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. 

[WorldOfCrap]

Thanks RBemendo, but that didn't do anything for me.

This problem seems to have gotten progressively worse. When I first started out this project things were going OK, but they've gotten worse and worse, no matter what project file, settings or media types I'm using. I think I'll try re-installing next, but if everyone else is still having a nightmare with this issue, not sure I'm going to get very far.

My NVIDIA card is not supported by MPE, so it's all software-only. So there's nothing to turn off...

[needles27]

@ Media OCD: Is the program simply crashing, or are you getting the "Serious Error" dialog box?  Can you PM me one of your crash logs?

[WorldOfCrap]

Aaand I fixed it! I ended up uninstalling all of CS6 and reinstalling it, but the problems are gone. I wonder if the Lion 10.7.4 updater screws up something installed deeply in the system or something.

@needles27, I was getting the Serious Error dialog box.

[ExactImage]

@MediaOCD,

Just to clarify, you uninstalled CS6 completely, did nothing else, then reinstalled it and the problems are gone?   Gone for how much time / testing? 

[payne8]

Uninstalling and reinstalling doesn't fix it for me. I have completely erased my hard drive and started from scratch on Lion 10.7.4 then loaded the CS6. I also experienced the problem in CS5.5 on Lion. I haven't had any problems in Snow Leopard. I provide technical support for about 40 Macs half MacPros half iMacs.

[WorldOfCrap]

@ExactImage So far, so good. I haven't been able to really put it through the wringer yet (I made this discovery last night, working on something else right now), but the obvious triggers (i.e. setting an in point on a clip by bringing it up in the viewer window and hitting I) don't crash it anymore.

[EditorPete]

I do have a BM card installed, but not using it for any monitoring at all. Its a Decklink HD Extreme 3D card.

Pete

[genefama]

@needles27 I agree, but there are milder versions of this scenario.  if you were Apple and you were losing Final Cut users to Adobe, would you put a priority on making sure that Lion worked well with Premier Pro?  It doesn't have to be a conspiracy—just a conflict of interest.

[JesseSchluntz]

I'm a FCP editor who has invested lots of time & money making the switch to premeire pro. My current version is up to date (CS6.0.2). I love this setup, but the frequent crashes are KILLING ME. I spend hours a week repairing disk permissions, trashing prefs, restarting, etc etc. Today I'm screwed because my latest project won't even open, it just give me the error message and crashes every time.

Can anyone from Adobe please give me a clear answer as to how I can fix this nightmare? Will an upgrade to Mountain Lion fix this?

Mac Pro 2010

2x2.66 Hgz 6 core intel Xeon

16 GB ram

Nvidia Quadro 4000 graphics card

OSX Lion 10.7.4

[Cr3ating]

Whatever you do toughpug don't post your crash report! 🙂 Adobe apparently thinks that us users are easily confused by any sort of long posts! Notwithstanding the fact that in the 11 pages of this thread there are no solutions to be had. Like you we switched from FCP and while generally positive there are lots of small things - moving a video clip up a track won't automatically move the audio down a track, if you import an clip with a single channel of audio you can just use the rubber band alla FCP to pan the audio to center, key framing audio is poorly implemented etc. But we could live with all that - it is this crashing that is a major headache. Adobe obviously is trying to nail it down but after the 50th crash in a day it gets to one and it does not seem to be any closer to a resolution.

[JesseSchluntz]

Thanks for the advice. I say make this thread a hundred pages if that's what it takes to get the issue addressed, but with more posts not long crash reports for sure.

I agree with your assessment of Premiere Pro. Clunky compared to FCP, but getter better for sure. I was recently able to provide heaps of functionaility feedback directly to an Adobe developer team stateside, and am praying they make the changes I recommended. They were very nice about it. One of my biggest is the need for a basic search engine for the marker system so markers can be located quickly using keyword searches. It's the backbone of my organizational system, and seemingly a no brainer.

I was able to keep my system from crashing for the rest of the day today by updating Lion to it's latest version, but I'm not counting on it to hold steady for long. My only choice from there is to move on to Mountain Lion, but I'd rather not do a major OS update in the middle of a massive documentary edit.

Adobe, this is a call from many, many editors who need assitance please. A solution is would be much appreciated.

[Kevin-Monahan]

toughpug wrote:

Adobe, this is a call from many, many editors who need assitance please. A solution is would be much appreciated.

A solution to what? The Serious Error warning? Random crashing with MPE enabled? This thread has multiple issues related to Mac OS. I compiled the issues some days ago, so we are aware of everything people are wanting fixes for.

As I have said, we know about the many issues on this thread, and are working hard on fixes. Unfortunately, some of these are difficult fixes and/or are hard to reproduce. In the mean time, please file a bug report: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish Unless you file a bug report, there is not much more I can do for your specific issue.

Thanks.

[EditorPete]

Don't forget, there has been lots of good results if you turn off your Mercury Playback Engine GPU acceleration and just use MPE software only. Give it a try. I know its not the most efficient way to work and a major bummer that it doesn't work, but seems to cancel alot of crashes.

Pete

[Kurrykid-jzpfVq]

That worked for me...I get zero crashes since I turned it off. It was basically unusable before I did that. Just as an FYI, the latest update (6.02) caused huge problems and crashes for me. I had to uninstall and reinstall to downgrade. I have left it at 6.0 because I am afraid to upgrade and have more problems. I am too busy right now and can't afford any problems.

[EditorPete]

I too am staying put at 6.01 and OSX 10.7.4. Running stable for quite some time, knock on wood. If it works... albeit somewhat like it's supposed too, don't go a changin'.

[kayahacal]

same here. 10.7.4 and Premiere 6.01..

[Bob_Ramage]

I was using software-only MPE until the 304 driver from nVidia came out. After that I re-enabled the GPU acceleration for my GTX285 and have yet to have a "serious error" crash.

[ExactImage]

304 driver?

I'm running a GTX285 (Mac) and I'm on a 5.0.24 for CUDA  and GPU driver 8.0.61 295.30.20f02.  I'm also on Mountain Lion.  Is there some newer more stable driver than this?

[EDIT:] I just found and downloaded the 304 driver, but when I try to instal it it tells me that the system already supports CUDA and no update is required..... in other words it won't update.   Any ideas?

If I enable Cuda then things go bang pretty quickly.

[Bob_Ramage]

Revert to ML 10.8.1. The 304 driver isn't compatible with 10.8.2.

[ExactImage]

Bob Ramage wrote:

Revert to ML 10.8.1. The 304 driver isn't compatible with 10.8.2.

Downgrading isn't an option for me.   Let's hope they get this fixed for 10.8.2 soon.

[Bob_Ramage]

Too bad. I used Time Machine to restore my system to 10.8.1 after installing 10.8.2 and noticing the older nVidia driver that installed with it. Hopefully nVidia will update soon. In the meantime, I'm sticking with 10.8.1 and the 304 driver with MPE GPU acceleration enabled in Premiere.

[Bob_Ramage]

Looks like nVidia has posted an updated driver for Mountain Lion 10.8.2:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.05f02-driver.html

[ExactImage]

Thanks!   I've updated.  We'll see how we go on the next project (starting Friday).     I sure hope this fixes most of the issues....

[Kevin-Monahan]

Please let us know if the new drivers are working for you. Thanks!

[Guest]

Second that.  I'm not upgrading Mountain Lion until I know it's better or the same as 10.8.1.  Please let us know how it's working out.  I've got a gtx 570 and I don't think it's ever going to work stable with CUDA 😞