Premiere Pro Takes Seven Minutes to Load Project on Big Mac

[CLWill]

I'm running the very latest Premiere Pro (23.1.0 bld 86) on an enormous Mac Studio (M1 Max with 64gb of memory) running Ventura (13.1).

Premiere takes seven minutes to open a project.

The splash screen comes up and disappears in less than 10 seconds

It spends 4 minutes and 20 seconds with the "Open Project" thermometer about 2/3rds of the way done. Then that quickly finishes and spends another 2 minutes and 30 seconds with the thermometer completely full but nothing happening.

Then it opens to the interface and spends the obligatory 10 seconds or so locating and opening the assets.

Then it's ready to go. In operation and editing, it's flawless. I can fly around, edit, scrub, playback. It's as fast as any computer I've ever used.

But then I go to export. The export dialog comes up and sits with the thermometer empty for a solid two minutes or more. Then it flies. Exporting is lightning fast, once the thermometer starts moving.

During all of these delays the Mac Activity Monitor thinks Premiere Pro is hung. Says "not responding". But if I wait it out, all is well.

This happens on all my projects. Doesn't matter if I'm loading them off my NAS or off the local SSD. 

Clearly it's hung up looking for something. Can anyone tell me what the program is looking for in these cases? Help?

[Moderator note: title edited for clarity of issue and needed assistance.]

[R Neil Haugen]

I think this needs our "local" Mac experts, like @Warren Heaton and @Kevin-Monahan  ...

Neil

[Warren Heaton]

This sounds like an I/O issue.

As a troubleshooting step, I'd copy a handful of source footage to a folder on the Desktop, unmount all network and external hard drives, create a new project from scratch with everything (the project file, the Scratch Disk, and the source footage) in the test project folder.

Another step is to save a copy of one of the project files to the Desktop, unmount all network and local drives, (maybe restart), and open the project file on the Desktop with all media offline.

[CLWill · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your reply.

After a ton of fiddling, I've discovered the issue. I use Izotope RX for audio tweaking. They have two versions of every plugin, an AU and a VST. I have always used the AU, because... I dunno. After too much research, I see that Izotope has updated the VST's to use Apple Silicon, and the AU's still use Rosetta. So it was spending ages loading Rosetta for every clip.

Then I also realized my VO track was dozens (hundreds) of clips all using the same effects. So it was loading the AU plugin for each clip.

As I've always wanted to, I moved the effects to the audio track (hey Adobe, would be nice if tracks could read effect presets...). And removed them from every clip.

So now I have five effects on one track, and the effects are all using Apple Silicon. Not five effects on hundreds of clips each one using Rosetta.

This has made the Open Project thermometer go to 100% almost instantly. Still waits there for too long (a minute?) and I'll see if I can figure out what that is.

But it's down from seven minutes to one. Thanks.

Chris

[CLWill]

One more note, exporting starts instantly as well. Live and learn 🙂

[Warren Heaton]

Third party plugins can wreak havoc.

Thanks for reporting back on what caused it.

[R Neil Haugen]

Excellent sleuthing there, and thanks for posting that back!

And yes, it is incredibly frustrating and unbelievable that we can't use presets in the Audio Track mixer!

Although as others have noted, the Track mixer is really only useful after you have project/sequence lock, as before ... if you shift a clip around, do any editing ... the audio stays where it was even though the clips have shifted.

For me, I typically do get a project lock ... and like doing my audio after.

Neil

[CLWill]

I film a ton of the same stuff for social media. All me talking head in a studio configuration. Always the same audio setup, all audio on the same track each time. Audio 1 is always my MHK416. So putting the effects on the track is golden. Something I shoulda done a year ago. 

I have two template projects (one for horizontal, one for vertical) and I've just updated those to have these five effects (the Apple a silicon versions 😉) on Audio 1. Life is good. 

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea, template projects & dummy sequences is the one way to get around this unfortunate limitation.

Working in a Production mode even as a single person shop, with the year's work all in the one Production, means my 'template' items are always immediately available for any project.

Neil