Premiere Pro Freezes Often

[RyanW.]

I am experiencing a reoccuring issue with Premiere Pro freezing often.  I can only work for about 5 minutes and then it happens.  It starts with the video preview not refreshing.  I can still do things like move the timeline and access the menu but nothing updates or refreshes. If I hit play or let it sit for a bit it just hangs.  I get the "wait" pointer but can still move the mouse around.  There is about 8-10% active on the CPU but it will never recover.  If I click anywhere on the screen it will dim like it is waiting for something to complete.  Eventually I have to kill the application and start over.  It never recovers or produces an error.  It is very frustrating.

This is a brand new Windows 10 computer thta is literally days old.  The Adobe products are pretty much the only programs suite that I have installed on the machine.  I also ran windows update and updated all drivers and firmware before starting.  Here are the specs on the computer:

Dell XPS

Intel I9 (10th generation, 10 cores)

64Gb RAM

NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super with 8GB RAM

SSD C: Drive (boot) - Where Premiere Pro is installed

Traditional disk for D: drive 

I am running the latest version of Premiere Pro (14.4.0 build 38)

Since everything is brand new, patched, and updated; I am thinking it probably config issue with my setup (or a bug but I don't see anyone else having the issue).  Could it possibly be anti-virus?  Do I need to exclude any of the Premiere Pro working directories?

Any ideas, comments, suggestions on how to troubleshoot and resolve would be greatly appreciated. 

[Ann Bens]

Get a few SSD drives. Traditional drives as in spinning drives are only suited for backup.

[RyanW.]

You honestly think that is the problem?  Having a traditional disk on my system would be causing Premiere Pro to freeze.  I don't recall mondetory SSD's being a requirement for Premier Pro but I will go check the specs.  Note that all of the system files (Windows, Premier Pro, etc.) are all on the SSD disk.

[Ann Bens]

Its usually the media used. Spinning drives are too slow the handle compressed footage (as in H.264).

Read the comment on hard disk space.

https://helpx.adobe.com/nl/premiere-pro/system-requirements.html

[RyanW.]

SSD's are "recommended" and I could see how this would benefit everything but they are certainly not required.  I also don't see how this would require it to completely freeze and become unusable.  I thank you for the feedback but I don't think this is the problem.  Especially since my old computer (the one I just updated from) ONLY had traditional spinning drives and didn't have this problem.  

[MyerPj]

It may not cause the problem, but crashing can happen when one component is far behind the others. Thus you do not in any way have a balanced system. Your system sounds good, save for the spinning drive. I have to turn one on in order to have a spinner.

Can you put the project files and media on the SSD for now to give that a try? Also, you can check the performance difference if you can keep it running long enough.

[RyanW.]

I copied the entre project (all media files, cache, etc.) to the SSD and it is still happening.

[MyerPj]

I don't think it's a great idea to copy the cache, here's how to delete it.

• Start PP from it's normal desktop icon (IE: don't open from a project file link).
• Close the Open/Home screen (and you will be in PP without a project open).
• Go into Edit/Preferences/Media Cache (Mac users adjust menu name)
• Then Press: Remove Media Cache Files: and Delete...
• Select: Delete all media cache files from the system and OK
• Close PP - It will create any needed cache files on the fly as you edit.

[RyanW.]

Still doesn't work.  It isn't the disk.  We are chasing a red-herring with that.

[defaultxj8djcsq48xr]

Such a red herring—yet again blaming the victim for software glitches. Crashed on me 2x today. Even this webpage glitched when I logged in!

[MyerPj]

My last comment was not to do with the disk. It had to do with your troubleshooting technique and having copied over the cache.

Go ahead and troubleshoot on your own.

[RyanW.]

I am just pointing out at the "angle" that seemed to be what everyone was clutching to isn't it.  I appreciate the help but really?  You can't handle a little push back on things?

This type of support is frustrating...Everyone that uses this product is a professional that is using this for work purposes.  When the program doesn't work and it takes days to resolve things, it is very frustrating to say the least.  what other type of support is available to a "paying" customer?

[MyerPj]

This is a user to user forum, we're just users like you. You can call adobe or chat with them. I think it's from the Creative Cloud app.

So back and forth, back and forth have you deleted the cache yet?

[RyanW.]

Yes....The cache was deleted (everything in cache) and all files are on a local solid state disk.  It works for about 5 minutes, stops updating the video preview, and then freezes.

[Phillip Harvey]

Have you tried a different version of the software? You can have multiple versions loaded at any one time, and you should still be able to go back as far as 13.1.5 (2019). I'm sure you don't want to stay on an older version, but just for experimentation. I'm still working in 14.2 on my home machine, which is a ryzen setup similar to yours, and also on my work machine, which is an intel setup almost exactly like yours.

[RyanW.]

I tried going back to 14.2, deleted all of the cache, and it is still doing the same thing.  Very frustrating.

I havealso  tried using software for the renderrer (deleting cache too) and it still hangs after just a couple of minutes.

[RyanW.]

I also tried disabling my AV to see if that was causing an issue.  Same problem.

[RyanW. · Accepted solution]

This ended up being a specific clip in my project that was causing the issue.  I am not sure exactly why it was causing Premiere Pro to freeze but I was able to isolate it down to the last two frames of a specific clip.  Since it was the last two frames (lucky enough), I just cut them from the clip and it seems to be working fine now.

This does seem like a lurking issue that could pop up again.  Why Premiere Pro would not be able to handle a simple MP4 file and just freeze without generating an error is somewhat concerning.