Premiere project with iZotope plug-ins hangs 3/4's in at start-up

[Alain22826511105i]

Hi,

I've been plagued with this issue for a while now, across many projects, but it's just worsened with PrPro2022 to a point where I can't launch certain projects anymore. The triggering factors seem to be 1) the use of iZotope Neutron 3 plug-ins and 2) the accumulation of a certain number of those plug-ins accumulated through all sequences.

The start-up progress bar basically "jams" 3/4's into its full length and there's nothing else to do than kill the process. Then it's a painful process of restart/kill/repeat until it goes thru in full. Sometimes a full reboot helps, but not much. Typically the project will finally open at the 4th or 5th attempt, but not today...

There does not need to be many plug-ins, nor a huge number of them, even in pretty simple sequences... Disabling all of the plug-ins before exiting a successful launch does not help; resetting the Preferences or the Plug-ins cache do not help either.

The resource monitor shows very little activity: 2% CPU usage and a few MB of memory (out of 64GB alloted to PPro, of a total of 128GB).

I've just duplicated the project on another drive, thinking it could trigger the Relink UI and perhaps help things out, but the Relink UI did not come up; same hang.

At this point, it's pretty useless to be honest, for this given project I've lost the last hour trying to get into it...

What are my options? Is there a magical shortcut I could use to bypass the plug-ins at start-up? A log file that could display the issue at hand?

Using the latest 2022 Cloud version on Windows 10. Intel Core i7-6800K @ 3.40GHz, 128GB of RAM, 500 GB SSD system disk (200 GB free), 1TB SSD Scratch disk, many TBs of NAS storage over 10GigE...

TIA for any help --Alain

[Peru Bob]

Is there an update for the plugins?

[Alain22826511105i]

Hi Bob - thanks for the help. The plug-ins were fully updated 10 days ago, but the problem was there before as well.

[neil wilkes]

It certainly sounds like a problem with the plugin itself to me.

Have you tried contacting iZotope at all?

[Baffy19]

Currently, the problem is with how Premiere works with each third-party plugin. I have the same problem with the RX 9 Izotope. If there are third-party processing effects in the sound on the timeline (not native Premiere effects), then the export will hang and the project will not be output. Prior to version 22, Premiere worked perfectly with third-party plugins with both video and audio. You need to understand the Premiere itself. It was possible to change the code in the program and it is not compatible when working with third-party plugins. This is particularly observed with other video plugins from the company AIS, Sapphire, Maxon and others. I will not believe that the developers of third-party plugins have done something wrong. Previously, everything was fine with compatibility. Now the trouble is for many creatives

[Alain D.]

Hi Baffy19, thanks for your input.

I understand your view, but I must say I'm not experiencing the same thing as you. Once I am into the project, I can properly playback and export. So I can stack up a mix of Rx9's "Mouth", "Breath", "Neutron3", "De-Ess" and top it with an "Insight" analyzer, and both the playback and exports are A-OK. I had this particular issue in PrPro 2021 with Rx8 and Rx9 plug-ins as well, but it seems to have gotten worse in 2022.

But yes -- I totally agree that some updates from the main app may not work well with other apps or drivers. On PC, I regularly see this when an NVidia driver update is made available -- at least 50% of the time, the NVidia update is not playing well with Premiere and I need to downgrade + wait for the next Premiere update to update NVidia again. This is the downside of software development nowadays, especially with Support resources being very limited with pretty much all software companies.

[Baffy19]

Here I fully agree on the issue of Adobe compatibility with Nvidia drivers. Therefore, I wrote a post on the forum and raised this issue. I paid special attention to this pattern.

[Alain D.]

Thanks Neil. Yes, Support ticket opened with iZotope, but from past experience, their Support vs video editing products is not as sharp as for audio DAWs or music production... No news yet from them after almost 2 days. This may well be a typical "fall between the cracks" kind of issue, where part of the problem is likely on both sides, the 3rd party app developper (iZotope) and the host dev (Adobe). I was throwing this here hoping someone else had similar experiences with these plug-ins.

[Baffy19]

Cool iZotope plugins for audio processing. But, their latest compatibility with Premiere is questionable.

[Alain D.]

I've been using these plug-ins for 3 years now and I find them to be just great in terms of quality. But yes, it appears the QA/Testing/Support given on video editing applications (or at least, Premiere on Windows on my end) to be questionnable at times. Not so much in terms of quality, but rather overall stability/interoperability as I've exposed earlier. Again, sorry to hear about your output issues, but none of that here on my end.

On my end, it's been things like saving a set-up, tweaking it and performing an "Update" in the given saved set-up, only to realize in a later session that the update was never done and I had been processing that initial set-up! That's been fixed earlier this fall. But I remember very well reporting that to iZotope's Support and not being understood nor taken seriously, even though they got precise replications steps and screen captures step-by-step... But this latest issue of not being able to enter the Premiere project anymore is a real showstopper.

On the upside, I found a workaround... but lots of wasted time 😞

[Alain D.]

Update for posterity and if this can help someone in the near future... There is an issue with the plug-in, but also with Premiere itself.

