The Mac CS6 "Serious Error" thread

[needles27]

It looks like there are 4-6 disjointed threads about some big problems Mac users are finding with CS6 (and 6.0.1)  To give us a better place to figure out solutions and for others to find with a search, maybe we can post a discussion here.

The Adobe engineers are participating and receiving crash logs, and hopefully a pattern can develop.

I'm on a MacPro 4,1, Lion 10.7.4, CS6.0.1, 32GB RAM, GTX 285 with the latest nVidia and CUDA drivers.  I am seeing 2 primary issues:

Lots of Serious Error crashes.  This happens without any noticeable pattern - sometimes with the title tool, trim monitor, or simply just scrubbing the timeline.  It seems to happen more frequently with Dynamic Links in the timeline.  Also, I believe it is happening more often (or maybe exclusively)  with the MPE GPU option enabled.  I think in Software Only mode, it may not be present, although further testing required.

Also, I am having an issue where Pr will display black only in the source and program monitors, unless I click around the timeline and will get flashes of images.  This is remedied by changing over to Software Only for the MPE.  It seems to be worse if Safari is running.

Wil - an Adobe engineer - has taken a look at my crash logs and seems to think something is funky with the graphcs drivers in both cases, but crash logs from other users seem to not agree. 

CS6 on the mac - for  me and a few others - is incredibly flaky.  If you are having issues, can you post and explain what you are seeing and what your hardware/driver config is.  Any patterns we can find will help the engineers troubleshoot and get this taken care of. 

[tinklevision256]

...That said, right now I have removed Files from the sequence, and I am still getting lock up. I working with MXF files, no audio, from the C300. I get half-way the through the sequence and the entire project just freezes. I am running a Quadro 4000 card for what its worth, with the latest Cuda Drivers.

[jwffvm]

I'm using quite a few (15-20) very large Tiffs in my one hour programs and ran into some crashing issues.  Usually there are only 6-12 in one continuous sequence, so once I have them animated into a usable sequence I render and export that piece of the show then replace the stills with the resulting video.  By doing that I've basically eliminated the serious error issue or at least gotten it down to 1 or 2 a day, which is still better than when I was using FCP 7 and limited to stills 1920 x 1080.  If I have only 3 or 4 stills, I'll leave them on the timeline.

Video in my sequences is a combination of Canon 5d MarkIII & 60D, and DVCPROHD 1080/60i, 720P/30 and XDCAM EX-3 1080/29.97i.

Hope that helps...I have no clue why my system is working.  I also, have on the average a half dozen time lapse sequences, though most of the ime these are video timelapses rather than from stills so they are the timeline format size.

thx...jw

MAC PRO 2 x 2.93 GHz 6 Core

12 GB 1333 MJZ DDR3 Ram

Kona 3 card

Quadro 4000 graphics card

OS 10.7.4

CS6.0.1.31

Video drive Apple XServe raid

plus 2 TB G-raid & 3, 2 TB internal 7200 RPM drives

[MFCdesigns-bYFxJK]

I have gotten many Serious Error's as well.  Here is a list of how I get those errors:

1) Creating Metadata in Project Bin - When I am adding comments/descriptions to a clip, if I happen to scroll via my mouse, PP crashes and I get the Serious Error message.

2) Loading a RED/ProRes project with about 15,000 clips - Sometimes Premiere will crash while trying to load the Media.  This is my Master Project consisting of clips from 5 filmers.  It will load fine sometimes, but crashes about half the time.  A trend I've noticed is if I'm using a different program while PP is trying to load media.

3) Project Managing clips - While trying to create a Trimmed project with RED files, Premiere will give me the error message after analyzing the project and when it begins trimming.  Copying files to new location seems to work fine.

4) While trying to link media - In some cases, when I'm trying to link media that is offline (specially .R3D files), I will get the error message.

Myself and my other editors have all been getting these issues, on different machines.  It is getting to the point where it is very tough to accomplish edits when even loading the project will crash PP.  We all get other errors and crashes that don't give us the "Serious Error" message, but I'll save those for a different thread.

My specs are:

Mac Pro

OSX 10.6.8

11GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

I am running on an older machine that doesn't support CUDA and am running MPE via software only.  I haven't been getting as many "playback" bugs as other users here.

