Opening Production causes immediate freeze and crash

[BrandonS11]

I just signed on to a new job and everytime I open the production, the Production panel pops up but as soon as I try to navigate within it, it freezes and I have to force quit.  It worked ONE time and was perfectly smooth navigating around various projects without a hitch for a couple hours... then I closed Premiere and tried to reopen again and it's just back to crashing over and over. None of the other editors are experiencing any issues.

I'm on a Mac Studio M2Max, Sonoma 14.6.1, 64GB RAM, 1 TB storage (more than half free) all media and the production is hosted on a LucidLink filespace, which I tend to think is operating fine since it was smooth sailing once I got past the initial production panel.

[Bruce Bullis]

Are you storing media in the Productions directory, as well as projects? 

Are the other editors' systems configured exactly as your system is? 

You say "navigate within it" (the Production panel); are you just navigating, or are you opening projects from within the Production? 

[BrandonS11]

Yes the media and projects are all stored in the Productions directory.  When I referred to navigating, it's basically freezing up and crashing as soon as I try to click on a folder/twirl down something in the file structure. Like I said, though, at one point I was able to open a project and once I did that everything was stable and I was able to open multiple projects and play through things smoothly. I'm not sure of other editors configurations, I doubt they're all the same. But most seem to be on Mac and at least one is on a Silicon mac as I am.

[Ben Insler]

Hi @BrandonS11 ,

Best practice is to not have any media in your Production folder structure at all.  The Production folder should contain only three things:

1. Premiere Pro project files
2. Folders for organizing Premiere Pro project files
3. Productions-specific config and state files written by Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro is constantly scanning the contents of the Production folder ot keep you and all your collaborating team member informed as to who is working in which project(s) when.  You don't want anything else in there giving Premiere Pro more work to do to manage the Production.

But... Let's still see what we can do...

If you open one of the Producton's project files in Premiere Pro, Premiere Pro will recognize that the project is part of a Production, and not only open the project file, but also open the Production.  Try to open one of the projects, and see if that gets you past this initial hurdle you're experiencing.

If Premiere Pro still locks up, I recommend you move the media out of the Production folders.  This will throw all your media offline and you'll have to relink it (which is not necessarily an easy process depending on how many projects you have in your Production), and keep in mind that moving the media will throw it offline for anyone in the Production until it is relinked.

[BrandonS11]

I was mistaken about media being within the production, it's in the same drive but not in the production. I ended up wiping my drive and reinstalling Sonora and starting fresh. I can now get into the production fine but still crashing like crazy in relatively simple projects.

[Bruce Bullis]

In the crash reports I see from your email address, there seems to be a problem either changing directories, and/or accessing a Photoshop file. 

If you close the Production and its constituent projects, and work on other stuff, do you not encounter crashes?

[BrandonS11]

I've been doing local projects fine.The opening directories makes sense
because the initial issue was always in the loading of the production
panel. I think I might be stable now. I just had a series of immediate
crashes when opening a project earlier today. Thanks.