P: Premiere Pro Freeze During Export Using Hardware Encoding (NVIDIA RTX 5070)

[AL-Shami]

Hi Adobe Community,

I'm experiencing consistent freezes when exporting projects using CUDA acceleration with my new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. This occurs in both Adobe Premiere Pro and Media Encoder.

Bug Report Details:

• Product(s) Affected:

  • Adobe Premiere Pro (25.2)

• Operating System: Windows 11 Pro

• GPU: ASUS Prime GeForce RTX™ 5070 OC Edition 12GB GDDR7

• GPU Driver: NVIDIA Studio Driver (Latest version available at the time of this report)
  

Issue Description:
Since upgrading to the ASUS RTX 5070, Adobe Premiere Pro freeze during export when CUDA acceleration is enabled. The application becomes completely unresponsive at a random percentage of export progress. No error message is displayed, and no crash logs seem to be generated. The application process cannot be terminated via Task Manager, forcing a full PC restart.

Project & Export Settings (Typical Scenario):

• Source Footage: H.265

• Sequence Resolution: 1080p

• Sequence Duration: Approximately 40 minutes

• Effects Used: Minimal (no heavy effects or LUTs)

• Preview Rendering: Not used

• Export Format: H.264

• Renderer: Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)

• Encoding: Hardware Encoding

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Open a project in Premiere Pro (e.g., a 40-minute timeline with H.265 footage, simple edits, no heavy effects).
2. Go to File > Export > Media.
3. Set Export Format to H.264.
4. Ensure "Performance" is set to "Hardware Encoding."
5. Under Video > Encoding Settings (or similar, depending on version), ensure the Renderer is set to "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)."
6. Start the export (either directly from Premiere Pro or by queuing to Media Encoder).

Expected Result:
The export completes successfully（New RTX 5000 series now support 4:2:2 10bit H.265 natively）

Actual Result:
The application (Premiere Pro) freezes at a random point during the export. It becomes unresponsive, and the system requires a hard restart as the application cannot be closed via Task Manager.

Additional Notes:

• The problem is reproducible in both Premiere Pro direct export and Adobe Media Encoder.

• Switching to "Software Eng" rendering allows exports to complete, but this is not ideal.

I would appreciate any insights, troubleshooting steps, or guidance on whether this is a known compatibility issue. Please let me know if further information is required.

Thank you!

[crasso]

Sorry I was too early. It only works with Export to HEVC. It is not working when exporting to H264.

[Daniel31572930sqvu]

Unfortunately not for me but thanks!

[Rolando_Saravia6130]

I spent weeks trying to fix a freezing issue when exporting in Premiere Pro using an RTX 5070 on Windows 11. I tried:

• Updating to latest NVIDIA Studio drivers (551.86)
• Clean installing with DDU
• Switching to Software Only rendering
• Using ProRes, H.264, Media Encoder
• Creating new projects with stock footage
• Disabling GPU scheduling, hardware decoding, and more

Nothing worked — Premiere always froze during export or got stuck at 0%.

As a last resort, I formatted my PC and downgraded from Windows 11 to Windows 10.

Result: Premiere exports flawlessly.

This strongly suggests a conflict between Windows 11, certain RTX 5000 series cards, and Premiere’s GPU handling.

Hopefully this helps someone out there — feel free to ask me questions about the process or results.

[MyerPj]

Good write-up.

What is

• Clean installing with DDU?

Did you clean install Win11?

I'm this week beyond a clean install of Win11-24H2, so far so good. No issues. (RTX4070)

If not a Win11 clean install, I'd be reluctant to go back to Win10.

[Rolando_Saravia6130]

DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) is a tool used to completely uninstall graphics card drivers. It removes all files, registry entries, and previous configurations to avoid conflicts when reinstalling or updating the driver. It’s recommended when you have persistent GPU errors or after a failure following an update.

Yes, I did both options. In fact, I originally had Windows 10 and upgraded to Windows 11, and that’s when the encoding issues in Premiere started. Then I formatted the PC and did a clean install of Windows 11, but I was still having problems across all Adobe apps — After Effects and Media Encoder would freeze too.

So the last thing I tried was going back to Windows 10, and that fixed it.

