Pr 2020 Transmit comes and goes

Report · Dec 27, 2019

I'm just a few days using Pr 2020 / 14.0 on a new MacPro 10.15.2 on which I did a clean install of ALL my apps, plugs, utilities, etc.

I can't get consistent behavior from Mercury Transmit. I have two monitors attached. Some times I get full screen on the monitor assigned to Transmit; other times not at all. Actually, mostly not at all. I can't see a consistent reason why. Frustrating.

I did the usual troubleshooting routine: deleted prefs and caches, rebooted, etc. I haven't tried reinstalling the app, but this is the first project on this brand new system, and can't believe that the app has become damaged or corrupted already.

Any ideas? I realize that intermittent problems are the hardest to troubleshoot.

Anybody else?

Report · Dec 31, 2019

Turns out that 2020 is just another garbage release from Adobe. I installed Pr 2019 and Transmit works properly.

Report · Dec 31, 2019

If it's doing this on first use after installation, and you've done the other things listed ... it apparently didn't install correctly.

So the two next steps are to use the CC app to uninstall, reboot, then reinstall. If that doesn't do it, then the Adobe CC Cleaner tool to do BOTH the uninstall and cleanup, reboot, reinstall.

Adobe CC Cleaner Tool

Premiere is run on about a gazillion different setups ... and yea, sometimes it does crap on one setup. It should be running better than you're getting though. That said, there's been more issues with Macs running Catalina than Mojave. Which is the same as I see on LGG for say Resolve users.

Neil

Report · Dec 31, 2019

Thanks for the reply, Neil. I did uninstall and reinstall, which didn't help, but didn't run the Cleaner tool. That seems unnecessary since I did a totally clean install of all my apps on this new Mac. But, since I have lots of experience with Premiere corrupting itself, I'll give that a try. The three "major" new features in 2020 are a joke to me anyway, except for the time remapping increase. We're all probably better off on 13.1.5, since that indicates five attemps at getting CC 2019 right, and CC 2020 is still a virgin .0 bug fest, as all versions of Premier have been in my experience since CS5.5. That was about the time many FCP7 users transitioned over.

If anybody else wants to suffer 2020, I did figure out a way to fool Pr into playing on my second display: Undock the Program pane and drag it over to the second display, click the ` key, and presto, it starts working. Of course, you lose seeing the Program pane in the main interface, which is why this is a half-ass workaround.

I suspect some issues could also be Catalina related since Apple also puts out crap OSX releases before they get up to 10.x.5 as well. I tried installing Mojave on the new Mac Pro, but it wouldn't take it. I'm stuck with Catalina or my old Mac Pro 5,1, High Sierra, and Pr 2018 for a more reliable experience.

But, I've been working on Pr 2019 for a full day now, and it's been pretty solid. So far.

Thanks for your patience. I know my frustration is not even remotely concealed.

Report · Dec 31, 2019

Hey, we all get frustrations at times with this. No sweat there! I can give you plenty of my own gritches. Ha!

Between the last 5 NABs/Vegas and four Adobe MAX's, I've had plenty of opportunities to talk with engineers. I think they're all editors and such besides engineers so stuff that doesn't work "here" but does "there" drives them nuts as well.

They didn't add anything requiring much development time this release cycle precisely because there's such a backlog of bugs and performance issues. That's what they've focused on this cycle. And I've a bunch of things I want them to get to myself.

Neil

Report · Jan 01, 2020

Neil, I downloaded the Cleaner Tool, which suggests uninstalling Pr before running the cleaner. I did that, and subsequently, Pr 14.0 didn't show up in the Cleaner menu. Does that mean the unistaller was so thorough that there's nothing to clean?

Do you know if there's a list somewhere of what files and components that the Cleaner removes? I wouldn't mind deleting them manually if I knew they were Pr 2020-specific.

Anyway... I un and re-installed for a second time, and Transmit is working again, for now.

Report · Jan 01, 2020

Just glad it's working for now!

The Cleaner tool instructions are ... well, not what I suggest. I've had the opportunity to become familiar enough with that odd utility applet over the last few years. What you found ... uninstall, then the CC Cleaner tool can't find the app to remove ... is common. But even if it does, after you've uninstalled via the OS or the CC app, it still often doesn't actually remove the extraneous bits the Adobe apps all create.

So ... I always do both the uninstall and cleanup function with the CC Cleaner tool itself. Product Support manager Kevin Monahan has noted doing the same usage on several threads here. It just works this way.

What is it doing? The Adobe apps create a number of folders and files in several places in the User system of the OS, Documents, the Adobe "common" folder in the Program/Packages area, and ... another place or two. Among many others, I've suggested at NAB and MAX and here and in the UserVoice system that they modify this practice to maybe only TWO well-marked locations, so we users know exactly where to look for everything.

Ah well ... they haven't followed my suggestions ... sigh. 😉

Neil

A standard uninstall doesn't remove most of those.

Report · Jan 03, 2020

So, Neil... You seem to be the only person interested in my thread,

I decided to give 2020 another try, and worked a whole day without issues. Then, yesterday, a client comes to my office to work with me, and whaddya' know, Transmit decides to stop working again almost as soon as he darkens the door. After multiple attemps to get it to work by switching Transmit on and off several times, I take a few minutes to downgrade my project with Digital Rebellion's Project Repair, and I'm back on 2019 in about four minutes with reliable Transmit functionality again.

So, I'm back to considering 2020 is not ready for prime time. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Report · Jan 03, 2020

Ouch. What a joy, eh?

What drives me nuts with these things is trying to figure out why it only happens with X users ... what's the trigger? How can someone avoid it? And right now there's no way of knowing.

I have heard that Catalina occasionally "quarantines" Premiere's request for info off of external drives, as in trying to do a send-to-Audition trip if the file being sent is on an external drive, making that process break down. Well, that's one weird behavior explained, but ... there's more ... !

Neil

Report · Jan 01, 2020

Going back several versions, and persisting up to Pr 2020, the app creates Media Cache folders in the User>Library>Application Support>Adobe>Common without regard and in addition to your having chosen a Media Cache folder elsewhere, or kept the default location in your User>Documents>Adobe folder. This is on OSX.

So, what can happen, unknown to most users, is that their boot disk gets bloated with files they can't delete unless they know about this extra folder AND they delete the contents or the Cache and PTX folders manually.

Since trashing Media Caches is a oft-advised troubleshooting (and housekeeping) step, this can easily be overlooked by the uniformed.

Doing a boot disk search for anything with "adobe" in it can reveal files and folders in places you might not think to look. I learned way back when I worked for Avid is that the installer puts inscrutably named files in inscrutably named folders, too, for license keys. I think that's fairly typical for apps and plug-ins.

Report · Jan 01, 2020

And, here's a tip: Locate that containing folder that contains the extra Media Cache and PTX folder, and create an alias of it on your Desktop, so that when you intend to delete all your caches, you can easily get to that folder and delete them. You can delete the folders, not just the contents, because Pr is going to recreate the folders next time you launch the app.

Report · Feb 27, 2020

Jim, I've pulled my hair out on this before and just the other day. We're on 2020 (actually 14.0.3 now).

Turns out when you are using a 2 monitor setup, and the main screen of Premiere is moved over as so much as 1 pixel onto the second screen, Transmit won't work. You get nothing. On the Mac, you have to Option-click the green button to ensure that it is only on the main screen and Bingo! Transmit works properly again.