• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Media Encoder is next to useless on my Mac Pro

Community Beginner ,
Jan 08, 2020 Jan 08, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

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.

TOPICS
Crash , Dynamic link , Error or problem , Export or render , Freeze or hang , Performance

Views

2.2K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jan 09, 2020 Jan 09, 2020

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

...

Votes

Translate

Translate
Community Expert ,
Jan 08, 2020 Jan 08, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

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?

 

 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 08, 2020 Jan 08, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

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.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 08, 2020 Jan 08, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

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.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 08, 2020 Jan 08, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Sorry for the delay in responding, I'm not being notified when a response is posted.

 

I generally agree with what you are saying, but you're complaining here on what is primarily a community forum. I understand your frustration; I myself am a working video professional (I don't work for Adobe) and respond to questions on here to help other people because I enjoy helping. But when I ask question and attempt to solve a user's particular issue, I often times receive long diatribes about Adobe's business model and how "things were better before" and how they're in a time crunch and all sorts of other unhelpful tidbits that, quite simply, hinder me from helping you. I have not upgraded to CC2020 because I always do my own upgrade testing to determine if I will be shooting myself in the foot by upgrading. I highly recommend that anyone who uses any sort of software for their job to do their own investigating and not rely on a company to determine when you should or should not upgrade. (I've used CC2017 up until November of 2019).

 

Anyway, back to your issue: I've got a 2013 Mac Pro running 10.14.6 as well and have experienced none of your issues. AME worked fine in CC2017 and now that I've upgraded to CC2019, it works fine there too. 

 

However, I don't often use dynamic link. When I do, I always open AME first, then go into AE to queue the render. I do sometimes notice a slight delay, but that may be due to network traffic from our corporate NAS.

 

Is all your media stored locally or are you accessing it from external drives/card readers/NASs?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 09, 2020 Jan 09, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

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.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 09, 2020 Jan 09, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

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).

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 09, 2020 Jan 09, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I changed the setting for importing natively and that did seem to speed up the importing problem.  I also changed the render engine already as an experiment.   I'll check the audio.   At this point it isn't as much about the importing and rendering speed as much as the interface beach balling every time I try to click something.  So, click on the ME window, beach ball...  Click on the render settings, beach ball... click on the destination, beach ball, click on the title and disc location... beachball...  etc.  If I wait long enough the action will happen... but it is increadibly slow going just to get one video ready to render.  Then when I click the render button it all works fine and fast.  It's just that using the interface to set up that one render often takes longer than waiting for Premiere to render it...  setting up a batch would be torture.  I can try a workaround where I set it all up in Premiere first... but it is still an intolerable lag situation.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 09, 2020 Jan 09, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Let me know if the audio setting check works.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jan 10, 2020 Jan 10, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

The audio hardware setting fixed everything as far as I can tell.  It was set to display audio which is not active any longer.

I didn't even need to turn off "import natively".  It boots up normally and imports normally.    I had to downgrade back to ME 2019 because Premiere 2019 can't open ME 2020... but everything is back in business.

An audio hardware alert in ME would have been helpful.  I never do audio playback through encoding software so it would never occur to me that the playback settings could make the whole application impossible to use.  That seems silly and poorly executed by either Adobe or Apple.

Thanks for your patience and your help Jeff.  I am basically at my wits end with this modern era of endless cycles of software upgrades for every tool I own... so my tolerance for this kind of petty stuff is very low.  I want tools that do the work... not tools that always present me with mysteries to solve if I want to continue working.  These days the new features hardly seem worth the disruptions they bring. 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines