Premiere Pro CS6 Constantly Crashing

Report · May 28, 2012

I am having the worst time using Premiere Pro CS6. The program is constantly crashing, saying it has encountered a serious error and has to close. This is happening during the most basic operations like scrubbing the timeline or pressing play. I am using footage strait from my Canon 7D (h.264) with no effects or filters. I have all the latest updates to the software and my computer. No other programs are open during these errors. I'm using a 2011 MacBook Pro i7 8GB RAM with AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB and OSX 10.7.4.

I wanted this to be an alternative to FCP 7, but so far it is not working out.

Any ideas?

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Benjamin,

The AudioPrefetch.cpp line 87 error has to do with Premiere rendering the waveform previews of audio tracks, in my situation it was clips whose speed or duration had been changed or reinterpreted. I believe it's unrelated to this thread's particular "serious error" issue (might be related though? Only Adobe knows), as I had this issue repeatedly in CS5, where it would cause it to crash. In CS5.5 the error was still there but you could dismiss the dialog and keep Ppro open, no crash. CS6 I have yet to see the error at all. Sorry to see it hasn't been completely addressed.

It costs you the waveform visualization, but you can stop the error from happening by keeping all audio tracks collapsed (triangle to the side) or by selecting Show Name Only instead of Show Waveform using the Set Display Style selector.

In CS5 and 5.5 the error dialog still allowed me to use Ppro if I hid it off in a corner and kept working. So to save a 'corrupted' project file, I would open it up, switch all the audio tracks to Name Only, save, then quit and close the warning box. If it doesn't allow you to do that, import the old project into a new project file and close up those audio tracks.

Here's a live thread on the problem.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/388281

Report · Jun 26, 2012

Ben -- Thanks so much for your reply. It's great to know that line 87 is an annoying error, but not one that will cause my project to become unusable down the line.

On the "serious error" and kernal panic front, after setting Project Settings to Mercury Playback Engine Software Only -- so far, the line 87 error is the only one to come up. I haven't had a "serious error" or a Kernel Panic.

Next step is to start using warp stabilizer and dynamic link with AE to see if this causes a serious error or kernel panic. My hunch is that though Adobe reccomends the Nvidia Quadro 4000 Mac with CS6, that there is some problem with the way Adobe, Nvidia and/or Mac OS are seeing the card.

Thanks again,

Benjamin

Just read that you don't have a Cuda card... Back to the drawing board

Message was edited by: Benjamin Goldman

Report · Jun 26, 2012

To be clear, I do have a CUDA card installed on my system but it's not utilized by Premiere/Mercury engine because the memory is too small (512MB I think) so I am stuck on software mode only. ATI Radeon HD 3770 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 120.

Report · Jun 28, 2012

I have been able to avoid "serious error" and kernel panic for the last two days by doing the following (not sure which steps are essential):

1. Creating a new admin user.

2. Setting PrP to use CPU instead of CPU

3. Ignore "...line 87" error by moving the dialog out of the way; obsessibly click it if I need to read the audio waveforms.

Yes my spendy Nvidia Quadro 4000 Mac is dormant, and red render lines abound, but PrP has never been so responsive. Exports do seem to take much longer, but I haven't timed them.

Next steps:

1. Boot from external Lion FW drive

2. Erase/Instal Lion.

3. Update to 10.7.4

4. Make sure I have latest CUDA

5. Fresh instal CS 6 Production Premium

6. See if I can use PrP with GPU instead of CPU

7. Instal and check after each step: GoPro CinePro codec, FCP, Mocha, etc.

8. Post results

CD 6 Production Premium Main System: Mac OS 10.7.4 | MacPro5,1 | 32 GB Ram | PROJECT & MEDIA drive: Mercury Accelsior. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test: > 500 MB/s read/write | CACHE drive: Internal SATA Raid 0. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test: > 400 MB/s read/write | Nvidia Quadro 4000 Mac | CUDA Driver Version: 4.2.10 | GPU Driver Version: 1.3.4.0 (270.00.00f06) | Cineform 1.2.0.127 codec installed for access to GoPro footage |

Report · Jun 29, 2012

Regarding Mac Pro5,1: I had a very stable FCP, AE, PS CS5/6 station since mid-2010 (from 10.6 to 10.7.4). I updated software/repaired permissions regularly. I used Permission Manager, SuperDuper, and DiskWarrior to keep my ducks in a row. (see config below)

Unhappy with Apple's commitment to FCP/Pro users, I geared up for switching from FCP to PrP, specifically, I added a Nvidia Quadro 4000 Mac (which seemed like the most powerful card Adobe was recommending to take advantage of CS6 improvements). I also added a fast cache volume.

