Premiere Pro 2019 randomly using all system RAM and crashing?

[armeen]

Recently I have been having a troublesome issue with Premiere Pro 2019 and was hoping to get some help. Without any reason I can find, in the middle of editing, Premiere will suddenly stop playing back any video. Occasionally audio will continue but that soon stops as well.  When this happens, within a matter of seconds, my RAM usage will basically sky rocket and max out my computer, going from 8 GB to around 55GB+ (see screenshot). At this point, I can only very slowly navigate the interface and save the project, still with no playback or frame updates when dragging or attempting to move the playhead. Usually, however, if I try to do anything, the program will crash. Strangely, if I leave my computer idle, after 10-20 minutes, playback may suddenly resume and RAM usage quickly drops to normal as if nothing happened. I can continue working at that point until it happens again. Sometimes I can get 2 or 3 hours of work, sometimes only 5 minutes, until the issue returns. I am not doing anything complex at this point. So far, I've just been importing footage, cutting and nesting different takes, and putting a few multicam sequences together. As such, I've mostly noticed this issue simply when playing through source material.

I tried doing several steps to fix this already all with no luck. I deleted my unused media cache in the preferences menu. I reset all preferences. I turned off GPU acceleration. I made sure I had the latest driver for my GPU. I imported my project into a new project. Closed unused programs. Restarted my computer. Uninstalled and redownloaded Premiere. Etc. Still no solution.  This is my first project with Premiere 2019 but it is also my first time using my new machine. I was concerned it might be an issue from my video footage (.MOV files with h.264 compression from my Canon 80D) but I didn't experience this problem before on a different machine with Premiere 2018.

Does anyone have any idea what the issue might be? Is it a bug in Premier? I am especially concerned as this is my first time on my custom build and was unsure if this may be a hardware related issue (although this only happens in Premiere, so I find it unlikely that my computer is at fault).

My build is as follows:

Windows 10

Cpu: intel i7-8700k

GPU: NVIDIA RTX2080Ti

RAM: 64 GB DDR4

Storage: 500GB Samsung evo 970 (program files & disk cache), 1TB Samsung evo 860 (source material, project, scratch disks, etc.)

I would truly appreciate any help as this is consuming an immense amount of my time!

[Wes Howell]

Thanks!  I will send you a PM

[armeen]

I apologize for the delayed response. I was out of town and did not see this untill now. Unfortunately, I spoke with my client and they prohibited me from sharing their media files so all I can share is the project file itself (if that's of any use). Please let me know.

In dealing with this issue over the past month, however, I will try to describe what appears to cause the RAM spike to the best of my ability. For my case, I do not believe the RAM issue is related to any effects or lumetri as I have not incorporated these into my project yet. Sadly, with the nature of the issue, its hard for me to pinpoint an exact cause as the problem is very sporadic and inconsistent. However, I am somewhat inclined to believe the issue comes as a result of premiere trying to generate preview files?

Until recently, all I had been doing was scrubbing through clips (often at faster speeds with the JKL shortcuts), cutting the clips, nesting parts, and making multicamera sequences. That being said, my RAM has the initial spike only during playback or immediately after trying to start playback (in which case it freezes on the first frame). The initial spike does not seem to happen while paused or during nesting/multicam sequence processing (I was actually able to continue nesting sequences when the RAM spiked, although with a great lag). I am somewhat tempted to say the spike happens mostly after having made a cut in the timeline but I cant substantiate that - it's just a feeling. Beyond this, the only other time I seem to notice the RAM spike sometimes is when I use the "match frame in source monitor" command. A media pending dialogue box will appear in the source monitor, followed by the spike.

The strange thing is, if I just playback any media file or edited sequence without making any cuts/ adjustments, it seems like I can do so over and over without experiencing the issue. That is why I perhaps believe it is an issue with generating previews as I assume that this is what happens behind the scenes when cutting a clip, but that is just a guess. It may be important to note that I have tried disabling previews in the timeline as well as switching my bins to list view when visible in a panel. Unfortunately, neither has helped. Beyond this, I also basically tried toggling on/off any project or interface setting I was able to access while the the RAM was maxed out to see if it would help. Sadly, again, nothing brought the RAM back down as far as I tried.

As mentioned before, my footage is all from a Canon 80D shooting at 1080p with h.264 compression. I did not transcode my footage as my computer should be capable of processing this codec. At times, it has felt like certain clips may be causing the RAM spike to happen more reproducibly, but in all instances, I was able to make it past that point after a few attempts. I thought disabling hardware decoding of h.264 may help but it did not solve the problem. I also tried adjusting Premiere's RAM limit, but it seems to be ignored as my system usage shows Premiere will continue to use all available RAM (up to ~60GB).