• *Important workaround found*
  You can Import your problematic Premiere project into a New Project with success. All of it - not just one sequence or two. But as soon as you Save this new project, exit and try to Open it again, you are back to square one, in which case the Import route is your only option.
• *Problem found with Neutron3 v3.8*
  An issue was found with the version of the Neutron3 plug-in used (3.8). We first removed it completely and then re-installed it in Windows Safe Mode, with no change. A downgrade to 3.7, the previous version, "fixed" the issue.
• Numerous tests were done with iZotope Support as well by myself, throuhgout numerous Premiere projects with/without plug-ins (to test potential Premiere issues independently from the plug-in).
• Some problematic projects (but not all of them) have in common that they were created from a base project (with a given folder organization and pre-built template sequences) that I duplicate and rename accordingly.
• There are issues with Premiere projects WITHOUT the plug-in. You can see the Open-Project progress bar "stall" 3/4's in with some projects; most of them will follow through after a delay of 15 to 60s, but there was at least one that never made it through the as if it had the plug-in. Using the Import option above on those projects, I realized some of Premiere's internally generated components end up in the "Recovered" folder (Black, Color Matte for example). Deleting those components, saving and restarting the project has helped, but is not an absolute guarantee of success.
• iZotope Support has my system info and I am waiting for further instructions. That being said, the project duplication path on Premiere's side does not seem to be 100% trustable. I will recreated my base project from scratch and continue to monitor this. This base project has been evolving over a few Premiere versions over the last couple of years.

[Baffy19]

Great news 🙌

[fredrik78847280]

Hi,

just found this thread and I can confirm that with the exactly same issues only the descriped workaround by Alain D. works kind of.

I made a test project with only one clip (V1, A1) and music (A2). Than I put Neutron on A1 and Ozone on A2 - queue to AME and there it hangs. When only one of the two audio filter is added file exports fine.

In this test I export to AME so I don't have to make a new project everytime PP crashes. Depending on the added filters in the sequence the behaviour of crashing or not is similar in PP and AME. So far I couldn't find any difference in using AU or VST3.

I worked with Neutron 3  vers. 3.2.0 (MPS3) in the past cause it worked alone (in PP) and in combination with other iZotope filters (in PP) most stable.

Since I lost track which plugin-version of iZotope I had installed before in older projects I now have to open those all by re-importing them into a new projects. I don't had any luck lately that they would open anyway. When problems occur in those proejects I replace iZotope plugins or use the older Neutron3-version 3.2.0.

The hustle started for me with Music Production Suite 4 (MPS4) and now the latest bundle plus filtercombinations with Ozone9. I am on mac Catalina, PP 15.4.1, but same on PP22. Also complete iZotope-deletion and re-install via safe mode made no difference.

[Baffy19]

Yes, the problem is Neutron. I wonder if now this is the solution to fix the problem in Izotope?

[Alain D.]

Hi Fredrik, sorry to hear about those issues... Bummer! I can only encourage you to report the issue with iZotope's Support. There are days where I feel we are not many using these products in video editing applications...

On my end, the last echo from iZotope's Support was to stick to N3 v3.7 until further notice. I did not purchase the Music Production Suite Bundle myself, I believe it was called the Production Suite at the time... but regardless, from what I can tell with my interactions with Support, they deal with each product individually. So, in my case, we uninstalled/reinstalled various versions of Neutron3 -- everything else was left untouched during the process. The bundle is just a "brand name" they give to a group of products they put together at an attractive price. Cheers!

[fredrik78847280]

Hi Alain, I'm in contact with support, but their suggestions (uninstall, reinstall, safemode, buffersize up to 2048) brought no solution until now. I think that those kind of plugins are even if sometimes total overkill predestinated for editing now a days. My opinion. Since there is no videoeditor bundle I just upgraded to everything bundle, just to have RX advanced and Neoverb in addition to Neutron, Trash and Ozone. Its not free so my expactations are kind of that it should work. Otherwise there should be a note - plugin not for editiors 😉 . It's such a waste of time - I realy hope support or someone finds a solution.

[Alain D.]

Absolutely Fredrik! We're rockin' the same boat... I got that bundle to get RX as well. And yes, they are some of the most (if not "the most") expensive plug-ins out there, so they should work and support should be adequate. My biggest deception from their support, although pretty responsive, is that the tech I deal with rarely seems to know about the behavior in the video editing app. For this current problem for example, all the in-app paths that I were given were evidently Adobe Audition's, not Premiere's! Cheers!

[fredrik78847280]

My findings/ guesses so far are as follows (mac): PP-Projectfiles remember the iZotope-Plug-In version number they used with first and that PP is looking for. Besides I found no way to read that info anywere in PP. 

I've got three iZotope versions - MPS 3, MPS 4.1 and now Everthing Bundle wich for most MPS 4.1 Plugins refer to the late january 2022 update. Most PP-projects can be opend if only the necessary Plug-Ins in their original version are installed. In my case I work with MPS 3 Plug-Ins.