It looks like we are all hoping for more updates as soon as they are available.  I would much rather be updating PP every week and hope for fixes rather then continue working with all bugs/crashes for another "X" amount of time.  Can anyone give us a timetable for when the next update will be available?

Thanks.  This discussion has been very informative.

[tinklevision256]

Good news for me. I decidied to re-install entire system from scratch. This has (for now at least) made my system stable. Crashes have reduced considerably. I still get the serious error every so often, but I can live with it.

[tinklevision256]

Actually scratch that. Once again I have an issue with a still image. I imported a Tiff thats 2000 x 2000 in dimension at 72 dpi RGB. The moment I start to play with it, the program screen just goes black. When I quit Premiere it hangs and then I have to force quit.

Anyone else having similar issues? Could it be an issue with my Quadro 4000 ?

[tinklevision256]

Additionally, when this happens it looses connection with all preview files, so I have to re-render the entire sequence.

[jwffvm]

I too have a quadro 4000, but am having relatively good luck using huge stills with effects.  If I have more than two in a row or relatively close proximity I export the timeline for that section so it becomes video.  In this particular show also have a couple minutes of up-resed SD footage (thru Kona 3 card) with several layers of treatment and so far haven't seen a problem.

That is other than the one I mentioned in an earlier post of laying down prerecorded VO.  So far today no errors.

JW

[jwffvm]

OK...I spoke too soon...more than a dozen serious error crashes today....all while I was screening a clip in the project through the browser by double clicking it then playing to select in and out points...this is a consistent cause that has happened a dozen times today.

I submitted a bug report, trashed preferences/restarted/used house cleaner in Digital Rebellion Pro Maintenance Tools...restarted, searched for corrupt clips and found that all of my clips were on the corrupt clip list...so what value is that?

This is a 1080/60i timeline with mostly XDCAM EX clips 1080/60i, a 4 or 5 1080/30P clips from a canon 5D and a couple of gopro 1080/30p clips.  I exported all stills to video, exported the upressed shots to a single video track and don't know what else to try.

I was going along pretty smoothly until this update, so now I guess I'm paying...

I guess I just had to vent a little with I'm sure no help to fix this issue until the geniuses at Adobe can appy themselves to solving these an many other problems.  Perhaps they should be working on Premier Pro instead of the "Adobe Anywhere" project.  Maybe in the cloud on their super-duper servers there won't be any problems with "serious error".  Right! and if you believe that, I have a little piece of swamp land on Mars to sell.

thx...jw

[lasvideo]

jwffvm, have your tried creating a NEW sequence and then copy and pasting the old one into it? I was getting the MEDIA LOADING on a lot of my clips after the update. After bringing it into a new sequence all was fixed.

[jwffvm]

Coincidentally right before I shut down this afternoon I made a new sequence to finish the last 8 minutes of the show, but didn't have a chance to do much.  I'm shooting for the next 10 days so won't have a chance to try the fix for awhile.

Since my crashes were occurring just viewing clips from the browser or project, I wasn't convinced the sequence was the culprit, but will definitely give it a try.

I'll let you know in a couple of weeks how it went and thanks very much for the suggestion.

Jim Watt

[jwffvm]

My shoot was delayed a couple days so I've had a chance to explore my serious error problem and so far i have no solution.

Problem:  PP crashes repeatedly with "serious error" message as I am logging clips.  Simply playing them back and making notes, marking in & out.  this occurs after viewing 4-8 clips.

Video is XDCAM EX 1080/60i.

I reinstalled CS6

I first had my video on an internal, 7200 rpm dedicated video drive that is reading 105.2MBS and writing 112.6 MBS according to my AJA system test.  My original setup was storing all files on this drive.

Next setup I moved media cache files to yet another dedicated video drive of the same speed.

Setup 3... moved previews to that drive too.

Setup 4... I moved my main video files to my Xserve Raid that is reading 274.2 MB/s and writing 274.2 MB/s  and I put all files on that drive, media cache, previews, etc.

