Premiere 15.4 freezes when trying to export

[defaultsht9rtazh3yb]

After I updated my Adobe Apps (including Premiere) to the latest version on Sundat, I began converting old projects in ordere to export new videos. The day I updated, I managed to export a simple video properly without any issues.

However, on Monday I discovered I made an editing error, so I went back to quickly change it and re-export it. But now, Premiere won't let me export anything. No matter what I do, whenever I try to Export Media, Premiere freezes and refuses to do anything until I force it to close. The export window just refuses to pop up even after 10 minutes of waiting, and whenever I try to do anything else on my laptop Premiere crashes with no sort of error report or anything. Everything else in Premiere's fine. I can drop in video files, playback is completely normal, everything is functioning normally except when I try to export

I've tried exporting different converted projects and exporting on completely new projects. I've reinstalled Premiere, I've tried switching Adobe Accounts, I've cleared my cache files, I've restarted my computer multiple times, and absolutely nothing works. 

What's strange to me is absolutely nothing has changed between when I succesfully exported a video on Sunday, and the day after when Premiere broke. Nothing on my computer changed and everything I did with Premiere on Monday I had done before on Sunday when everything was working fine, so why the heck did it decide to stop working?

For posterity, here's my computer specs, although I haven't changed anything about my software or hardware recently so I don't see how it could affect Premiere so drastically:

• Modified Dell Latitude E6420 (I think; the model number is covered by a sticker)
• Windows 10 Pro
• 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Is it possible to return to the previous version of Premiere Pro to complete these projects?

As an editor, my advice is that updating mid-project is not a great idea and can actually corrupt the project file, especially if it is more complex. In the future, try to avoid doing so. That can happen to any NLE software, so it is a "rule of thumb" in the industry. Sorry you weren't aware of that one. 

If these projects must be updated, you can try creating a new project, then importing assets from that previous project. That seems to be safer than the updating the project. 

In 30 years of my editing career, I've found that updating project files in other applications can be done without much thought, but with NLEs, no matter who makes them, you have to be a lot more careful, I've found. You've got to treat project files with kid gloves. Protect them, duplicate them, back them up in 3 places.

After trying the advice of finishing work in previous versions or by importing assets into a new project file, please return with any questions or roadblocks you are facing.

Thanks,
Kevin

[defaultsht9rtazh3yb]

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just have to use version 14 until I get through my backlog, which will be kind of clunky, but it works at least.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi,

I do understand your frustration as an editor. Really sorry about that. You can run the versions side by side so you can always start new projects in the new version. I usually am using the previous version, the beta, and the new version with non-critical test projects.

If you ever need any workflow advice moving forward, be sure to ask in a new post. You can also send me a PM anytime and I can answer any questions for you, as well. Good luck on your projects.

Thanks,
Kevin

[robertm66986141]

Sounds like what I recently experienced, although not sure it's exactly the same as I was able to do other things on my computer without Premiere crashing while in its frozen state. It simply became unresponsive and would not open the export window - or so I thought. I tried multiple things (rendering effects, restarting computer, restarting premiere, etc) and I had to force quit every time.

Finally tried restarting premiere holding Ctrl+option to reset preferences. I was using an external monitor for program playback and when preferences reset, it disabled this setting. When I hit Export, the export window popped up on my external monitor. So, seems like perhaps it was pulling the export window up in the secondary monitor but was hidden by the playback. Once the export window is "opened" it disables the ability to go in and toggle off the playback in the additional monitor, so force quitting is the only way out that I can find.

Export is working now that I've dragged the export window back to my main monitor. And I was able to recreate the problem by placing the export window on the secondary monitor and enabling playback on the secondary monitor. It hides the export window and I can't get to it. 

The solve for me is to disable external monitor playback, hit export, and drag the export window back into the main monitor.

Hope this helps someone dealing with the same issue.