I hope this helps. I obviously want to get this resolved as fast as possible. Please let me know if I can provide assistance in any other way.

[Wes Howell]

Very strange.  I'm not seeing many recent reports of memory spikes.

If you'd like to send me the project, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Not sure that I'll be able to reproduce the issue without media, but I can investigate.   May be able to identify something.

A few questions:

What actions or clip types seem to make this issue work?  Any audio effects involved?  You mentioned no video effects, correct?

How big is this project? How much Multicam, etc?

What kind of audio device are you using? Any 3rd party hardware like AJA/Blackmagic?

Was this project fine in 2018 and instantly noticeable worse after moving to 2019?

Have you ever used the Export Selected Sequence as Project?  You can use this command to create pared down projects.

I'm wondering if this would be useful to help isolate what causes the spike in memory usage.

Wes

[tpop]

Im having the same issue. Windows 10, i9, 64 gigs system memory with Premiere pro set to leave 16 gb for other. Had a project from 2018 but when I open in 2019. Memory spikes screen goes white.

I have run media cleaner from adobe site re install all CC apps. This by the way took care of an annoying problem between 2018 and 2019 where I would loose audio sync.

Now I go back to this one project - a long format shot on Sony FS7 with basic illustrator and psd titles. 7 audio tracks 5-6 video tracks.

Very frustrating. Have not been super happy with 2018 to 2019 jump.

[DPS-NVS]

Just started using PR for projects and it keeps crashing.....agree very frustrating...there team has access my computer 2 time wiith no results

[alexreavis]

Hi, I have been experiencing this exact issue for some time now with no solid resolution so far. Task Manager pops up out of nowhere, and my RAM could be running anywhere from 33-58GB. When this happens, I typically switch to working on a different project that's less intense, or take a break from editing altogether. Any help with this would be fantastic. 

[Wes Howell]

Is anyone able to share a project - preferably a smaller test project with media?

Otherwise, breaking the projects down into smaller test projects for the sake of isolating the core issue is an effective way to learn more.  

Happy to lend a hand,

Wes

[joaotocha]

Hi I am having this issue too. Premiere, Media Encoder or after effects, they produce a memory spike. I have removed all CC apps, several times, contacted Support, they have made remote login, and everything is still the same.

Just by opening any of this app's, memory start's filling up until the software crashes.

😞

[AfroBlanket]

Hi Wes, I'm having the same problem and I'm willing to send it to you. Running Premiere 2021 on windows.

[CMRB · Accepted solution]

Been having a the same problem too. Lost about 3 days because of that...

But it seems Robbo338 saved my day - I deleted all photo files from my project and now it's working fine again. Will have to add them at some point back again though - will let you know what happens.

Working on:

MacOS 10.14.2. - MacBook Pro 2017 - Premiere CC 13.0.2.

[OhTheFuture]

How is this the "correct answer"? It's a "workaround". MEanwhile, I have zero photos in my project and it's crashing. 

[vitof21601116]

Exactly!!!

[infinityphotorob]

This was my work around. I manually created a multicam sequence an hid clips with hidden tracks. Took forever but got it done. Still had issues. But would generally resolve in a couple min.  This project really kicked our ass.  Makes me remember why I like using multi cam to edit.

[jennya43632170]

I figured out how to max out the RAM on my laptop with a "portrait mode" picture from my phone.

Just bought a Lenovo X1 carbon, intel core i7 8550U,16 gb ram, intel UHD 620 graphics, m.2 nvme storage, and I get this "maxed out modified ram" issue when I open a new project and add a single picture to the project. Tried updating windows, drivers, wiped Windows and reinstalled, reinstalled Adobe PP, and still adding a single .jpg from my phone crashes premiere. I kept dragging this folder of pictures and videos taken on my pixel 2 and getting this bug. My theory was maybe something about the portrait mode pictures was crashing premiere.

Open a new Premiere project. Everything is normal.

Add a normal .jpg file to a project, taken on my pixel 2. No memory ramp up. no new cpu usage.

add a "portrait mode" .jpg of my brother taken on my pixel 2, and immediately memory starts ramping up. Greater share gets taken over by "modified" RAM.

AAAAnd this is when everything starts to not work.

Takes over CPU, Memory and my disk.

If any adobe guys working on Premiere are at the Lehi office in Utah I can bring the computer by or send you the pictures that made it tick.

[infinityphotorob]

This seems like an entirely different issue. Are your photos JPG? It could be pixel outputting a raw file or a funny jpg codec that Premiere does like. Try shooting in portrait jpg with a dslr and import that. Or just create one in LR.  Another thing could be your graphics card settings. Most likely you will not be able to use GPU with your system effectively.  Make sure to try software only in your project settings. And you will quickly find laptops are not your friend for video. I have one of Dells workstation laptops that I can rough cut and edit, but as soon as I really start adding effects, even lumetri it crawls. And render? Forget it. It takes an eternity. Not that you can not, it is just not really best option. This is also not a new thing. I know a few people that swore by their macbook pros, until they built a real desktop. They just get hot and freak out. And even though your specs meet minimum requirements easily you will always have performance issues with Premiere.

