 
• And more...

What is there to go wrong here? Version 23.3 works fine, older versions work fine. Projects made in 23.4 have all of these issues but when opened in 23.3 work fine. How is this a hardware issue if the only thing changed is the update? Please don't mistake my words here: 23.3, and the state of Adobe products as whole, still is not great and many of the issues and grievances I have shared still ring true with it. They are just less egregious.

The entire point of my thread is that doing just those simple steps of "importing footage and attempting to edit" shows whether or not you will have issues. You don't, that is great. I, and many others, do. That is not great.

I cannot give a crash report if the program freezes to the point of needing to be forced closed or just exits to desktop on it's own. Though in the few times I have gotten the Crash Report option, I have sent them. But that is a strawman to the point. 

This should not be happening. Period. Already, we are chasing down a Snipe with a hardware issue.

I listed everything out above, I made it clear what I had done, the hardware, the updates, the drivers, what I tried, etc and the only "solution" I am given is that it could be some other issue I have yet to find? 

It should not be this complicated. I understand if I had 20 plugins running on cutting edge or old gear running a beta update, but this is as vanilla as it comes. 

I am glad you are hear and I wish I could talk to someone face to face or over the phone so that my tone can be conveyed. I am not intending on being mean or rude. I am frustrated and tired of seeing others having the same issues, post after post, year after year and being thrown around at best, or at worst, nothing is said. 

If I had data to give, I would. Maybe that even part of the issue here. But while I would love a solution, the point would still remain that this should not even be happening. 

@Cross Aerial Photography I, among others, am here to help if possible. I tried following the only steps I could find in this thread:
"to recreate this, update to 23.4, import footage, attempt to do anything..."

I didn't encounter any lack of stability or performance with those steps. This makes me think there may be some conflict with other things on your system. I understand the frustration around paying for software that does not work. Truly. But for the sake of troubleshooting, it's best if we just stick to what we know about your systems and methods.

From your two posts, I think I saw something that says you are on Win and using Pr 23.4. I also see your system is well above the minimum requirements for things like RAM and storage. Beyond that, I'll need something like a crash report or a dmp file to hopefully spot where the conflict may be. If you'd like to work with me on that, I'll do what I can to help.

This post is everything that we need! Thank you.

Good post there! And sincere thanks for taking the time to write it.

Good information. And reasoning..

Neil

Neil,

I completely understand where you are coming from. I work not only in Resolve Studio and Premiere Pro, but also do CAD modeling, CFD analysis, industrial 3D printing, and scientific astronomy. Needless to say, I have many, many, programs. Most of these are what you would consider "industrial" or "professional" software.

Out of all of these, the only software that could rival Premiere's issues is potentially Autodesk's Suite of software. Trust me, no company should want to be like Autodesk.

All of that to say, I have experience with many pieces of software.

As professionals who depend on this software to work for our livelihoods, we should never have this looming fear of a bug or error that cost us a gig or project. I personally lost a $2000 job with a 24 hour turnaround time due to import error that could not be solved as I had to use an existing project for this footage. I was less than happy when this happened.
I only feel this with Adobe products.

Sure, other software crashes on occasion. But, my autosave frequency is not set to 1 minute for fun.

I hope this does not come off as rude because I completely do not intend for it to (oh the joy of lacking tone with text), but I would argue that when you say "Both Premiere and Resolve are working well for most users, but getting some weird stick happening to small subsets of users" only comes from the lack of data of the average user.

Most users will not post on this forum. It is too niche. Heck, they typically will not post at all. However, if they do, they will complain on Reddit and YouTube comments. Just searching "how to fix ____" or something something "Premiere Pro Bug" on Google or YouTube and you find a plethora of issues.

Many of these, about the same thing. Post after post all with no solution or some strange workaround.

While the post or main video is a valuable data point, it is the replies or comments that matter. You find hundreds of like minded posts/replies sharing the same sentiment. Just look at the Matt WhoisMatt Joshson video called "Goodbye Premiere Pro! Why Editors Are Switching To DaVinci Resolve" and you will find 1,400 comments where a majority share their frustrations with Adobe and love for Resolve. Not to mention, Resolves one time price and impressive updates. This video seemed to stir up Adobe as they responded by talking with several creators and “vowing to fix these issues”. 4 month since that video and it remains to be seen.

