H.264 exports hang, hold or freeze at 100% before eventually finishing.

[Nddirector]

Hello All! 

I am encountering an issue when when exporting H.264 in both AME and PPro.  On Mac or PC,  the export will get to 100% and then just hang there for hours (how long depends on the project length). The preview window and progress bar get all the way to the end and show (100%) 00:00:00:00 remaining, but everything just appears to stop hang. Patience is a virtue and eventually the export finishes, again sometimes after hours of sitting and appearing frozen. 

I've been dealing with this since I stopped using Matrox Hardware to encode in 2016 but I know that I cannot be the only still experiening this. There are posts all over the net but no one seems to have come up with a defintitive solution or at least some clarity as to what is going on. Maybe it's not a malfunction at all. Is this normal behavior? 

This only occurs exporting H.264. Other formats like ProRes and Cineform and others, immediately end the export process when the preview windows shows my last frame and the progress bar gets to 100%. And again, on mac and PC this happends so it's really got me stumped. 

Any help would be much apprecieated. Thanks in advance! 

PS: I am alsways running the latest Adobe CC software and up to date OS's. 

[FlyingFourFun]

I have the same experaince as you.  Its worse when exporting to non local disk or even USB, but not very noticible when exporting to my local NVMe drives.   I ended up watching the folder I was exporting into and found that after the export gets to 100%, media encoder seems to create a temp file that grows in size to the same as video file, then it appears to mux them, and removes the temp file.

Liek you, its releated to the project timeline lenght, and is magnified when exported to a NAS or USB drive.  I have not seen significant ethernet traffic to the NAS after the export, but yet its slow.

I honestly dont know if this is normal or not, but its been the case for me size I have ran premier.

I dont think I have had to wait hours however,  but like 30 min for 1.5 hour exports.  I run 10g newworking if that matters.

I am eager to see if others have some insight into this.  Its a very interesting question.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi FlyingFour Fun, 

Thanks so much for writing and I apologize for the negative export experience. I suspect it has something to do with saving to a NAS, but you say it also occurs with any attached external drive? I'll raise this as an emerging issue. I believe this was happening in 15.0, as well. Any other intelligence you can offer would be most welcome.

FlyingFour Fun, are you also a private pilot? I always wanted to get my license.

Thanks,

Kevin

[FlyingFourFun]

Not a pilot;  Some in the family (helicopters).   I fly Drones, less exciting, under most conditions anyways.

My daughter is expecting to get her license also as she wants to go to space (so pilots license, and either a Medical or Engineering degree before entering the space program when that all works out).   If you have the time and money, being a pilot is great, everyone I know that owns aircraft loves it.

The final stages of writing the file are magnified when exporting to NAS, but always present.  Local disk seems to fly through the same process;  I have captured a number of data points and screen shots below to illustrate the point.

Here is what the folders look like when it starts:

Here is what the folders look like after it reaches 100% in Media Encoder:

On the test export to the NVMe, those 3 extra temp files where only there for about 40 seconds before moving on to the next test file in my que.

When its done, this is the only file left

This is the text from the Log file for this test to NVMe

04/24/2021 06:11:24 PM : Queue Started
- Source File: REDACTED
- Output File: H:\TEST DELETE ME LATER\NVME EXPORT TEST.mp4
- Preset Used: CONVERT to H265
- Video: 3840x2160 (1.0), 59.94 fps, Hardware Encoding, Nvidia Codec, 00;30;00;00
- Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
- Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40.00 Mbps
- Encoding Time: 00:26:15
04/24/2021 06:37:39 PM : File Successfully Encoded

* About 40 seconds of time of stuck at 100% before moving on to next item in que

Here is a screen shot of Task manager.  For good documentation purpose, the source for this sample 30 min project file is on a different NVME from the drive being exported to,  but as you will see there is only 1% utilization on the disk IO while premier processes the video.

For the Nas & USB Tests files in folder are the same as NVME test so I will not bother to repost them, you will have to trust me on that point I guess.

