Slow Project Load - Solutions?

[samuraicow]

I don't have a very large project:

• Project filesize: 800KB
  
• Footage: 85 files / 4k / ProRes HQ / ~250GB / no proxy
  
• Storage: Pegasus3 via Thunderbolt

Yet when launching the project, Premiere takes about 10 minutes to "load" all the media before I can begin any meaningful work. Doesn't matter if I have no sequences open on load or 10. No bins open. Nothing, yet I can see it reading from my Pegasus3 (at around 350MB/s) along the bottom of the screen as it loads each file. What is it doing that it needs to take so long every time I load the project? Resolve never has this issue. I just boot up and the timeline loads immediately.

[RobShultz]

I'd try clearing your media and disk cache.

On Windows go to edit/preferences/media and disk cache and use the tools to clean and empty your cache.

Same procedure for mac but go to Premiere Pro/preferences/media and disk cache.

[Michael Grenadier]

I'm wondering if there's some issue with metadata associated with the media.  I know there's something buried in the preferences where if I remember correctly xmp data is written to the media file.  I found this out cause I was using carbon copy cloner to update a clone of my media drive and it was updating media files that were already on the clone....  Just a guess but worth some investibating...

[samuraicow]

@RobShultz - Clearing the Media Cache didn't resolve the issue, unfortunately.

@Michael Grenadier - Under Preferences » Media I've always de-selected XMP options precisely because of what you mentioned. Don't like the idea of my raw media getting modified! These are the options I've de-selected:

• Write XMP ID to files on import
• Write clip markers to XMP
• Enable clip and XMP metadata linking

Wondering if these settings affect the loading my my media upon opening the project?

[Scoothare]

Clearing Cache and doing this:

"Under Preferences » Media I've always de-selected XMP options precisely because of what you mentioned. Don't like the idea of my raw media getting modified! These are the options I've de-selected:

• Write XMP ID to files on import
• Write clip markers to XMP
• Enable clip and XMP metadata linking

Wondering if these settings affect the loading my my media upon opening the project?"

Worked for me!!

[FPS_Fish]

I experience this all the time. I plan on opening a project and timeline and then getting a coffee. I have 96gigs of RAM in a 3.2Ghz Mac Tower. Honestly, I think Premiere is just not designed to handle complicated projects with lots of media and sequences. And I don't see why clearing a cache should or would make things relink faster. You'd think a cache is there specifically to help speed things up, no? In addition, assuming Premiere hasn't lost anything, I fully expect the project to know where things were when I last opened them. I mean, like, snap of a finger. In 2024 with my processing power (and working with proxies) I'm sorry but I just expect better. 🤷‍:male_sign:

[R Neil Haugen]

Premiere is used for a lot of massive long-form and episodic projects. So ... it can handle it, though clearly some users aren't getting great performance.

I know on the Facebook pro editors PrPro group, several Mac users noted that they had to change a number of security/permisssions issues recently and suddenly, Premiere was flying. Others changed the default audio input to none, and that fixed playback issues. So ... "it" can be variuos things. A joy to puzzle out ... not.

[FPS_Fish]

Thanks for the quick reply. I don't see any security permission issues. I have adjust my audio settings. No chnage in terms of speediness. 

[FPS_Fish]

The project contains four short videos I'm working on: 2mins each with 8 tracks of audio, pancake editing and a few basic titles. No AE links in the timeline. No effects unrendered.  When I opened my system this morning I was greeted by a progress circle that said "Relinking Media -eta 15mins".   I mean....why?  Why this long to "find" my media which was never lost. I've been working with APP for three years now. It is pretty much a normal behaviour that when the project goes from zero media to it's final mixing and mastering phase the responsiveness of the app and the time for APP to see all it's media just gets slower and slower and slower. Always has. I used to work on an AvidMC and while it had its downsies, I never had to wait for anything to relink when I started up. So I don't know what Premiere is really doing or whyit needs to do it.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea, I see some users having that relinking mess, and just ... wow. No clue why.

@mattchristensen  ... any ideas here? This pops up every once in a while.

[FPS_Fish]

Ok. Had a major breakthrough on this. I was trying to trouble shoot some NAS issues I was having when the guy I hired to review all my settings noticed my CPU processing was "off the charts" when Premiere was doing nothing at all. Turns out one of my extensions (have not figured out which) was demanding all the CPU time all the time. Hitting play or any other PP operation had to get in line. Once I removed the extnsions...WOW. Huge performance difference for me.

[Michael Grenadier]

Thanks for updating us.  If you can figure out what extension was causing the problem, please let us know.  A list of all your extensions might help...  

[FPS_Fish]

It may take a while to sleuth out the issues. Especially since I've been running the older version of PremierePro and I want to try running the latests without any extensions tos ee if it fixes that issue as well.