But anecdotally, my rationale also comes from working with many highschool and college students, as well as, some"semi" professionals in the content creation sphere. People just getting their feet wet or who slightly know their way around the software.Users creating simple edits without effects, grades, or difficult footage. You said you teach as well, so I am curious if you disagree with what follows.

The number of times I have seen projects lost, edit ruining bugs, bugs with zero solutions, and just general issues and crashes has led to some serious discussions for migrating the schools over to Resolve. These errors were not user errors but seemingly random issues that occur out of thin air. Many of these did have workarounds (and the students would comment on them asking why this fancy software needs a workaround to function) but a very large amount were essentially "Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200"

What is depressing is that many times, this is a students first time trying this stuff out and this is what they are met with?

I cannot emphasized that point enough. Though years ago, when I was in college, I had several friends change their entire major over being annoyed with the state of software in the video industry. While many bits of software in general were rough, and the hardware did not help either, they still joke with me to this day about Adobe.


I do think it needs to be said that us, as the community, are also to be blamed for allowing this.

In the past, since this was "software", we gave Adobe far too much grace and mercy because we pretended it was still the 90's and people do not understand this "newfangled techo stuff". Lackluster update after lackluster update, promise after promise, and we just continued to hope for this 'one day it will work, it will be stable'. And too be fair, it's not like we had many other options. 

If we applied the issues with Premiere Pro to any other industry, the faults we find almost daily would be unacceptable.

A woodworker would never use a table saw again if sometimes it randomly stopped in the middle of a cut, burned the wood, or caused a kickback due to the saw and not user error.

A machinist would never use a mill or lathe again if it suddenly stopped accepting a piece of steel to due "generic import error 54"

A mechanic would never do a modification to a car if he had to "nest the clips, then go into the nest and change 'speed and duration' to the desired effect. Next, exit the nest sequence and now apply warp stabilizer to the nested sequence. Don't worry, the stabilizer won't work well anyways and you will disable it once it finishes."

the list goes on...

For some reason, Adobe has been granted the ability to say "software is hard and we don't know the solution". While I might could use that excuse because I do not write software for a living, the devs at Adobe do. My clients would never allow me to say "wow, video editing is hard so while I know you do not like this issue and it ruins what you paid for, I am sorry and I cannot fix it. Now pay me monthly"


You mentioned the dev's are aware of this and want to fix it. I do believe that. Several of my friends are higher ups in Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, GM, and Boeing, so I hear when they have issues that they want to fix but can't. Like them, maybe Adobe Dev's are overworked, understaffed, and underpaid. But that is not what this is about, though it could be a partial reason.

So, in case someone higher up does read this, here is my theory based upon a moderate understanding of software development and optimization.

Without losing the point of this and getting too technical, I believe there is a very large legacy debt when it comes to Adobe Software. I also believe that Adobe relies on “default” directories or libraries that many other software packages also use and creates the potential for errors should that be edited.

I have seen many users and writers state that Premiere Pro uses the same general infrastructure that was written back in the CS days. Some go as far as to say the code is the same, though I do not believe that. I cannot verify the veracity of some of these claims, but I trust the resources that state it.

If even partially true, then no wonder why software written on processors with kB of cache, clocked to a single gHz if we are lucky, with the barely existent GPU's measuring their RAM in Mb. My 4090 has more storage in its RAM then my entire first computer even had.

If the Dev's want changes, that is great but desire for change only can sustain a community for so long before they jump ship to other solutions. Hardware instability is absolutely a real issue. Adobe can only plan for working hardware, not users with computers that are on life support to stop from BSOD'ing.

That is why I stated my RAM was on the Qualified Vendor List. This is an issue that can wreak havoc on a system with bugs and crashes and I absolutely would agree with Adobe that they cannot solve that.

But unstable hardware is unstable hardware.

