Premiere corrupting itself/Eating Memory - Adobe Support outright refused to help

[wismic]

Alright, strap in people that like problem solving. I'll do my best to keep it concise and to the point!

Suddenly, Premiere Pro has began to increase it's memory usage as I interact with the software, until reaching 99% memory usage at which point I cannot scrub timeline, playback video, make cuts, etc. Premiere will then freeze for minutes at a time until it registers a single action, or stops responding and needs to be force closed entirely if more than one action is input at a time. (note going forward, this doesn't happen to all projects, seemingly random projects, despite all footage originating from the same place, and the same process of editing).

*Playing the timeline doesn't make the memory usage go up, but interacting with the program using my cursor in any way does.

I sent the project file to my boss and was then having the exact same issue in that project. Copying the timeline/cuts and pasting in a new project did not help, and the issue persisted (using his original video files). However, going back to his original project file prior to sending it to me functions properly, meaning something happened on my end to the project file. (at this point into the edit, the only thing that's been done is raw cutting, no settings were changed nor assets added).

We've concluded it's not a hardware issue, nor an issue with the video file itself through multiple PCs & large video files being tested both in this project and others. Somehow, Premiere must be corrupting itself, or it's project files/assets within it.(?) What I need is to find out why, and how to correct the problem.

Here are all the "solutions" we attempted:

tried multiple versions of Premiere (v23, v24, v25)

fresh installed premiere

proxied the media to h.264 quicktime

proxied the media to h.264 mp4

proxied the media to ProRes quicktime

edit a rerendered version of the media while the original is disabled

verified CFR video encoding

changed to default workspace preset

redownloaded original video files in case of corruption in download process

removed all audio/video FX

changed sequence settings video playback to 1/8th resolution & file format to i-frame

changed RAM allocation (literally a pointless option in Premiere as it's programming doesn't abide by this setting)

disabled accelerated hardware decoding

disabled accelerated hardware encoding

opened project file on 2 other current-gen PCs

replaced downloaded video file with original video file (local recorded file vs google drive download)

exported project as XML for Davinci Resolve (obviously it worked because it's not Adobe anymore)

imported completely different video file, much smaller in size

disabled audio scrubbing

drivers up to date

& many more random 'fixes' i can't remember at the moment because we attempted so many over the course of 20+ hours of troubleshooting between 3 people.

My PC hardware:

TUF B550-Plus II

AM4 Ryzen 7 5700x3d

6700XT 12gb

32gb RAM DDR4

4TB NVMe M.2 SSD

Extra/Misc info: My last 40 longform projects all used this same version of premiere, all video files from the same source, all varying in length/file size. My Premiere has auto-updates off, this is seemingly random to me.

Please don't select & ignore a piece of what's provided to suggest ideas that aren't consistent to the circumstances or what's been tested thus far, i see it too often in tech support.

Mainly posting this because of how odd the issue is, and may help others in the future searching endlessly as I have. Thank you in advance.

Edit 1: After making this post, I reinstalled my OS (windows) on a fresh SSD, the only thing installed on the PC is Adobe Premiere & Encoder. Project still maxes out memory to 99% before crashing the PC (tested both a v24 & v25 file). This confirms the project file and it's contents are corrupted, and is a Adobe Premiere problem. This arises the new issue of needing the cut footage in another project to avoid redoing 4 days of work. another epic Adobe moment.

Edit 2: I'm 3 hours into online "tech support" with Adobe (and currently 51 minutes on hold via phone). The last 3 Agents made random folders in my System32 (empty folder titled new.Premiere.2025), opened & closed Premiere 7 times, then disconnected Remote Control & exited the chat without saying a word. Prior to even giving them the issue, they tried to guess a solution stating "maybe all 3 machines you tested it on have a common problem." (They didn't know wtf they were doing).

Edit 3: I'm assuming the last support agent, Bhairosingh, flagged my account after rage quitting the Remote Control session unable to solve the problem, because after 2 hours of nonstop attempting to chat with an agent online, i'm timed out after 20 minutes of waiting, each time. I have all the chatlogs saved, nothing combative nor rude was ever said.

Genuinely, what do you do in this scenario? The company has assumed all responsibility to a third party in India and essentially made it so I can't even talk to them any longer? This is embarassing asf at this point, Adobe.

Mod note: Please do not use profanity in these forums. Edited for content.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hey there, @wismic,

Thanks for filing the bug report. I'm Kevin from Adobe support, and I'm a moderator here.

I appreciate all the information you gave us. I don't think you can provide any other details than information about your source media. Knowing the codec, frame size, frame rate, and codec is helpful to the team. Most people show a screenshot in the free app MediaInfo. The team prefers a 'tree view' to see the contents of the file. Would you mind doing that? In my experience, media shot from a pro camera usually has no issues, while media acquired otherwise exhibits issue a lot more frequently. My advice is to transcode all raw media to an editing codec before editing for a bullet-proof experience.

As for troubleshooting, I would try creating a new project file and then importing (not copying/pasting) the sequence into the new project. That can solve this problem. You should also test a brand new project with the same media to see if it has the same issue.

In my experience, project files can become corrupt if they are carried through or duplicated through multiple versions of Premiere Pro (for example, the same project file was updated from 23.x to 24.x to 25.x). Due to this action, these projects become quite large in file size. Once a project file becomes corrupt, it's a good idea to import the old project into a new one right away to see if it works.

To prevent such corruption in the future, try not to carry over large projects from previous major versions. You can often rebuild projects in the newer versions, which keeps "the guts" of these projects running more reliably in a business environment. You may want to set aside some time in between major versions to completely rebuild and test them in the new version. Another strategy is to use Productions if you have elements in your project which need to be reused, etc.

I apologize that our assisted support team let you down. I will let my supervisor know about that. That's no good. I hope the advice helps. If not, I hope a team member will respond shortly. I am also sorry for your frustration. I am sure we can find a resolution for you.

Take care,
Kevin