However here is an example of how the file grows in size, its slower so easy to capture when writing to a NAS

and a few min later:

Task Manager shows Network traffic significantly higher:

Here is the Log file:

- Source File: REDACTED
- Output File: P:\Delete IF you need Space Only\NAS 10g EXPORT TEST.mp4
- Preset Used: CONVERT to H265
- Video: 3840x2160 (1.0), 59.94 fps, Hardware Encoding, Nvidia Codec, 00;30;00;00
- Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
- Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40.00 Mbps
- Encoding Time: 00:29:45
04/24/2021 07:07:25 PM : File Encoded with warning
------------------------------------------------------------
Adobe Media Encoder
Could not write XMP data in output file.

I included the above to show that rendering it only took 25:38min, log file shows 29:45min,  I manually timed portion that was post 100% and got 4:07min.  So you can see the log file captures the total time even in the post 100% mux stages;

This is the point where you can see that the exact same file, is basically 10x longer to do the final mux of the different files.  The time, increased the larger the final file is.  The temp file grows to the same of the video,  then it disappear, then it muxes the audio file, and that disappears, then finally one file is left that's the final.  The XMP write error often happens, but not always, video always play fine BTW with or without the error.

The Task Manager for the test to NAS @ 10gb, note the network transfer speed is approx the same as the bit rate of the file.  This is while its rendering the file,  not the MUX (post 100% complete) task manager view.

And for the USB3 test file here is the stats, I don't think screen shots are needed as you can see the pattern.

FIle took 25:33min to get to 100%, and then another 5:42 to Mux the 4 files down to one.  I was surprised as I thought the USB3 drive export was faster in this stage than the 10gb nas export, I guess I was wrong.

- Source File: REDACTED
- Output File: J:\TEST DELETE ME LATER\USB3 EXPORT TEST.mp4
- Preset Used: CONVERT to H265
- Video: 3840x2160 (1.0), 59.94 fps, Hardware Encoding, Nvidia Codec, 00;30;00;00
- Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
- Bitrate: VBR, 1 pass, Target 40.00 Mbps
- Encoding Time: 00:31:14
04/24/2021 07:38:39 PM : File Successfully Encoded

04/24/2021 07:38:39 PM : Queue Stopped

To sum this all up;  exporting to anything other than local disk (not usb) seems to take much longer to mux the final file.  It would be really nice if Media encoder at least started processing the next file in the que because the GPU and CPU sit with nothing to do, in that final mux stage.  Not to mention, the network traffic is very low and has room for another stream.

The USB drive was pushing around 100MBs when it was muxing if that matters, slower when it was rendering the video.

I hope that helps you capture the idea of what is happening with this.  for the record that (lets call it 4 min to 5 min on a 30 min clip) is for sure related to how long the exported clip is, so if you can improve this, it will have big impacts for those using NAS/USB and longer exports.

[Kevin-Monahan]

NdDirector,

Thanks for writing and sorry for the issue. Tell me about your computer system, particularly your media storage. What's that like?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Nddirector]

Hi Kevin! 

Thank you so much for the quick response! This happens on Macs And PCs ( I have several of each) and it doesn't seem to matter whether I export to the local drive, externals, separate media drives from where the project lives. It happens anytime I am exporting H.264, no matter the frame size or preset. 

Until 2016 I was exporting using Matrox hardware and did not notice the issue because Matrox had its own presets and render engine. Once I started using AME and Premiere without Matrox (2016) that is when I began to notice this issue. 

I think Flying for Fun and many others posts I have been reading, may be on to something. It appears to be a muxing issue. It appears to render all the video, and gets to 100% then goes back and muxes and marrys the audio? He is right, the temp file grows and then disappears and the export completes but all of this occurs after the progress bar reads 100% and the video preview window (if using AME) has progressed all the way to the end of the video. 

I can't imagine it's the export settings as I get the same result using any of the presets in Premiere or AME, on multiple machines. 

It has me stumped. Can't believe there are not more people having this issue. 

D

[thomass75589237]

Did you ever find a resolution to this? I'm having the same trouble, a short 8 minute video sits at 100% for at least 15 minutes. Never used to happen before.