Computers that crash due to poor CPU voltage caused a bent pin, bad MOBO trace, or faulty PSU, that causes instant crashes/restarts when a load is applied, will do that not only a hard render in Adobe software, but gaming, CAD, machine learning, and more. A computer that is bulletproof in all software except one could technically be a hardware issue, but I wouldn't go all in on that bet. Buggy peripherals and poor storage can cause timeline issues as well, hence why I stated how I cache and store my files.

While hardware can cause issues, if a computer is all around stable, then the focus should be on the software.

On this save vein, I believe there becomes an issue with Adobe software and either Windows itself, or the dll/directories/drivers Adobe uses for its software.

See, I have actually been fascinated by this issue and sought solutions to this for over 5 years. My current computer build was done in response to an Adobe crash and error where I lost a project. So, I decided to build a zero compromise, top of the line desktop to remove the hardware variable from these issues. This build is stable in all software and truthfully, has been find with other version of Premiere besides the one that started this fiasco. But even with that, all my points still remain.

Over those years, I have collected data and asked many people what the issue they found was and when it occurred. Through various lines of questioning, a very curious pattern would emerge in almost all cases. It would go something like this:

"When I first started using the software, everything worked great but over time, it just keeps crashing"

or

"When I first built my computer (or setup a laptop/prebuilt), it ran so smoothly but now, all I get is stutters and freezing"

You see what I see? As time passes, the software somehow seems to change. That should not be possible, unless some hardware is failing. While Premier could update and the media being edited could change in size and ease to edit, the most likely and most variable change would be the other software on the computer.

Multiple Visual Studios, C++ directories, drivers, permissions, libraries, and more all get altered, installed, and exchanged as the user grows and changes. And this is where I see the most issues. These power users have the most issues, where the new users do not. But as you mentioned above, many of the pro users also do not encounter these bugs.

I believe that is because in the past, and this has changed due to the pandemic and work from home, pro's would work on computers that only had a small handful of programs installed. Most of which, work hand in hand so developers from completely different companies know their software needs work with all the major NLE's. Because of this, their office or work computers do not have the bloat that others have.

Do not get me wrong, at its best, this a potential explanation but absolutely not an excuse because Resolve and other NLE's run fine on my desktop and the others I have personally been able to troubleshoot.

This forum is filled with far too many people just like me and we all pay far too much for software to be this buggy. The purpose of a monthly fee instead of a one time purchase is the ability to gain frequent updates and improvements. Instead, I have to beg not for fancy new features, not for Premiere to have color grading like Resolve, but for the bare minimum of function and stability.

This took far too long to write and probably will not even move the needle for a company the size of Adobe. But at least I can say I tried and did not go down without a fight.

Thanks for that post, it's desperately needed. By the devs, too, as I'll note below.

I work daily in both Resolve (Studio) and Premiere. I also work for/with/teach pro colorists, mostly based in Resolve. I participate in general colorists forums like LGG and the BM forums.

I've got enough BM kit I've several Studio licenses sitting in a drawer.

Both Premiere and Resolve are working well for most users, but getting some weird stick happening to small subsets of users.

As a practical matter, for a professional, you gotta use what gets work out the door in your shop at this moment. So if Resolve is doing great,  so be it.

For comparison and data points: both are working very well on my 3960x 24 core Ryzen w 2080Ti and 128GB RAM, multiple Nvme, the rest mostly SSD. With a TON  of peripherals from Wacom through Tangent through Razer through the Atem ... and on.

Premiere runs great on my 4 year old Acer laptop, but Resolve is such a dog on it I removed it.

Obviously what you list as generating the problem doesn't do so on my rig, or several million others.

But it DOES do it on yours, and shouldn't.

And there are plenty of laggy and weird behavior posts on here, so you are most definitely not alone.

I had an engineer reach out privately to me, asking me to help get *extremely* detailed posts from anyone with performance issues, or simply weird behaviors.

They're trying to figure why this app works perfectly on several million machines, but clearly gags on some others. And are wondering if there are potential issues with various hardware and software items connected or loaded into the machine.

Hence they want to know everything flipping thing connected and used on problematic machines. And exactly what is happening... when.

So a detailed post like yours is most helpful and appreciated by the devs.

Neil