Premiere Pro - Using too much memory 100GB+

[Morgan29803041oxel]

Hello,

On the Premiere Pro 2023 version, I am experiencing high memory usage. There's about 3 TB of footage/photos/music in my project...the memory usage will grow to be as much as 100GB. This issue has been replicated onto a new laptop. My previous laptop of 16GB, would crash while working on my project. I haven't experienced a crash yet on the new laptop, but the memory usage is still going very high. Please, let me know if I can provide any other information to help find a solution to this.

Laptop specs - Macbook Pro i7 CPU 32GB RAM M1. 

[Ishan Y]

I'm sorry to hear about this. Could you let us know what media type you're working with (format, codec, frame rate, frame size)? Please also let us know what effects you use (if any) and any third-party plugins you currently have installed. This will help us better understand the problem. 

Thanks,

Ishan

[Michael Grenadier]

I'm not sure that many people are aware of how great it is that adobe employees are helping here...  

[michelleo16827334]

OK, so most of what you have asked for I don't even know what it is or how to find as I am a very new user of Premiere pro. If you can tell me where to find that info, I am more than happy to provide it.... I just don't know.

I am using mp4 files, I import them into Premiere Pro and then edit them using the razor tool, ripple delete sections, some use of Hard Click Remover, DeNoise, or DeHummer. I am using Gaussian blur and Video Transitions that are available with Premiere Pro.

No third-party plugins. The longest video duration was about 40 minutes, but can happen even on 8-10 minute ones. 

Have tried cutting the larger projects in half but it makes no difference. 

It's probably the most parred back, basic editing of video and audio you can get and it's still running out of memory! 

Let me know how to find the other info if you'd like me to find it! 👍🏼

Not sure if this info I just found is relevant (sorry, i'm so clueless) 

Type: MPEG Movie File Size: 93.24 MB Image Size: 2198 x 1080 Frame Rate: 30.00 Source Audio Format: 44100 Hz - Compressed - Mono Project Audio Format: 44100 Hz - 32 bit floating point - Mono Total Duration: 00:21:35:17 Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0 Alpha: None Color Space: Rec. 709 Color Space Override: Off Input LUT: None Video Codec Type: MP4/MOV H.264 4:2:0

[Michael Grenadier]

mp4 files are heavily compressed and although usually premiere can deal with them without issues, you might try transcoding your camera original to the appropriate prores format and see if that solves the problem.  I'd suggest prores 422 matching the parameters of the camera original (pixel dimensions, frame rate, etc). Post back if you have any questions about this workflow...

[Malcia25704468n3ve]

So this happened to me today and what worked for me was basically:

1. start a new project file

2. copy the current timeline (I had gotten halfway through a video edit when this happened)

3. paste all the clips into a new timeline so that ONLY THE CLIPS USED CURRENTLY are in the media browser

4. closed out the old project (it took a few tries to copy it over because mine was crashing within 30 seconds)

5. use my SSD drive as the "media browser" and only add clips into Premiere I fully plan to use.

It is not ideal, but it saved me in this current project. I hope Premiere figures out the glitch because although I was shooting 4k, this was footage for a 5-minute video, not an hour-long project.

[Michael Grenadier]

Unfortunately in the real world, workarounds are often necessary... and have been since the birth of computer based non-linear editing system.  Thanks for posting your solution...  

[DoogleDood]

Hi all,

Having the same problem here.

Active timelines no longer than 10 minutes, but include nested sequences / multicams that include up to 40 minutes of footage. Sony a7s series footage; Stock footage in MP4 at 4K; A couple of AVIs created from image sequences; Audio in WAV and MP3 formats; Lumetri Color; Audio Effects (Denoiser, DeReverb, Parametric EQ); Image Files such as PNG and JPG; Color Mattes; These are the details I can think to include right now. It's being edited on an MSI GP76 Leopard (32GB RAM; 8GB Dedicated GPU RAM) off of external storage (attempted SSD and External bay of HDDs). I have nested sequences within nested sequnces, and--completely anecdotally--I seem to remember having this issue in the past with other projects that involved a lot of multi-layered nesting. I just resolved an issue where audio artifacts were introduced in the exported file, and the resolution was to flatten the nested audio so there was only one "layer" between the exported sequene and the raw audio files. The memory leak issue was happening in the midst of troubleshooting the audio artifacts, and the memory leak issue became particularly frequent as I began to interact direclty with the multi-layered nested squences so I could flatten the audio. So, again, anecdotal... but have nested sequences been explored as a contributing factor to the issue? Is Premiere holding previews in the cache for every layer of the nesting?

And to anyone else having this issue, are you using nested sequences a lot or no?

Thanks to the community members and Adobe team for being responsive. This has been a long running issue for many, and I would love to contribute to its remedy.

[Tim26371809b5pe]

Same issue here. Activity monitor shows 500+ GB of VM Compressed Memory being used. It's happened several times over the last few weeks. I've restarted, cleared memory, and it still keeps happening. I generate a lot of small projects (usually less than a minute), and they all have 4K 60fps MP4 footage from a Sony a7siii. Occasionally, I will use GoPro Hero 10 clips and (more rarely) Mavic Air 2S clips. Most of the clips have time remapping, and most of them are nested and stabilized. These projects use a couple of After Effects compositions,  several instances of the same MOGRT (based on very complex After Effects compositions), and lumetri color across the board. I leave lumetri scopes open constantly (because I don't want to hunt for it when I need it).

