Adobe Media Encoder 2019 very slow

Report · Nov 05, 2018

Export times have quadrupled.

I have tested on 3 different iMacs, all with slow render times compared to 2018 Media Encoder.

macOS Sierra Version 10.12.6

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)

3.5 GHz Intel Core i7

24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB

Report · Nov 06, 2018

Hi, we're hearing multiple reports of long export times and are trying to narrow down the causes ASAP. Here's some things that have helped other users with this problem:

Make sure your NVIDIA GPU card has the latest drivers installed. Check the NVIDIA site directly to see if there's a newer driver available for your model.
Try a different GPU setting in the Renderer menu at the bottom of the Queue panel. If it's set to "CUDA", try "OpenCL" or "Metal" and re-import your sequence or source media. If that doesn't help, try "Software Only" rendering to bypass the GPU.
If you have a Logitech webcam installed, remove it and uninstall any related drivers/software
If you're exporting to H.264 or HEVC, check if "Hardware Encoding" is enabled in export settings.
If your source is a Premiere sequence with embedded After Effects comps, try exporting a version of your sequence without the AE comps to see if export times are significantly quicker.

Report · Apr 13, 2019

These suggestions don't work. A 30sec comp in After Effects is estimated to render 60 hours? Please fix.

My RIG:

Processor AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-Core | 3.40GHzInstalled RAM 128GB

2x Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

Nvidia driver version 425.31

Apr-14 06:02: In addition to other users initially reporting the issue, I also noticed that if I stop and delete an existing render in Adobe Media Encoder 2019, selecting Adobe Media Encoder Queue from Adobe After Effects v16.1.1 Build 4 does not transfer the Comp to Adobe Media Encoder 2019. The workaround is to reboot the machine and launch AE, open the project, select the comp, and then Adobe Media Encoder Queue and render.

Report · May 15, 2019

I found this thread on the internet. Media Encoder was giving me the spinning wheel with everything I did. Even checking a checkbox would cause the wheel to spin, sometimes for up to 20 seconds. I read your answer and went and checked my settings. I'm on a MAC Pro with 64GB RAM and two AMD Firepro D700 6144MB Video cards.

I checked the seeings at the bottom of the render window and it was set to "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (Metal). I changed it to "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (OpenCL) and immediately everything was back to normal and working fast and as expected.

Report · May 31, 2019

It's just disgraceful that I'm paying a hundred-off bucks a month for this garbage. I reckon queries about how to fix Creative Cloud app issues must account for 50% of all internet traffic. How do I explain to a client that rendering an 8 second logo sting is going to take 2 days. Sort your shit out FFS.

Report · Nov 27, 2018

I had the same issue with Media Encoder 2019.

I tried to update the GPU driver and even to reinstall all adobe softwares but it didn't work.

The only thing that work for me is to downgrade the media encoder to previous version. it works ok with After Effects 2019.

So until we will get a solution from Adobe, I think that's the only solution at the moment.

Report · Jan 12, 2020

Hooray! Thank you. This was my problem.

Report · Dec 18, 2018

Make sure AE is closed when rendering in Media Encoder. Worked for me.

I'm on a 2017 iMac 27 retina 5k.

Report · Jan 24, 2019

Haha. Thank you! That helped a lot.

Report · Sep 08, 2020

This has made a massive difference! Thank you James. Try it works peeps!

Report · Apr 10, 2019

I'm finding the AME 2019 render times to be unbelievably slow. I have two short (6-7 minute) videos I needed to update. One was only changing few static images. The other had new video content. The last time I rendered these they took about 20 minutes to render three resolutions. I had to run overnight this time and each required over 5 hours. Something is seriously broken in this version. There are many, many reports of this. I need to know if this is going to be fixed quickly or if I can no longer use these tools.

I have AME 13.1. I tried downgrading to a previous version, but that won't open any of the files. It gives an unspecified error when loading them. These are files created with Premiere Pro with footage processed in After Effects.