I should mention that I believe the issue is related to compatibility with the RTX 5070, but I have no way to confirm that beyond my own experience.

[MyerPj]

Thanks for that extra info. Wow! That does sound like good testing all around.

Hopefully @jamieclarke can give a comment on this.

[Cuuuday]

Yeah, I'm having the same issue. Often when I switch to media encoder, and sometimes when I just encode normally, It freezes somewhere halfway through the encode. Working on the most up to date NVIDIA drivers, Windows 11, RTX 5070 card. I got my card about 2 months ago, but only started having these issues about a week or so ago? 

[FlyingFourFun]

If you havn't already try updating to PP 25.3 (official support for the 5000 series blackwell cards, and update Studio Drivers to 576.80 Jun 17, 2025.

[Cuuuday]

If that's the most recent version. I believe it is 25.3, I'm currently on that version. 

[FlyingFourFun]

@Cuuuday I would check your version, 25.3 has only been out for a few days, and it was not universally available at the same time for everyone...  25.3 is where PP has support for that GPU design more specifically, that may assist you.  It should only take a min to check the version your on, and the GPU driver too.

As a side note there have been issues with some of the 5000 series GPU's - adefective GPU with a lower than expected Render Output Processor (ROP),  you can use GPUz to see if you are effected, however this is likely not why you are crashing (it should only lower performance), but maybe worth a check in case you have the defect and need to order a replacement card.

[Cuuuday]

Just checked, Currently running 25.3, I didnt have the issue today, but I only rendered 6 vids today and not in ME either, just 6 standalone renders (they're shorts videos so not long). I'll try tomorrow and render my vids in ME to see if its any different, or maybe the 25.3 push fixed the issue. (Hope it has) 

[MyerPj]

Thanks, that will be helpful, post back... 🙂

[mauriced36878288]

Just tried exporting my latest project again (after upodating to PP/ME 25.3 and Studio Drivers to 576.80), failed after 2:30 hours with a freeze of the export and 0% GPU usage ...

[MyerPj]

Take a look at the original post here and let us know if your setup is exactly the same, or provide some details of your hardware, media and export type.

Info needed for a bug / tech support

[Cuuuday]

Still freezing..

[Alex367466572b5i]

@LjnKao306948457o7m What was the source of your video?

[LjnKao306948457o7m]

@Alex367466572b5i Slog-3 vs HLG

[FlyingFourFun]

if your video is shareable, and you can share the project or a sample,  I am willing to try to duplicate the issue also.

I had a similar issue to this a few years back, and I had reached the end of the rope, In an act of desperation I rebuilt my machine, and the problem never came back,  but I have no idea how it solved or why.   

Either way, if you want another set of eyes on a sample project that fails to be tested I will offer that for you, as I have no other ideas at this point.

[buzz_photography_7377]

Yes by using openCL it works .

[LjnKao306948457o7m]

@buzz_photography_7377 But it's slow as a turtle.

[jamieclarke]

Please see this post for additional instructions: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-bugs/p-premiere-pro-freeze-during-export-using-hardware-...

The Studio driver will be available Oct 14th.

This issue will be fixed on Sept 30th, the Studio drivers will be posted on the morning of Sept 30th (PST).

Users have reported fall back to Studio driver version 573.22 or 572.83

Quick Update: We’ve been able to reprduce the issue. Thank you for your detailed reports and help troubleshooting your input has been invaluable in helping us identify the problem, and we’re now working to get it addressed.

[MyerPj]

That's always good news, thanks @jamieclarke 

[Daniel31572930sqvu]

Thanks @jamieclarke for achknowledging the issue and a fix is underway.

Any updates and ETA's I'm sure will be very welcome.

[crasso]

Perfect! Please inform us when it will be fixed in an upcoming beta version

[randyw54437024]

I just upgraded my GPU to GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. Now when I export, Premiere will freeze up, somewhere in the middle. It may have 5 minutes left, or 15 seconds, never the same point, but still freezes. And after I cancel, Premiere is completely frozen until I restart.

As far as I can tell, Premiere is up to date, as is the GPU Studio driver. I have more than enough ram as well. I have deleted cache+peak files. I had someone else export from the same remote project on their computer and it was fine.