Premiere Pro Freezes Opening project unless I duplicate file

I had this issue.  What worked for me disabling VST plugins before opening the problem project. 

Preferences > Audio > Manage Audio Plugins > Disable All

Then I could narrow it down to one specific VST that was causing the freeze on project open, removed it by searching each sequence (CTRL+F) for that effect and deleting the instance, re-save, and now the project opens first time every time.

This is happening to me currently, Production was working fine. Sent projects back and forth between multiple editors.

Now I can't open the project. The workarounds work sometimes but most of the times they dont. 

I'm on a NAS, Ryzen 5900x GTX 3090TI. New projects work fine. But the actual project i need cannot be opened without sorcery. Can we get a fix pelase?

happened to me once: Corrupted mogrt.

It can also be a corrupted video file

Try closing all your timeline windows before saving. It seems like Premiere freezes up while trying to load up any open sequences.

Same exact problem. Brand new M1 Pro Macbook. Have been a windows user for years and never ran into this. Now every time I try to open a saved project premiere freezes up. The open empty project then open saved project seems to be a workable fix but seriously? This problem has been around for this long and there isn't a real fix? WOW...Adobe never ceases to amaze me. Ridiculous. Thank you to the people for finding the janky solotuion since adobe would rather be working on useless AI features I'll use once than provide workable, non-embarassing tools.

Ok so I'm not the only one with this problem.

I've been creating new projects and importing. It doesn't work all the time but after a bunch of tries, it eventually works. Super annoying having to spend hours to just open a project.

Initially I thought it was Red Giant but after doing some tests and disabling red giant, it doesn't seem to be the case.

I've been having this problem for a month or so.

Sometimes trashing prefs helps, sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes the trick of opening a new project works, sometimes not. Importing into a new project can work, but not always.

Restarting helps... sometimes.

Usually (but not always) opening an auto backup works, (not the most recent one). 

The latest beta seems to work, but the last one didn't.

Well, you get the idea. All in all, I'm finding the app unreliable. I'm starting to teach myself how to use DaVinci Resolve :~{

I ran into this as well.  My solve is to open an "untitled" (new project) that I have just saved to my desktop.  Open then first.  Then while that untitled project is open...double click on your project you want to open.  It seems that if PP is opened already with another project it lets you open the project you are wanting to work on.  Then once my project is open I go to the "untitled project" tab and I close that project.  Many people don't know that you can have multiple projects open at the same time.  Does this make sense?  Works for me every time now, and I don't have to duplicate projects, or rename...or import or any of those hassles.

Ciao, sto riscontrando il tuo stesso problema a differenza che, se apro un nuovo progetto per poi importare quello su cui ho gia iniziato a lavorare, Premiere non riesce a caricarlo e tutto si blocca nuovamente. sono più di 2 settimane che non trovo soluzione. ho provato di tutto.

Hi there!

Before we can determine the problem holding you back (which sounds annoying!), I'd like to ask you to give us a detailed overview of your set-up. What OS are you on, with which, CPU, GPU, how much RAM is installed, the version of Premiere you're using, that kind of stuff. 

Thanks!