Media Encoder 2018 Causing Complete Network/System Crashes

[rayl44943207]

I run a small post production shop and we've been having consistent issues with Media Encoder 2018 causing crashes. We've been troubleshooting for weeks and have tried every other possible solution. Details below:

OS: macOS 10.13.6 and 10.14.3
Hardware: Mac Pro 2013 (various configurations), iMac Pro

Software: Adobe Media Encoder 2018, After Effects 2018, Premiere 2018, fully updated

Media location: SMB Server over Gigabit LAN

Symptoms: Adobe Apps, Finder, web browsers completely lock up and become unresponsive. Computer must be hard-rebooted.
Steps to reproduce: Open Media Encoder while using other applications. Exports are not necessary but seem to accelerate the process.
Frequency: Varies. It will be fine for a full day, but once it starts happening it happens roughly every hour while Media Encoder is open.

Tried so far:

• Ruled out the network entirely. Changed switches, changed wiring, changed computers, forced SMB2
• Clean installed both macOS 10.13.6 and 10.14.3.
• Clean installed Adobe CC apps.
• Swapped all hardware plugged into the computer
• Closed all outside running applications
• Changed renderer between Metal, OpenCL, and Software Only

Any ideas on what could be causing this? It's baffled me for weeks and only began in the last couple months.

Thank you!

[ moved from Premiere Pro CC to Adobe Media Encoder (AME) by moderator ]

[Shivangi_Gupta]

Hi rayl,

Sorry for the issue. I understand it should be quite frustrating. Ideally, AME does not trigger system crash unless any of the hardware on the machine get affected by it. We need to filter what's causing the issue. I appreciate all the steps that you have done to resolve it.

• Does it happen when you perform a specific function?
• What are your computer specifications(RAM, GPU, Processor)?
• Have you checked any background process running that could be causing it?
• Do you get any crash report or log?

Thanks,

Shivangi

[rayl44943207]

Hi Shivangi,

Thanks for chiming in. I've since narrowed this down to specifically Dynamic Link related tasks, as I've posted about here:

Network Crash During Dynamic Link Operations

It takes place when users are queuing/rendering Premiere exports in Media Encoder OR accessing/importing other Premiere sequences via the Media Browser. There were some instances where just having Media Encoder open (and therefore the Media Browser) caused the system crash. My main test user who experience crashes most frequently has completely done away with Dynamic Link tasks and hasn't experienced a crash in over a week.

That said, to answer your questions:

1. It happens during Dynamic-Link tasks
2. Specifications vary across multiple machines, but each one at minimum has a recent Intel quad-core CPU, 32-64GB of RAM, and a modern GPU from Apple (usually AMD).

3. We've narrowed down everything external to Adobe by doing clean installs of both macOS and the Adobe apps. I haven't been able to find anything in the System logs.
4. I didn't get  crash report. The macOS system.log comes out empty, it just seems to "halt" at the time of the freeze and pick back up again on a reboot. Is there a specific place I should be looking for Adobe logs?

Thank you!