I am happy to provide a project that will demonstrate how slow this is.

BTW, this is on a brand new laptop with a 6-core i9 processor, Quadro P3200 video card, NVME drives, and 64GB of RAM. AME is using about 14% CPU, which I assume means a single core. What can it possibly be doing? I show 0% on the GPU right now.

Report · Apr 10, 2019

I have almost the same circumstances as cbowen4, and almost the same hardware (32GB instead of his 64GB RAM).

2.6 GB file takes 31 min on old computer, now takes 22+ hours on new computer. Same file. Same version 13.1. See my discussion question for list of things that I have tried to make it better. No luck at all.

I have also done all of the suggestions by ivansull above, but no luck, no change.

Report · Apr 11, 2019

In case piling on helps, two weeks ago, before the last update my 5 min video took about 4 minutes. Post update same video with same export settings takes over 4 hours.

To confirm, I have the AME 13.1, latest Quadro drivers with 32GB of RAM. Sames slow times whether rendering with software, CUDA or OpenCL. 4xi7 sitting at <25% CPU even with software only. All suggestions above have been tried without change.

Report · Apr 15, 2019

At least for me, I have resolved this.

Per above, I was suffering from the same issue: 50+ times slow down in rendering since AME 13.1. The various suggestions didn't help and per @infoPlockTV, no probs doing a straight mp4 h264 encoding in AME. Only encountered the issue when exporting a sequence to AME from Premiere.

The key symptom of my issue was that CPU utilization - even in Software Only encoding - was extremely low (<10%). If you are not experience this - probably something different.

I did the following (not sure which step magically solved things):

1. Full uninstall of PP and AME

2. Reinstall of PP and AME

3. Rolled back nVidia drivers

4. Reinstalled most recent nVidia drivers

Not particularly sophisticated but it did the trick. Full CPU utilization and hardware encoding working again at expected speeds.

Report · Apr 15, 2019

Phlegm<https://forums.adobe.com/people/Phlegm>,

GratZ!!!

I have done all that. It maybe that I did them in the wrong sequence, or it may be that I wasn’t holding my mouth right.

Let me check the details of how you did what you did, and I’ll try it again.

When you uninstalled PP and AME, did you choose the option of deleting all configurations when doing the uninstall?

Did you use the Adobe Clean Tool to wipe all pieces of Adobe left behind from the uninstall?

When you rolled back your Nvidia drivers, did you roll them back just one version? Then reinstalled the newest drivers? Or, during the install of the drivers you can take the option of a “Clean” install, what that what worked for you?

When you attempted the rendering again from PP to AME after all of the uninstalling and reinstalling, did you use the same project file from before the uninstall, or did you make a new project, newly import the source file, and then try the render/encode?

So, your sequence of tasks was:

Uninstall PP and AME (when you uninstall one, the other also uninstalls automagically, do you remember which you chose to uninstall?)

Reinstall PP and AME (when you install one, the other also installs automagically, do you remember which you chose to install?)

Rollback Nvidia drivers

Reinstall newest Nvidia drivers

Did I get that sequence right?

Obviously, I’m grasping at small, minute details, but that’s because we don’t know why what worked, worked.

By the way, I can confirm, that simply bringing in the source file into AME and rendering just that MP4 file using H.264 and a preset of YouTube 1080 p Full HD, completed very quickly as I would have expected.

Report · Apr 15, 2019

Hey there,

When you uninstalled PP and AME, did you choose the option of deleting all configurations when doing the uninstall?

Chris - I indeed deleted all configurations. I made a backup of my export presets though in advance (searched for .epr files and backed up the folder).

Did you use the Adobe Clean Tool to wipe all pieces of Adobe left behind from the uninstall?

Chris - I did not (actualy didn't know it existed).

When you rolled back your Nvidia drivers, did you roll them back just one version? Then reinstalled the newest drivers? Or, during the install of the drivers you can take the option of a “Clean” install, what that what worked for you?

