'Premiere running low on system memory' error appearing again and again

[defaultxt2ea6ax7egf]

Hi Adobe Team,

just like many other Premiere users I keep getting the 'Premiere Pro running low on system memory' error which appears out of nowhere.

There is more than enough free memory and RAM available and Premiere is not even using a third of it.

No other applications are running in the background.

It comes to a point where working becomes almost impossible with this application.

I am aware that bugs can occur and will always be there but if users report this issue and don't even get plausible feedback from the Adobe Support, it is simply not acceptable and I am not willing to pay a full price for a product that does not work as it should. At least the Adobe Team could try to take on this issue and release an announcement about this as it's obviously not only affecting one or two people but quite a few individuals and businesses.

This problem has never been occuring in older versions on the same machine, so it obviously has something to do with certain updates. I am using the latest version of Premiere through the Cloud.

It would be great to get some more meaningful feedback other than 'Have you tried to delete your Media Cache?'.

Cheers,

Marc

[Ann Bens]

FAQ: What information should I provide when asking a question

[defaultxt2ea6ax7egf]

Thanks Ann, I am aware of this.

But I am trying to hit a general point here, not a specific issue that's just affecting me.

This is occuring over a variety of different projects, files, all the mentioned suggestions have been tried. Obviously, this is a global problem Adobe knows about and has tons and tons of information about, including crash reports.

[Michael Grenadier]

I have never seen this message and I work on 4 different systems, 1 windows and 3 macs,  not to mention the people to whom I provide support.  Posting your system specs helps us (both users like me and adobe employees) to find a common denominator among the users who do see this problem.   So please post your systems specs or explain your resistance to this simple request.  And I'd also suggest you let us know us know the type of sources you're working with.  In particular, material shot on a smartphone or from a screen recording can cause issues that are intermittent and impossible to predict.

[defaultxt2ea6ax7egf]

Hi mgrenadier,

that's fair enough, I totally get your point and I am totally with you.

I7 2.2 Ghz

32GB RAM

GeForce RTX2070

WIN 10 Pro

All available hard drives have more than 100GB available space, the one that's used for Media caching has almost 200GB available.

Premiere 14.x as well as the 15.x versions seem to have this problem

It happens across a variety of projects, big and small. Some have R3D files (DNxHD for proxies), some H.264, some H.265 files.

I did not have this problem with older versions. 

Tried reinstalling several different versions, adjusting the settings/caches, importing project files in a new project etc. as mentioned in other posts.

The reason I did not post this in the first place is because there are multiple existing topics about this and Adobe support has not once gone further than asking if the affected people have tried deleting the media cache or something similar. After the users reply that they've tried everything they've mentioned, there is no further support from Adobe. And this makes me furious as people pay a lot of money for their software that obviously has some major bugs with the latest updates and they simply don't seem to care.

I have not experienced this with any other support whether it be The Foundry, RED, Blackmagic Design or anyone else.

[Michael Grenadier]

Have you tried adjusting the preferences: memory settings?  Are you running any other programs at the same time as Premiere?  If so, try restarting and only run premiere.  Yeah, I know, that can be a pain and sometimes impossible but for troubleshooting purposes, try it.   

Couldn't hurt to check the activity monitor (or whatever windows calls it) to see if there's something obvious going on.

You mention that some of your sources are h265.  These are often shot on an iphone and there can be issues with variable frame rates...  

Here's how to confirm this diagnoses and fis it.  

use mediainfo to determine whether your source is variable or constant frame rate

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download

if it's variable use handbrake to convert to constant frame rate

https://handbrake.fr
and here's a tutorial on how to use handbrake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=xlvxgVREX-Y

[defaultxt2ea6ax7egf]

cheers mate, appreciate your suggestions.

The H.265 are coming from a Fuji XT-3. I've never had issues with those before. However, I tried the conversion but that didn't make any difference.

I have also checked the memory settings and played around a bit and they to be normal, nothing fancy going on.

As mentioned in the previous post, I have tried running Premiere only as well as checking the system performance which doesn't display anything unsual. In fact, there is a lot of system resources available while Premiere is running into this issue.

I am going to try converting all files to H.264's in Resolve before important them. I have a bit of a feeling this issue has something to do with having different file formats in one project (e.g. R3D and H.265) although this shouldn't cause problems in theory.

[defaultjlhsnt9kb8fs]

This problem of Premiere thinking it has low memory is killing me on a documentary right now. 

I've tried everything, uninstall, reinstall, dumping cache files, creating new projects and importing the entire project, or just selected sequences and nothing is working.

I will say on a 2TB SSD, I only have 129 GB of free space. Could that be part of the issue?

I started to transfer everything to my internal SSD with more free space.

Help!

[Michael Grenadier]

I did find a program that would allow you to clear some of your ram usage...  let me turn on the windows machine and see if I can dig it out...  I doubt the problem is caused by the limited free space on your 2tb SSD but supposedly you should keep at least 10% free space on all drives and at least 20 % free space on your boot drive..  So couldn't hurt to clear some space off your media drive...    That said,  you might want to work on an earlier version of premiere if that allows you to work without issues...  One of the great things about Premiere is that you do not have to delete earlier versions when you do an update...    Adobe only allows access to the previous major version of Premiere so you should check to see what you've got on your system...  and never delete older versions when doing an update.    I've got premiere versions going back to CS5.5 available...  just in case.    Will post back if I can find the app for clearing RAM.  Maybe someone else knows about these programs...

[Michael Grenadier]

couldn't find the program but did find this which might be helpful.  If any of the suggestions work, please let us know.

https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/tips/how-to-free-up-ram/

[stonjsu]

FIX - Kinda

So I had this issue on 23.5 - Low Memory etc, my RAM was peeking waaaay over its Adobe Dedicated amount, and then would crash 

I reverted back to 23.4 and that didnt work, then I updated back to 23.5 and it seems to have fixed it. 

No idea how or why, but it worked. 

Worth a try!

[stonjsu]

UPDATE - PC Users, increase your page file size! I upped mine to be 100GB and its fixed it

[Arthur25166068p4xs]

hi, where i can update page file size ?

[Michael Grenadier]

just googled it and this came up.  Don't have my windows system up and running so can't test it, but if this doesn't work do some googling

How to adjust the page file size

1. Open Advanced System Settings. Right-click on the 'This PC' icon on the desktop and left-click on 'Properties'. ...
2. Open Performance Settings. Left-click on the 'Advanced' tab then click on the 'Settings' button in the 'Performance' box. ...
3. Change the virtual memory settings.

[Arthur25166068p4xs]

thanks, i will try it 🙂

[bikersin]

So after analysing my PC behaviour I realised this issue only happened when the C: drive started to fill up.

I checked the  C/Users/[username]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Common path and checked the logs in both the Premiere Pro folders and After Effects folders and realised there were over 60gb of logs that weren't needed anymore.

Once the C: drive had the space was free the error stopped.

[Germán Herrera]

Hello All,

I was running PR 24.1 and had the same problem, went back to 23.5 and it seems to be working normally. FYI.