Videos keep getting stuck at 100% on encoding

[yavanna28552052hf2v]

I'm absolutely at my wit's end.
pc specs:

Windows 10
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x 8-core

GPU: MSI-Radeon rx 5700xt

32gb ram

I'm running the most up-to-date version of premiere.

I encounter this problem whether I am working from my hardrive or from my external transferral usb, and I'm working with 2-4 hour long videos. When I export a video, regardless of the settings I use (including changing nothing,) the video will render and then the encoder will get stuck at 100% and the video won't save or upload. I've tried changing settings to even render the video at a lower quality, and it still gets stuck encoding. On default settings, I inspected what it's doing with the cpu usage and my hard-drive, and when it is supposed to be "finished" encoding, it's not using any percentage of my disk.
I've had this issue before, and for whatever reasonmy last video uploaded with absolutely no issue but this one immediately did this again, with no change to  the settings I had used previously.

The video itself is a podcast episode with a mono track exported from audacity and an image laid over it with a fade in and fade out effect, so there's nothing intense visually that could explain why it is struggling so much.

[Mike Dziennik]

I would first try exporting a short section of the timeline using the same settings and destination. If that works, then try a different longer section. Basically you are trying to divide and conquer to see if here is anything on the sequence which is tripping it up.

[Peru Bob]

If exported using Adobe Media Encoder, pause it and then resume it.

[Timofey Osipov]

Hello! I fased the same problem right now. Have you found a solution?

[Alex367466572b5i]

@Timofey Osipov скрин Диспетчера задач покажите, какая там нагрузка на накопитель (и что это за накопитель). Этот процесс называется мультиплексинг, не все накопители его шустро выполняют.

[Sami Succar]

When Premiere exports to H.264 (and some other formats), it actually writes two separate files in the background, typically a .m4v video and an .aac audio.

When it reaches 100% and seems to get stuck, it’s usually just combining (muxing) those two files together into the final .mp4 container. For long videos, that can take a while, especially if the disk is slow or nearly full. I’ve run into this before with a 1-hour podcast export, it sat at 100% for several minutes before completing, now I just wait for it to finish.

Make sure your export drive has at least double the space of the final file, because Premiere needs room for those intermediate files before merging them.

You can also try exporting to a different codec (like ProRes or DNxHD) just to test whether the issue is tied specifically to the H.264 muxing step.

Premiere isn’t frozen, it’s just silently finishing that final step.