My procedure is to move all my iZotope Plug-Ins from within their folders in Library/ Audio/ PlugIns/foldername-plugin-type to a seperate folder. In finder i can check the version of that Plug-In. In Premiere I rescan my Plug-Ins (prefs/audio/audio PlugIn manager). I added the VST3 folderpath here as well. It seems to work without, but who knows. Than save and restart PP. At projectstart a list of all unavailable Plug-Ins show up. I'll pick one, install it, rescan audio Plug-Ins like before, save, restart... and so on. If a version doesn't start than install another possibly older one. Try and error.

There might be other traps like version conflicts that occure when installing Neu3 after or before another Plug-In that uses similare components or whatever...

So far I installed Neu3 v.320, RXstand. v.701, RXadvanced v.920, Ozone v.903 (with an installation error about writing to documents folder, despite I allowed everything in the security panel, it works nevertheless and Ozone Plug-Ins show up in the Library folder), VocalSynth v.220.  Interesting here is, that RX 920 resides peacefully beside RX 701 because they are some versions away from each other. I guess it is not possible to have the standard and advanced version of the same main build number.

The above installs worked for projectstart, queue to AME as well export via smart rendering directly from PP. Last way is my prefered one since AME tends to mess with audio effects.

So for now I stuck with MPS3 versions since I jump between projects and the older ones all got the MPS3 Plug-Ins. New installs delete the older ones. Well...

If iZotope or Adobe is listening it would be great if newer iZotope versions would be updated within the projectfiles.

Hope that helps. Cheers.

[Gregory5C57]

Have the same problems with Neutron 3. Did they provide you a link to V3.7? I can't find it anywhere on their site.

[Alain D.]

Hi Gregory!

Yes, they did. I just sent it to you privately. That's the current fix. It's been a few weeks now without a hitch. I was also just confirming in the past week with iZotope's support that there's nothing new out there yet to fix this issue, so the current "fix" is to stick to 3.7.

Cheers,

Alain

[Nick Lear]

Just to add that I've experienced this as well. I'm actually on 3.7 and I still experience it. I also find importing a project into a new project doesn't always work. All in all Neutron 3 at least is just not friends with Premiere. Not sure if anyone has tried Neutron 4?

[MaoSoto]

I'm having the same issues with projects using izotope RX 10 on Premiere 2023.  My project can take 30 minutes to open.  I have been troubleshooting everything and have narrowed the problem to the izotope RX 10.

I applied hum remover and cleanup assistant in all clips in my timeline, and since then, every time I open the project, it hangs.

Another issue, which was prompting me to restart Premiere, was that after playing my edit for more than a minute, Premiere would freeze while the audio kept playing, but the video froze.  My first thought was it was an issue with the media, so I tried:

1)Cleaned up cache and preferences (no change, still hangs)

1)Tried using and not using proxies, connecting and disconnecting them.  (no change)

2) I replaced all media with newly transcoded ones. (no change)

3)Export sequences as premiere (hangs for hours)

4)Import project into another project (hangs for hours)

3)Reinstalled premiere (still hangs)

5)uninstalled video plugins (still hangs)

6)uninstalled izotope (still hangs)

7)removed attributes/removed izotope plugins on all clips in all timelines, saved, closed, and reopened.  Then it works fine. In conclusion, The problem is definitely izotope RX10 plugins on clips on timelines, whether the plugin is installed or not.

I have not tried applying the plugins to the track in the track editor.  I can't waste more time troubleshooting.

To be able to have decent audio during my edit I'll have to export all the clips with the audio cleaned,  then relink all media to the one with clean audio.  Then course I'll get rid of izotope from everywhere in the project. 

[Alain D.]

MaoSoto,

Very sorry to hear that, both for yourself and collectively speaking, as I
was hopeful this truly was behind us. As you paid for your iZotope
plug-ins, I can only suggest to get in touch with their Tech Support and
let them know. Beware they can be slow to respond unfortunately. And yes, I
hear you, it's a lot of work and wasted time to be troubleshooting this
much.

Can't say that it would be a fix, but from my experience over the last few
years using RX in Premiere, clip-based plug-ins do seem to cause more
problems than track-based ones. Perhaps too resource-intensive at the clip
level?

I've come around it by sticking to track-based usage for smaller needs, and
when things become heavy duty, I just tend to export a raw 32-bit float
.wav file out of Premiere and deal with the issues in the stand-alone RX 10
audio editor.

On my side, ever since the RX 10 & Neutron 4 series of plug-ins have been
installed, the problem has not returned. Although I must admit I remain
cautious and remain on the limited number of plug-ins used in Premiere. But
I can confirm that the trigger problems that were in N3 are gone. One big
caveat: the N4 mothership plug-in was not loading last time I checked...
Hopeful this will be resolved soon in a .X release.

Regards,

Alain

--

Alain Durocher
Video Editor

[jacksonfilm]

Same issue here using Izotope RX10 Elements on a project. M1 Max MBP, using PP22. Projects open in the end but takes a good 10-15 mins. Interestingly I have RX7 Elements and sequences that use that do not have an issue opening. So definitely something about RX10 is not liked by Premiere. 

[collierlandry]

Any update to this for anyone?  I'm literally just having to make new projects every time I want to use these plugins.  It's infuriating. Adobe blames Izotope, Izotope blames Adobe.

The end user is the big loser!