Slow thumbnail generation in Premiere Pro

[Itam]

Hi,

I have this problem already for almost 2 years and I cannot seem to find a solution for it. And I am not the only one: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/33849352-save-thumbnails-ca...

The generating of thumbnails in the project window is annoyingly slow. It really is the only thing in Premiere that slows the whole editing process down. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbCvkeJvLv4&feature=youtu.be

It is not really the generation of thumbnails itself I believe. The thumbnails can generate quite fast, but Premiere only generates the ones that are visible in the project window at that moment. So the moment I scroll down it has to generate those that become visible...than I have to wait...scroll down...etc. Only this way I can make all the thumbnails instantly available when needed. But once I close Premiere...and start up the project a next time it all starts over again. The thumbnails don't seem to be generated all in one time and also don't seem to be saved or cached in a way.

I already tried a lot, tweaking with cache settings. Using another drive especially for my cache, etc. But more and more am I convinced it is a Premiere problem, or am I (and the other people that voted on Adobe User Voice) doing something wrong here?

The files in the example movie are 1080p, 10-bit, h.264, 4:2:2 .mov files, straight from a GH5 camera. But I get the same problem with 8-bit files and other codecs/container formats.

My system setup is: I7-5930K processor, 32 gb of RAM, Geforce GTX 1060 6gb and I edit from a internal Samsung SSD 970 PRO 1TB M.2 NVMe drive (where also my cache directories are located...not ideal, but should be fast enough). I also tried to put my cache on another internal HDD (7.200rpm), but get the same results. Besides that I have the latest version of Premiere, latest version of windows 10 and I update my hardare drivers regularly.

Also good to mention that my OS and software is installed on a seperate SSD and that the Samsung 970 PRO is only used foor footage, project files and the caching.

The slow thumbnail generation was the reason for me to buy the Samsung SSD 970 PRO 1TB M.2 NVMe hoping it would speed up the process and also to try Davinci Resolve which indeed is much faster with stuff like this...but sadly has its own flaws.

[Itam]

Hi @Kevin-Monahan and the others,

I posted this 4 years ago and because a motherboard mallfunction I needed to renew my editing system end of last year.
At the moment I am running Premiere (always up-to-date) on a i7-13700K with 32gb ram combined with a RTX 3060 on Win 11. I run everything with seperate SSD's for OS and software, footage and cache.

Although the loading is quicker than before, there is still a lag when I open my footage bin in Premiere and scroll inside it. I don't know if I am just too demanding and impatient, but it just would be nice if I could see all of my thumbnails all at once. I don't mind waiting during startup of premiere, but having a fluent workflow during editing is just a thing that helps getting into that editing flow.

[BrianDavison]

Agreed! I'm working on an archival heavy project right now and thumbnail loading is glacial. This sounds insane, but I've found that interacting with the UI (i.e. scrolling up and down) will make them generate faster.

[Gabrielle36420925e6da]

Agreed. Still a problem in August 2024. No new builds have helped this issue.

[Kevin-Monahan]

I'm wondering. How many clips are in these bins, @Itam, @Gabrielle36420925e6da, @BrianDavison, @cendrick1, @dominicr92369200? A developer might be able to shed light on load times for icon modes and how they might look into speeding up the process.

I commented on this issue with the dev team. They appreciate the feedback.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Itam]

Hi @Kevin-Monahan,

Thanks for replying. Ofcourse it depends on the project, but I estimate the average is between 100 and 200 clips.
With bigger projects I often make multiple bins to sort the footage. But still I think the average per bin is between 100 and 200 clips.

[BrianDavison]

I've found that the issue often happens when there are more thumbnails than can fit on the screen. I'd expect in that case that premiere would continue to process the thumbnails that are below the frame of the UI, but what more often happens is that it will create thumbnails for the items that are currently displayed, then I could go take a tea break, come back, and scroll down and THEN it will process the items once they're on the screen. When the bins are small it's fairly imperceptable, but when you get into the hundreds, it can definitely take some time.

[Matthew Johnson Films]

As a wedding videographer, we are typically handling 100-150 clips and 200-300gb in size, depending on formats and lengths, all stored locally when editing on a project. I have my programs installed on my C drive and Cache / temps going to my D drive for storage reasons. Im not sure if that contributes to the issue (along with pre-rendered areas of the timeline going back to yellow on start up) but I figured I'd throw that out there since some have asked about working on an external drive which I'm not but I do have those things split in hard drive destinations. 

That will be good news if the issue is resolved in new builds. For stability reasons, I work out of a build a few iterations back unless I am working on a joint project with another company and they happen to be updated. Hence my appreciation for the access to other versions in CC. During a slow part in the year, I'll take a peak at some of the newest builds and see how it handles and eventually stick with one. 

Thanks Kevin

[cendrick1]

I can confirm that the issue is not fixed sitting here in September of 2024 with the most recent build of 25.6.1

When I have a bin of say 200 clips put into gallery mode and when I scroll down to view those clips I would hope that after the bin sits there for say 5 minutes the thumbs would be already generated for me. This is not the case, they only populate when I scroll the bin and then have to wait seconds for each few rows to populate before I can scroll some more to then wait again. Incredibly frustrating.

[Alex367466572b5i]

@Itam Show in Task Manager who is responsible for hardware decoding of thumbnail generation.

[cendrick1]

Is it ok to link a video here showing what we are all talking about. This is a bin of only 163 items. The video has not been slowed down in anyway.

Thumbnail population 

[cendrick1]

and I think the most annoying part is when I close premiere I will then have to sit there to regenerate the thumbs in all my bins so I can see them in gallery mode once again...am I alone in this?

[demetrisag]

Of course the problem still persist cause adobe isnt really working on building a thumbnail cache @Kevin-Monahan 

but instead it regenerates them every single time. its wokring needlessly too hard. You can just generate them once and then use the cache to load fast. iits been like that as long as i can remember and i dont understand whats stopping them from implementing that