But in the meantime, here the list of everything I "tore out"

• knights_of_the_editing_table.excalibur
• com.adobe.ccx.start-2.7.2
• com.adobe.ccx.start-2.16.0
• com.adobe.ccx.fnft-3.5.0
• CC_LIBRARIES_PANEL_EXTENSION_3_8_299
• CC_LIBRARIES_PANEL_EXTENSION_3_13_164
• com.frameio.panel
• knights_of_the_editing_table.spellbook
• CC_LIBRARIES_PANEL_EXTENSION_3_25_28
• Replay
• Logi Options+ v1.54.466136.0
• knights_of_the_editing_table.chronicler
• LogiOptionsPlusAdobe

[FPS_Fish]

Update: the latest non-Beta version still has problems for me (unrelated to this post). In other words, the extensions were not the issue. Tried the Beta but couldn't get my settings to load without crashing. Retreating back again.

[Michael Grenadier]

Just throwing out a few ideas

one troubleshooting step to try is to take your media offline, and then launch the project....  And then reconnect the media drive and relink...    Might shake things up...   

Also, wondering if it's a pegasus issue.  Was doing postproduction wrangling on a complicated documentary with a big pegasus raid and there were issues with loading the project.  The client had named folders with slashes which can cause issues...along with other "reserved" characters like *, &, etc.    When I told him we needed to rename the folders/file paths, and started the renaming and relinking process... he fired me...    Might be worthwhile reaching out to Pegasus support.

Also, there is a limit to the number of characters in a file path on both macs and windows....  Working on a project that I was about the 12th editor on in fcp7.  We had constant crashes and had to relink most of the media...  Finally rebuilt the drive limiting the number of folder nests.  Problem solved.  Also have seen problems with a clients windows machine because the paths were too long.  Told him to reorganize his hard drive...  He refused, but remained my client...  

I feel your pain and hope we can be of some help.  

[Agrarvolution]

Are those projects that are super slow to open, the ones with a lot of exports to Media Encoder for you or anybody else?

I noticed that somewhere past 30-40 exports to Media Encoder  the projects become increasingly slow to open.

I've reproduced that 3 times by now. If an equally big projects (or bigger, like 100MB due to warp stabilizer eg) was never used with Media Encoder exports it opens very fast for me.

I tried resetting the cache or importing the project into a new project and both doesn't work.

I have my projects on an SSD Raid 0 doing 1GB/s with an i9 13900 sitting idle waiting to open those projects.

[Peru Bob]

What are the complete computer specs, including hard drives (how many, what kind, what is on each, what capacity, and how full)?

[FPS_Fish]

Thanks for the quick reply. MacPro 2019 3.2Ghz, 96gigs of RAM, 4 SSD internal for OS and apps, Synology NAS 1821+ for shared media and projects (entire NAS has been raided and it's settings optimized for 4K video editing)

[FPS_Fish]

Further updates: while removing 3rd party extensions has greatl sped up performance, it is still  taking an incredibly long time to relink my media. Jusg\t now I opened a project and my relink process says it will take 21 mins. I have no idea why APP needs so much time to figure out where the media is given it has not changed at all from the last time I opened it. Is this a NAS thing?

[Michael Grenadier]

Yeah. Editing with media over a network could be causing problems. Try
connecting drive directly to see if things are speedier

Michael Grenadier

[FPS_Fish]

Yeah.. That's a non-starter. We're a shared media pool here in the office. We got the NAS system specifically to do that. To be clear; once the media is relinked it's working fine. I just don't fundementally understand why "relinking" needs to happen at all. I mean, if anything is missing it lets me know. But it never says anything is missing. It opens the project and then I get the progress bar notifying me relinking is happening in the background and it can take quite a long time. But...why? If it knows where everything is...then what exactly is it doing?

[Michael Grenadier]

This is an issue your IT guy has to deal with.  There are shared media solutions out there, but assuming that you won't have issues  sharing media on a network is a no-go...  This is why Avid is the go to solution for shared media workflows... They've had this down for years.  Not saying you can't make this work, but that's probably where the problem lies.    I have limited experience with networks...  so I don't have the answer beyond knowing this is probably the crux of the problem.  Someone else here may have better insight into the problem than I have.

[FPS_Fish]

The guy we hired uses the exact same system and setup we have with no issues. So it helps to rule out the NAS as the culprit. But, I confess, I'm still suspect it may have somethign to do with it. That said, plenty of people are doing what I'm doing -- editing off a Synology NAS. We did our homework before we invested. There is a small trade-off in performnace, but it's neligible. Which is why I'm still trying to pin down this relinking issue. If I open an Avid project the media is just "there'. No relinking at all. So I'm just trying to figure out what Premiere is doing in the background and why it has to take so long.

[R Neil Haugen]

There are many settings both in the OS and in the server setups, which can affect performance.  So I've heard many times of great variations between results with "the exact same system".

On the LGG forum,  a NAS installer of some note commented that it can take him significant time to find a culprit at times. And I think he runs a template setup.

But he'll get it finally working good on most of the computers and spend a couple more hours getting the last one done at times.

Some of my acquaintances actually built a TrueNAS from used parts that fly high & fast. A couple others trying to copy their systems got crud,  until someone came over and tinkered for awhile.

Way above my capabilities.

[FPS_Fish]

Yup. Same here. Which is why we hired Will @ SpaceRex. He's the Youtube Synology Guru. He flew threw my system and make variuous tweaks here and there. Even adjusted my office wifi network settings to improve our protable devices. In the end we discovered my 3rd party PP extensions were gobbling up my CPU time. I got a huge boost in performace after that. Can't recommend Will enough.