 

[Michael Grenadier]

You're asking an awful lot of your system with 4k 60fps mp4 source files.    as I suggested above, a proxy workflow might ease things up a bit.  And if you're not constantly using the lumetri scopes, you can assign a keyboard shortcut that will quickly open the scopes.    Using the render and replace command or rendering out your AE comps in AE and then placing them on top of the AE comp in your timeline may also speed things up.   I know this may not be ideal, but not sure what else you can do...Testing these "workarounds" and monitoring the RAM usage may help pinpoint exactly what's causing this...  

[514tan]

Having a similar problem on my 2019 iMac i9, Vega 48, 128gb ram. Short timelines (1-6 minutes) of several dozen clips of Sony a7iv footage shot in 10bit 422 HS will bring premiere to a crawl and ram usage spikes to 100gb plus another 100gb+ in swaps. After several minutes I get the alert that the computer is out of application memory, or sometimes premiere crashes without that warning popping up at all. I've tried putting the footage on the internal and an external ssd and there's no difference. I've tried using ProRes proxies and that also makes no difference.

The only thing that fixes this issue is if I transcode full res ProRes files in ME first, then import just those files into Premiere. Once one single original HEVC file from my camera is imported into the media library (not even on the timeline yet) the ram starts to creep up nonstop until it uses up everything my machine has. This is happening on v24 and has also happened on the various v23 versions. 

Hoping someone knows how I can fix this without each of my small projects having to start as several TB due to having to use full res ProRes to start editing. For reference, I tried dropping the original HEVC footage into Resolve and it does not have the same runaway ram issue, which leads me to believe it's not a file/codec or hardware problem. Thanks in advance. 

[jmanrech]

Hey @514tan did you ever get this figured out. I've got pretty much the same computer specs and the same problems

[514tan]

Hey @jmanrech , I did actually manage to sort it out. For me, the issue was Sony's Catalyst software. Somehow it interacts with PP and causes it to runaway with ram. I needed to uninstall and delete all the tendrils of Catalyst Browse, Catalyst Prepare/Plugin, and Catalyst Edit. Even if you didn't explicitly install the plugin (I did not), it drops a hidden copy of it in Premiere, so make sure you get rid of those files too. Hope this also solves the issue for you. 

[jmanrech]

Thanks for the quick reply @514tan ! I was hoping that'd be it for me. I looked and didn't see those files unfortunately. Ha, this issue is the biggest mystery to me...

[jmanrech]

@514tan Found the solution for this. It's the BRAW Studio plugin from Autokroma that was causing the memory leak. I had to uninstall the latest version and go back to BRAW Studio v3.1.4 for macOS because I was using BMCC 6K footage (apparently that's what is part of the crash issue). I also didn't set up my project correctly and had to convert the Premiere project. 

[Ishan Y]

@jmanrech I'm glad you found a workaround. Would you be willing to share sample files and steps to reproduce the issue? I'd like to look into this problem. Please send me a private message. 

[jmanrech]

@Ishan Y My two camera files are each around 150GB, so that might be tough. One if from the BMCC 6K and the other is the BMPCC 4K. If there's an easy way to do though that I'm happy to help.

[Ishan Y]

No worries! Did you see this issue with BRAW Studio 3.3.3? I can try to source some files and try to reproduce the problem. Did you send any crash reports along with your email ID? Also, did you experience memory leaks with smaller files as well? 

[jmanrech]

Yes, the issue was with BRAW Studio 3.3.3. I was experiencing memory leaks with smaller files too. And I'm not sure if I sent a crash report. Honestly probably not.

[aliBrad]

Hi all,

maybe someone comes back to the topic...same issue happens here...but on MBP M3 Max / 14" / 30 Cores / 1 TB HDD / 36GB RAM...latest version of PPro. This is the first time I run into this on a Mac (after recent PPro update :D).

I work on a project editing 4K 50fps + 25 fps footage (SONY FX3), over all size about 500 GB, footage stored on 2TB Samsung T7 drive connected via certified Thunderbolt4 cable.

Since in this thread there has not been a final solution / explanation...I hope in the meantime some intellignece on this topic has been gathered to help 🙂 Thnaks for your friendly support.

[jmanrech]

Hey @aliBrad, since you shot with a Sony check out 514tan's solution above. My issue was with 3rd party software for the Blackmagic Raw Studio, so I'm wondering if it's Sony's 3rd party software he mentioned.

[aliBrad]

Hi jmanrech , thank you for coming back to me and your kind advice. I do not use SONY's or any other tech manufacturer's softwar, if possible, since mostly they suck. So this does noit apply or work for me.

I suppose it is the same old song...wait and hope for the next update to get things (maybe) fixed.

Regards from Germany

[Exciting_Flutter5E06]

Guys, having the same issue here.

Running a M1 Pro Macbook Pro 16gb of ram and this message keeps popping up!
Have you guys found a workaround?

  Can anyone in adobe help us out?

[jmanrech]

@Exciting_Flutter5E06 What camera footage are you using? And are you using any third party plugins?

[Michael Grenadier]

Please do a screen grab of preferences:  Memory.  And do you have sufficient space available on your startup drive.  The minimum free space should be at least 20% and more is probably better.    And maybe better to only be running the OS and Premiere.  Wondering if one of the other apps running could be contributing to the problem.  

[CHCHK]

I'm having the same issue. Warning of too much memory used - usually about 130-150GB. I can close the window, save and restart.

M1 Max Macbook Pro, 64GB Memory, Sonoma 14.4.1, Pr 25.1, BM UltraStudio 4K

Small project, mix of long GOP FX3 and intra FX9 and C70 footage.  Mix of framerates from suppliers.

Switched back to 24.6.0 whcih hasn't crashed for 3 months. (Most stable version of Premiere I've ever used.)