Chris - I rolled back to the last version supported by my OEM (Dell) - about four months ago. I did select to complete a clean install.

When you attempted the rendering again from PP to AME after all of the uninstalling and reinstalling, did you use the same project file from before the uninstall, or did you make a new project, newly import the source file, and then try the render/encode?

Chris - I tested on the last three most recent projects which had worked. I made no changes.

So, your sequence of tasks was:

Uninstall PP and AME (when you uninstall one, the other also uninstalls automagically, do you remember which you chose to uninstall?)

Chris - I uninstalled PP and, to your point, AME went with it. Likewise, I reinstalled PP.

Reinstall PP and AME (when you install one, the other also installs automagically, do you remember which you chose to install?)

Rollback Nvidia drivers

Reinstall newest Nvidia drivers

Did I get that sequence right?

Chris - Yep! I got the newest drivers from Nvidia.

Obviously, I’m grasping at small, minute details, but that’s because we don’t know why what worked, worked.

I understand totally. I kinda feel like I did the equivalent of just kick the side of the box and it started to work again.

Fingers crossed for you!

Report · Apr 16, 2019

OK. We are getting closer to a solution!

I did the sequence of deleting PP and AME. Deleted everything Nvidia in Windows Remove Programs. Reinstalled PP and AME, then reinstalled Nvidia using Clean install. Then reopened old project and export old sequence. Result: no change. My 30 source file still shows 22 hours Remaining to render.

However, I took the idea of dropping the source file directly into AME's queue as described by Phlegm and then running the queue. That worked wonderfully, finishing in about 15 minutes.

Next I tried making an new bin in the old project, putting a clean copy of the source file in it. and exporting just the file from there, not putting it in a sequence. That worked great. 15 minutes.

Next, I put the source file in a sequence and exported the sequence. That worked great. 15 minutes.

Next I copied some old title files (do you call them files?), put them in the sequence, and exported it. That worked great. 15 minutes.

Next I inserted the 8 sec AE clip for the customers moving logo and exported it. Ka-blam! Back to 22 hours.

Conclusions:

Not a problem with the .mp4 source file. No problem with AME for this.
Not a problem with the title files. No problem with AME for this.
Not a problem with the sequence created in PP. No problem with AME for this.
Blows up as soon as the AE clip is in the sequence. I did try exporting just the AE clip and it had a really long rendering time, also.

So, is the problem in AE clip? Is the problem in how PP exports the AE clip? Is the problem in AME when it receives an AE clip from PP?

The AE clip was one that I created 2-3 years ago. I'm not sure how to update the AE clip if that's what's needed.

If anyone has ideas on that, let me know. Otherwise, it's back to more research.

Thanks everyone, especially Phlegm!

Report · Apr 17, 2019

Solved for me!

It was the 8 second, 3-year-old .mp4 clip created in AE. Opened the newest version of AE, found the old AE project, opened it, it asked if I wanted to update the project, I say yes, Re-render the output and new 8 sec file put in current PP and AME works as flawlessly as it used to. Problem solved!

And... why would an old .mp4 file create a problem in the newest AME?

Report · Apr 15, 2019

Unfortunately same here. AME is very slow on rendering premiere projects with h.264 *.mp4 files on timeline. Or rather "re-rendering"

cause rendering to mp4 h264 is fine, just rendering to timelines with mp4 files on them is very slow.

My typical project is made of ~30 second h264 mp4 file intro, then few minutes of mxf files and then 10-15 seconds h.264 mp4 outro.

Before latest update I would render entire timeline in about 3-4 minutes.

Now using AME 13.1, April version it takes about 12-14 minutes to render mp4 intro, 2-4 minutes to render mxf files and another ~10 minutes to render mp4 outro.

Just finished rendering a FHD, 25 fps, 3:13 long movie with hardware rendering in 27 minutes!