I decided to learn PrP by editing a DSLR project with it. (No recompress of h.264? Awesome!!, I thought). Though I had the latest Cuda drivers and Mac & Adobe updates, the day I started using PrP to edit, I got kernel panics, serious errors, and what I would later learn is a harmless/annoying line 87 error. (Thanks @benwinter!)

Phone calls with Adobe tech support: escalated to a higher tier. An employee who shall be referred to as "V" told me to try creating a new Admin account, and to email him the results. The results were: "serious error" in the first few minutes of use. I sent the update to V along with my crash report. He has not yet responded but has (or has allowed the system to) mark my case #0183359996 as "withdrawn" for some reason. But I digress! I have great news, keep reading!

@Jim Simon asked if I had tried simply wiping/rebuilding my system. I didn't have time in the middle of the project (and why would I have to wipe/rebuild a highly functional box?? Was this a wild goose chase??? What's the deal?? I'm on a deadline, waa waa!) I hobbled through the project by turning rendering from GPU to CPU, quitting PrP after it sent anything to another program, and incessantly clicking the error 87 dialogue until it disappeared for a while.

But as soon as my project was finished, I wiped/rebuilt my system. ALL CLEAR SO FAR! Thanks Jim!

My next steps are to back up my functional system and begin adding all of the things I need to really use it: Wacom diver, Epson Expression 10000 XL driver, GoPro CinePro codec etc...

In the age of the App Store, Apple makes a fresh install tricky. I have listed the obsessive steps I took to create a fully-fresh&functional edit system that dynamically links to AE and AU the way I always hoped it would. I will definitely update this post if I encounter kernel panics and serious errors as I incorporate the rest of my programs/peripherals.

Details:

1. Download Lion (again) from App Store and make a bootable install disc on an external FW drive using these fantastic instructions:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os- x-lion-installation-disc/

2. Boot from FW; Erase my system drive; Install 10.7; (note: no migration, no time machine, just a fresh install) restart

3. Upgrade to 10.7.4; restart

4. Download/instal latest Mac Cuda driver (4.2.10)

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda-mac-driver.html; restart

5. Give Admin Automatic login; un-require password for sleep and screensaver

6. Instal CS6: PrP, AE, AU, PS, AI, FL; I did NOT launch any of the applications.

7. Launched AAM Updates Notifier; downloaded/installed all updates; restart

8. Launched PrP; it asked me to (click to) install Java Runtime; I complied; PrP downloaded Java, installed it, then launched.

9. I made a new project:

10. General tab: I left everything as is -- Renderer is set to the default "Mercury playback...GPU" (come on Quadro 4000, I'm rooting for you!!);

11. Scratch Disc tab: I set all capture/cache directories to a folder within my dedicated CACHE volume; I set the proj file directory to a folder on my dedicated project and media drive.

12. Sequence Preset: DSLR 720p24 @23.976

13. It took five seconds to load the interface, so I quit and relaunched; much snappier results on the second launch.

14. Edited a project with various h.264s from Canon 5D & Canon 7D; no problem, works great!

15. Made a 1080p24 sequence. Warp stabilize a shaky shot in that? No problem! Load the result into my 720p24 sequence? Sure! I'll even "Scale to Frame Size" (NOTE: Though i love the one-stop scale feature -- I've notice a bug or bizarre interface choice at this point: I have 1080p footage in a 720p sequence, I can see the whole frame but the footage shows a scale of 100% in its effects control; the correct value is about 66.7%)

16. Highlighted all clips in sequence and initiated "Replace with After Effects Sequence"; It launched AE

17. AE Prefs; I left everything the same except -- I set all of my caches to a folder on my designated Cache drive. (Note: I point all disposable Adobe data to a folder called "CACHEs" in every App that gives me the choice on where to save temp stuff. Along with preferences, this folder gets emptied/trashed when things run-amok.)

18. Rotated, scaled, masked, vignetted and otherwise jacked around with footage in AE; was astounded to see near-instant update in PrP. Some clips had poor playback on first drag-through, but very quickly cached themselves and suddenly I was living the dream: not rendering in AE :)))

19. Sent sequence audio to AU; changed temp directory to designated cache volume/folder; it told me changes would take place after I restarted App, so I restarted and re-opened the XML PrP had previously sent to AU.

20. EQed and sent back to PrP; no problem!

21. Went back into AE; turned on raytracing, added some lights, shadows, bending... back in PrP things were a bit more sluggish on that clip as expected. (About the same as dragging through the AE timeline ) Rendered in PrP... Heard the Quadro fan kick in... Green lines, good playback...

Report · Jul 03, 2012

Mine's crashing everytime I switch out of After Effects. I can't get back in, it's crashed. Have to restart AFX everytime. I have a feeling it has to do with the fonts? If I'm working with type I have problems. I am in 10.6.8, not sure if that's an issue.

