Clean Media Cache Database with projects on NAS

Hi swest,

Sorry for the issues. Hope we can help.

We have 6 editors working on projects stored on a high speed NAS RAID. 
We have the Media Cache DB on our C drives
Preview and render files set to "same as project folder." 

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Can we get specs on those 6 computers? Are they all the same spec? Are they all on the same clock? Are the clocks accurately working and are all machines in sync? Macs? PCs? What? 

How about some specs on your NAS. Not all are alike and many are not meant to serve up video. There are some from QNAP and others that do have good capability, but in the trenches, you see a lot of dodgy setups. You know? So, how many drives? What kind of drives? What is the manufacturer of the NAS? What kind of connectivity do you have? What kind of speeds per video stream are you getting now? Are they different from speeds you've measured in the past?

What kind of media are you operating with? Is it conformed ProRes? XDCAM? Or is it H.264 4K? Overall, this post is short on info. Can you provide it please?

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my first question is: are those folders in the ideal locations for our workflow?

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Yes, you want each node to carry its own media cache and database. You do not want either of these to be on your remote storage. While it is possible, it is not recommended in setups like yours.

We've been having a lot of trouble with Premiere lately: severe playback lag, click lag, white program monitor, black program monitor, cuda render failures.

So, your setup worked in a previous version, but you are having performance troubles now. What kind of troubleshooting have you tried so far? You haven't mentioned anything you've tried so far. Can you let us know, please?

In my opinion, even with standalone systems, you should delete the media cache and database when updating the nodes to new versions of Premiere Pro. You should allow enough time in order for the caching to take place after updating. If it takes a long time, do it over a weekend. I would also trash preferences in these nodes on updating, as well as refresh any folder permissions on Adobe folders, that last one is a really important one if you have had any major updates to the OS.

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So, how does Premiere determine if a DB file is "unused?"  Is it reading all assets in EVERY project on our NAS? It seems to take hours to complete.

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I believe it is counted as soon as it is used for playback. Not sure why a single machine might be needing to cache files it is not using in a project. Something else might be going on with the way you've arranged your projects.

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Can we hit cancel to continue more cleaning later or will we loose all progress so far?

Does the lengthy cleaning process indicate that Premiere has been unable to fulfill our auto cleaning settings? If so, could that have anything to do with our NAS?

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Yes, you can cancel the process without penalty; pretty sure about that. Besides, media cache is available at the Finder/Explorer level and you can inspect it and delete it manually, as well.

I have no idea why your media cache keeps needing to regenerate, the clocks could be out of sync generating change when someone opens an identical project. It could be many things. You'll need to tinker on that one, I'm afraid. I can try and help you. It sounds like your staff could be retrained to use Productions so that only certain projects are open and closed and there is some control how the various caches are interacted with. We have a PDF on the whole workflow, actually, if you're interested.

I'm on my day off, though, but I did want to let you know that I saw your post and hope to help. 

I do ask for your patience with me, though. I'll do my best to get more info for you. In the meantime, you may want to open a case with support via phone or chat for more support options. They are open until 7PM PST this evening, then on Monday at 7AM. I'll be back in the office shortly thereafter. In the mid 2000s, I used to be an engineer at a large post facility in Burbank, with a 30 node Mac setup and XSAN (old school!) so I hope I can assist.

Cheers,
Kevin