Report · Apr 17, 2019

Hello,

I've never used the AME, installed it right now to test it and... omg what's wrong with this program?

Importing 6 animations coded in h264 took like 4 minutes, changing an encoding preset takes 10-15 seconds, opening the dialog box takes 30 seconds... Should I change some settings?

I have surface book 2, with Intel Core i7-8650U, nvidia GTX 1050 and 8g ram and this program is just not working at all. I took mi like 10 minutes to change encoding presets of 6 files, Rendering however isn't that bad, it gone somehow fast.

But even so, I used free prism to encode my 6 videos and I've checked 6 presetes with it, when trying to use AME I havent finished one yet.

Report · Apr 17, 2019

I'm having the same problem after the April update.

In a simple video conversion, the same file with the same settings went from 15 minutes to 8 HOURS !!!

The processor does not exceed 10% of use during coding. Previously it was 100%.

It is not a video driver problem or any conflict. By Premiere the rendering works normally.

Just like the bugs I reported in the previous version Adobe will not fix until the following year.

Report · Apr 18, 2019

Same issue here. I do short (3-8min) and long (2+ hours) exports in h.264. Before the latest update, I had standard times and a reliable queue.

Latest 2+hour video (2:17:00) -- it takes around 7 minutes to simply return a 'time remaining' and then says 80 hours remaining. After stalling, the time remaining will show a flurry of activity and then go up, climbing to 90 hours, 100 hours. It's absurd.

Exporting directly from Premiere showed similar delay. I updated Nvidia drivers (GTX 1070) and tried exporting with CUDA, OpenCL and software only. No changes. I updated the onboard intel graphics driver. No fix. I relocated assets to different hard drives, all SSDs. Nothing. Finally I got it to work directly from Premiere but AME is still a no go. I deactivated Intel graphics driver. I tried changing the mercury render engine in project settings. No help.

Watching the the component utilization in task manager, I noticed something weird:

When it works (directly from Premiere): CPU usage -- 80+ percent solid; Intel graphics (GPU 0): 30-50% solid; GTX 1070 (GPU 1): 50-60% solid. It works!

When "exporting" from AME: CPU at 17% with brief activity spikes at regular intervals, GPU 0 total flatline, GPU 1 6% with similar activity spikes to the CPU.

Adobe, you broke the ability to create videos. How about -- just spitballin' here -- shifting some resources from new features nobody uses and working on the ability export videos in less than 4 days? I know, CRAZY idea. (seriously, release a version whose primary feature is stability and have a beta program for people willing to risk this kind of nonsense)

I don't care how many bells and whistles it has, if it doesn't drive, it's not a car. Right now, you're selling lemons.

Machine:

32gb ram, gtx 1070, i7 4790K, Windows 10 - over 10 years editing experience on PC and Mac.

Report · Apr 19, 2019

Dear Adobe,

Will you respond to that ?

Will you tell us - your customers when we wil have the ability to use our Xeon machines to render with multiple CPUs again in AE/AME?

Report · Apr 19, 2019

AdobeHank,

I had that problem and it was because I had an old (created in 2016) AE clip (Customer’s animated logo included for every video for the custmer), .mp4, and 8 seconds long. When I found the old AE project, opened it in the current AE, it asked if I wanted to update, I said yes, re-rendered and saved. Everything back to normal using the newly updated clip, still time in the toilet if I use the old AE clip.

In troubleshooting I found that I could put the main .mp4 file in a sequence, no editing, no AE clip, export it to AME, and the AME time was fast and normal. Seeing that, I then dealt with the AE produced clip to fix the slowness problem for all my stuff.

Report · Apr 20, 2019

Same problem here. My ´´solution´´ is rendering inside premiere pro. I´m just not using AME. And of course, that´s a shame because in a lot of ways, slow down my entire workflow and therefore, I lose money. These type of bugs are really getting boring over the time (I´m a very old Adobe user)...