Same results from all setups...I'd sure appreciate any suggestions that will solve this dilemma.

thx...jw

MAC PRO 2 x 2.93 GHz 6 Core

12 GB 1333 MJZ DDR3 Ram

Kona 3 card

Quadro 4000 graphics card

OS 10.7.4

CS6.0.1.31

Video drive Apple XServe raid

plus 2 TB G-raid & 3, 2 TB internal 7200 RPM drives

[Glitchdog]

I finally got the chicken out of me, after reading so much about the serious error thing, and decided we needed to do a real edit in CS6. Have used 5.5 with no real issues. This morning, only a few days into an edit I recieved the serious error message and crash. Granted I was on 6.0.1 and had not on the latest CUDA update. So now I'm up to the latest, 6.0.2 and CUDA 5.0.24 and will see how it goes. We are trying this on our mobile edit system first (MacBook Pro, 17", 4 core i7, 16 gigs ram, Lion 10.7.4, 4 drive eSATA RAID using the GPU exceleration. Footage is mostly HDV/Mpeg2 with some H.264.

Before the first crash Premiere seemed much more sluggish on the timeline than the same footage in 5.5 on the same system. After hours of editing the only way to get things to play smoothly on the timeline (even when rendered) was to close Premiere and then reopen. Wow, I'm not yet feeling the love, but I do like the interface so much more than 5.5.

[EditorPete]

Try turning off your GPU acceleration (MPE)...seems to help alot, for me at least.

Pete

[tinklevision256]

I am finding that every time I have a "Serious Error" message, and then open recovery project, it always looses contact with all preview files, so I have to keep re-rendering. Anyone else get ths as well?

There is no doubt that MPE is the cause (for me at least) of most of the issues. Is this somthing to do with Moutnain Lion?

[ExactImage]

No.  It happens on Lion and Snow Leopared too.

[tinklevision256]

Its a right pain. I am using MXF files from the canon C300, wondering if this is part of my issue at least. I have spoken to customer support a few times now, and they don't seem to be able to offer a solution.

[ExactImage]

I'm not sure at this point that the source codec is part of the problem or not.  Somehow I don't think so.

We're also using Canon MXF files, but it happens for us on AVCHD, ProRes 422, H264, DNxHD and others too.  

I just had a problem where ALL the video was black and restarting Pr didn't help - I actually had to reboot the computer.  That may not be Adobe's fault, it could be CUDA drivers that are the problem. 

[tinklevision256]

I get the black screen a lot. In general, once I start to get a sequence of serious errors, the only solution is to cold boot the computer. I noticed a while back when I was re-installing the software, that the de-install plug-in would not continue until I quit out of Premiere, which I had already closed out of.

[Glitchdog]

Well, only a tiny step, and only one day of editing, but no crashing thus far after updating to the latest CUDA and Adobe stuff. EditorPete, I found out just how right you are. I decided to turn off the OpenCL/GPU acceleration on the MacBook Pro before I saw your post and it was amazing. After I let the software auto-delete the preview files (as recommended), with both windows set to full rez (whatever that really means) and yellow and red in the timeline I could play the timeline flawlessly, audio in perfect sync... Not sure I could do that on the MacPro with the 4000, but then again I haven't installed or tried it yet w/CS6.

[tinklevision256]

I spoke with techinical support yesterday,who told me that a forthcoming update is going to solve the problem. Adobe recognize that there is a problem with Nvidea-Cuda drivers, especially on the the higher end cards. Fingers crossed.

[Guest]

Oooh, I'm watching this space.  Please Adobe!!!

[Guest]

Glitchdog wrote:

I decided to turn off the OpenCL/GPU acceleration on the MacBook Pro before I saw your post and it was amazing

Not really amazing to me since CUDA is what is advertised to work.  Having to disable it makes it worthless.  It's as if MPE really stands for Mercury Playback EXPERIMENT!

[EditorPete]

Seastage wrote:

Not really amazing to me since CUDA is what is advertised to work.  Having to disable it makes it worthless.  It's as if MPE really stands for Mercury Playback EXPERIMENT!

Really?.....If MPE is the only reason your working with this software, then your missing out on alot. For example: FCP users, all I have to say is "Keyframing".

[tinklevision256]

I have to say, despite this recent round of problems, I so much prefer Premiere to FCP, the thought of going back makes me shiver. Key Frames yes! aside form the Cuda fix, all I need is the addition of Pixel motion function and the ability to add Warp Stabilizer to different frame sizes in a sequence, and I will be golden!

[EditorPete]

Haven't tried Warp Stabilizer with different frame sizes yet. Shot in the dark, but have you tried nesting those different frame sizes first and then add the WS inside the nest?