Report · Jul 08, 2012

I too have been having incessant kernel panic crashes in PremierePro CS6. AfterEffects and other production apps are pretty solid, just Premiere that is problematic. I've been thinking it was having issues with scaling or files with alpha channels ie. both 4444 and animation, but, it appears to be anything and sometimes nothing. I've tried turning off the CPU acceleration and it appears more stable then, but still on edge with everything I do. I'd like to focus on the edit instead of saving after every click awaiting the crash.

I've run into issues on CS5.5 where I've used the dynamic link for MediaEncoder, then the file takes a month of Sunday's to save, so now I just duplicate the file to bring into AME.

Back to PPO CS6 I've done all the stuff, repaired permissions, reinstalled, monitor, no monitor, completely out of anything I can do on this end except, now creating a snow leopard partition and moving program to that see if I can just get through a small edit running from that with the hardware accelleration off.

Dear Adobe, I hope you will address this issue. It is making many of us macbookpro users absolutely crazy. It is quadrupling the time I need to spend working on student stuff and instruction.

-------------

MacbookPro 2011 I7 2.0 Ghz - Lion 10.7.4 | 16gb ram - AMD 6750m - Lacie 4tb Thunderbolt Raid- CS6 Production Premium connected to external HDMI monitor.

Report · Jul 09, 2012

update- spent all day yesterday partitioning a snow leopard partition and moving, reinstalling CS6 on snow- so far, only crashed with project file from lion and trying to get my plug-ins moved. . I imported one of the sequences from the project started in Lion into a new PPO project, same cache and database settings. So far, been rendering for over an hour without a system crash.

Had plug in issues that I got worked out, but so far so good. MB Quicklooks sinks the program unless the plugin is in it's folder.

I've searched everywhere, but seems like the bad mix seems to be that Lion and the 6750m using accelleration, which was allegedly addressed in 10.7.4 and PPO 6.01 but, that's not my experience. Guaging from the lack of posts I could find, It felt like I was the only one suffering from the kernel crashing, so maybe I'm not the only one., The program crashed on Lion without MPE being accellerated so who knows. I just needed to get back to working instead of restarting. It sure would be nice to see what the OpenCL actually does for more than a few minutes, like maybe all the way through an edit and render. Hopefully we can get updates from both Apple and Adobe.

And, off topic, those big thick cursors are making me crazy, not switching to my select tool, would be nice if they'd give us the CS5.5 option for the cursor.

MacbookPro 2011 I7 2.0 Ghz - Lion 10.7.4 | 16gb ram - AMD 6750m - Lacie 4tb Thunderbolt Raid- CS6 Production Premium connected to external HDMI monitor.

Report · Jul 14, 2012

I've been getting help from Tier 2 tech support, but alas, even after systems checks, mem tests, etc. the problems persist.

Here's a blog post I just did on my four kernel crashes from yesterday and one already today. My issues tend to be with using images I've brought in from PSD as .pngs.

I also have had crash problems on Export straight from PR.

http://claxtoncreative.com/2012/adobes-premier-pro-cs6-kernel-crashes-continue/

Report · Jun 12, 2015

If you think Premier crashes a lot, you should try DaVinci Resolve Lite. Can't do a single thing in that program before it crashes. I'm looking at Adobe alternatives because my new PXW-FS7 shoots in a CODEC CS6 doesn't understand. Adobe stuff is pretty stable.

Report · Aug 26, 2015

I am having the same problem - although it occurs as soon as I open the program and click on a clip? I use iMac (Late 2014) Yosemite processor

I am installing the adobe updates now...

Report · Aug 12, 2012

I am also having this problem. Premiere would crash in the middle of the most mundane things. A ripple edit. Moving a clip down the timeline. Adjusting volume on the waveform. It crashed so many times that now the entire MBP is locking up when I try to open Premiere. Completely locking up. Hard power-button reboot needed.

This is CS6, on a MacBook Pro mid-2012.

I've uninstalled PrP and will try reinstalling and see if that helps.

I think all the sessions have been corrupted though.

Report · Aug 20, 2012

No solutions to offer. Another "me too" post.

Radeon 9750 card, Windows 7 64 bit with 8 Gig of ddr3. Probably due to the work I am trying to achieve. In my case the crashes are severe. Full blown Blue screen of death and every once in a while also a simple application crash.

It seems to happen when I import a bunch of wmv video files into the project. Some thumbnails change to black and while and are suddenly displayed upside down similar to this thread ( http://forums.adobe.com/message/4611938#4611938 ). Once I get the black and white, I know we are about to explode and sure enough seconds later the mouse stops moving and the blue screen of death appears accompanied by a series of expletives from the operator.