[Wes Howell]

Minor updates on this thread.

Re: Portait mode JPEGs.

We have reproduced this issue in house and are addressing it.

Current workaround is to re-export these images to a PNG or JPEG file before importing into Premiere.

More info coming soon on this issue.

Re: Other projects with high memory usage.

I have received recently received  three projects from users.

One project was referencing a bad file. Still investigating but this appears to be an issue with a malformed DJI file.

The other two projects are being investigated internally and I will be following up.

Often times, threads can get a bit unwieldy as more than one issue can be reported with different variables, etc.

If there are still users having issues or you have a time sensitive issue feel free to contact support as threads aren't the most effective tool for troubleshooting. You can also send me a PM if you have a project to share or have other questions.    

I'll continue to keep this thread posted as more info becomes available. Thanks to all who have been helping and providing useful information.

Wes

[Dmorrowing]

I think I've been having the same problem with a very limited project (essentially a slideshow). Tried uninstalling and reinstalling, verified drivers are up to date, etc. As soon as I open the project, RAM spikes (16gb) and everything freezes up - it also will take up any VRAM dedicated.

I haven't tried loading it one picture at a time to isolate but will tomorrow. If you want me to send over the project file - let me know.

[TristanNYC]

Can confirm, Google Pixel Portrait Mode photos cause the ram to spike in Premiere. Even if you export it from Lightroom. You have to export from photoshop to get around it. Reallllly annoying.

[Itmamul]

Yeah. You are right bro... 

[infinityphotorob]

Here is update for me.  I need to work in an old project from last year.  So it was 2018PP.  I created a new project in 19PP then imported my old project with all of its files.  This is all simple non multicam stuff that I worked with last year no problem on this same system.  I opened one of my old timelines and guess what.  Horrific playback and memory off the charts.  This is totally nuts.  This is a bug for sure and this is getting old.  I have to make money.  And this is killing me.  No kidding I have spent days and nights and so much stress on this.  I am going to just try working in 18 and see what happens.  If this doesn't work I am going to lock myself to my desk and learn Resolve.  I can't keep wasting my life on this stuff.

This is again Gh5, Sony A9, Sony A7riii footage.  A mix of 1080 120p  4k 60p and 4k24p 

[Wes Howell]

Hey Rob and Teun,

Sorry for the troubles here. I am around to help and I am investigating.

Have either of you tried creating a new project and then importing the old problematic one using Media Browser?

If this work around helps, it should at least help you get work done until this is resolved.

Wes

[R Neil Haugen]

From your CC app, you could re-install 2018. When you imported into a new project file, the old project file is still untouched, so you could open that and work away again ... as long as it's only an issue with 2019 and not a system issue causing the problem.

I have 2015.2, 2016.4, 2018, and 2019 all installed and available for older projects currently. One of the things I do appreciate over I think any other NLE.

Neil

[elariaw]

I have a Mac system with near identical specs to alvin_nari's original question and this issue started for me as well near the end of 2018. After downloading the 2019 update, my system starting crashing because Premiere would use the max amount of RAM available even though I'm editing the same kind of straightforward HD podcast video content I've been editing all year (much less complex than the more effect-heavy editing with 4K footage that my system has proven to handle fine in the previous months).

I've been using an older version of Premiere for a few months because I didn't have time to test the issue much, but that solution stopped working for me recently. Now I'm back to the most recent Premiere update (13.0.2) while running macOS Mojave 10.14.3 - and saw the same exact issues come back. (i.e. RAM overload and crashing)

I'm posting this here to let others know that it seems that deleting JPEGs does seem to fix the problem. I'm still in the midsts of testing, but things seem to be running smoothly and my system has not yet crashed. I will revise this post should that change.

Upon inspection, I did have Portrait Photos from a Google Pixel in my project file (as mentioned by jennya43632170). I'm not sure if removing specifically the Pixel Portrait photos OR all JPEGs fixed this issue, but posting this here in case it will help someone.

[Wes Howell]

Thanks for the helpful post.

We are making progress on this issue internally and are working to resolve this issue with a future update soon. I am unable to promise particular dates but I will provide more info as it comes available.

Wes

[BashKestrel]

Hi Wes,

I have a user that is having the same symptoms as reported on this thread. I have some screenshots and a project file if you'd like to take a look to assist in furthering a resolution for this issue.

Thanks,

Darby