This morning I went out and bought another 8 gig of ram increasing the total to 16 gig, hoping this would solve my issue. It is eary days but this seems at least to reduce the number of crashes to only a few crashes per hour I feel I can actually do a little work using PP CS6. I really need to hear Adbobe respond to these cries for help. The subscription to the software is a good deal but the hours I lose trying to do work cost a lot more.

I hear CS5 is much more stable. I would be happy to be given access to CS5 as productivity is more important to me then running the latest buggy code.

Report · Aug 20, 2012

Have you tried removing the original RAM you had? Then using just the new RAM you just purchased by itself for awhile. The fact it crashes less with the new RAM makes me question if some sort of memory error was occuring and now that there is more RAM there it has started occuring with less frequency.

It's worth a shot anyways

Report · Aug 20, 2012

Thanks for the suggestion. After some more time trying to work with PP I find the number of crashes is the same. It is just I get more done because it is a bit quicker. I did try what you suggested but it made no difference.

In my case, the crashes only occur when I work in the project panel. Crashes occur mainly when I move the mouse over the thumbnails "Hover scrub" although not exclusivly. However, all crashes seem related to activity in the project library window (Is that the right word?)

For the last few hours I disabled my other two monitors in windows and work exclusively on a single screen. So far no blue screen although hover scrub still causes the graphics driver to crash but this time Windows caught it and even balloon notified me. I looked up the event: "Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

After it recovered PP would respond again. Needles to say that working on a single screen using PP is painful.

Report · Aug 20, 2012

Work around solution

Ok, Adobe, pay attention this is important.

Because my driver crashes happened when interacting with the project panel I suspected the hover scrub was the culprit of my blue screen crashes. After all, it rendered incorrectly when the icons are small and sometimes the thumbnail would go black and while and upside down. So I changed the default view for this panel from Icon to List view so hover scrub would not kick in.

Re-enabled all my screens and I have been working since without any crashes at all. So there is a good chance the bug is caused by the new hover scrub feature. It is a pity I can't turn that off because I still like the icons to my resources in icon view. But at least I can work. I look forward to a fix now.

I will report again here if a blue screen crash occurs again.

Report · Aug 21, 2012

You can turn Hover Scrub off in the flyout menu.

Report · Aug 21, 2012

Great tip. Thanks Jim. I be first doing some more tests with Hover scrub turned on as discussed here. http://forums.adobe.com/message/4637862#4637862

The two threads are related in my case.

Report · Feb 18, 2013

Did you ever find a solution?? I am having the exact trouble with a serious error. I can not even open the program to work on my projects.... and the technitions can not find a solution. I need help!

Report · Mar 04, 2014

I am also suddenly encountering these serious errors. For me it only happens when I add jpegs to my timeline. When I delete the images I can edit fine again. I think I'll try editing my text/images in AE then importing as a video into PP.

Report · Feb 08, 2015

The first time it crashed for me was when I hit the 'cancel' button while it was indexing media files. It just 'went away' without so much as a crash report dialog. Other than that, been pretty stable on older hardware. (2008),

Report · Apr 08, 2015

I've not imported HDV in years, but this evening I tried to open several HDV clips, one at a time, and after the file imports and indexes, Windows 7 64 freezes. I mean the mouse pointer, keyboard--everything. Just like Windows 3.0 would freeze. I've never hung Windows 7 before, and I've been using it for years. This is a first. I guess CS6 no longer supports HDV.

Report · Jun 07, 2015

My Premier crashes a lot, sometimes just opening it, on a new MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) with OSX 10.10.3

I don't know why Adobe asks you to submit a crash report, I gave up after the first 100 crashes or so because I never heard from them, they don't seem interested in helping the customers they charge good money for software that constantly crashes.

I have seen people have more luck running stable pirate software.

Today is a pretty standard day for me, edit a video on Premier, crash repeatedly, get too scared to even play a sequence to avoid a crash, watch a previously rendered video in VLC just so I know where to go to make some edits and render it out & hope for the best. sigh.

Report · Jun 08, 2015

Yeah i'm scared to use Premiere for serious projects, it totally failed me on a simple test project. Adobe Dreamweaver is a mess and Indesign crashes like a mo'fo. I know programming isn't easy but these programs have been around for several years, you'd think they'd eventually iron out the bugs.

Report · Jun 09, 2015

UPDATE, Adobe help desk fixed my problem remotely. It was my user error, I had the wrong Rendering engine selected and I had my Memory allocation set up wrong, it seems to be working much better now, I should have contacted the help desk sooner. The help desk person was called Ankit Rathi and he was fast and helpful using the desktop chat app.

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Premiere Pro CS6 Constantly Crashing