No longer able to export or render using Premiere Pro

[kristinah93726222]

Hi, I've been using Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and other products in the Creative Cloud for years and have never come across an issue like this before.

Here are my PC specs:

HP Omen Obelisk Desktop (roughly 3 years old)

Intel Core i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20 GHz

16GB RAM

256 SSD with a partitioned 1TB hard drive

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB

Windows 10 Home

I have been working on a work project for about 30+ hours the past few weeks, no issues. The project itself is around 17-20min in length and I had already exported it a few weeks ago no problem. Last night as I was finishing up some edits I saw a couple of errors where the frames dropped on a few clips, no big deal. I closed out and re-opened the project and the errors didn't occur again.

The clips I'm working with are basic screen recordings and audio in .mp4. They're no more than a couple MBs in size. 

When it came time to export the project I use Media > Export Settings window. I've been using the same preferences: H.264, Custom preset to match the source, render at max depth and max render quality. My PC is pretty fast so it had estimated around 1GB but the file has been half the size and exports in less than 5 min. However, now when exporting, it gets to about 2 to 3 percent and the window stops loading. It's frozen once before on the Encoding screen where closing out and re-opening will get it to export. This time it continues to stop around 2-3 percent.

From there, I rebooted my PC, closed and opened the project, saved the project over to a new one, updated Premiere Pro (using 2020, updated to 2020/2021), tried rendering the previews first (the rendering stops a portion of the way through the same as the export window), using Media Encoder (also stops a portion of the way through), exporting to a different format, and trashed my preferences/cleared the media cache under Preferences.

I have also uninstalled Premiere Pro and installed it on my partitioned drive and the same occurs. On either or drive re-opening the software also causes me to lose keyboard and mouse control and requires forcing my PC to shut down (between last night and today I've done this at least 10 times). I thought that maybe it was upset that the SSD space was filled up, so I moved it to the partitioned drive along with most of the files on there but this didn't help much. Ran a third-party hard drive cleaner as well to clear out any temporary files.. no luck.

I'm extremely frustrated to say the least that nothing that I have tried has worked and I've searched the forums/online for fixes but most of the suggested fixes I tried above.. I work in software myself and I thought that I might be able to figure it out but I'm at a loss at this point. The project itself opens normally and I can still make edits/play it back.

If anyone can offer any advice or any suggestions that I may not have tried that would be appreciated. There's no way that it's suddenly not compatible with my PC.. I've ran this on much slower/less optimal PC's and it works just fine. I have other projects and videos following this, I would like to have this working if I'm going to continue paying monthly for it.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Kristina,

Sorry. Please make sure you are running the current NVIDIA Studio drivers. That will help if you have the faulty game ready ones from January installed.

Furthermore, screen recordings are some of the hardest footage for Premiere Pro to decode. It's best to transcode them if they are in a variable frame rate. If Media Encoder won't work for that, try Handbrake - a free utility available for download.

I would also recommend against using partitioned hard drives for video editing tasks. A custom preset might not be taking advantage of hardware encoding. Try also standard presets to make sure you're not getting knocked out off of hardware encoding contraints. 

Hope the advice helps.

Thanks,
Kevin

[kristinah93726222]

Hi Kevin,

Gotcha, thanks for this! I didn't realize how troublesome screen recordings could be but this seems to be the consensus. I'll double check the footage and try Handbrake or one of the other suggested utilities and see if this helps. I'll also check out my NVIDIA drivers/try reinstalling to the local drive.

Thanks again.

[basil1891]

0) For reinstalling the app use Creative Cloud Cleaner tool. Same for GPU drivers, select "clean install"

If the error persist, some possible remedies:

1) Change 'Optimize rendering for' to "Memory" (Edit > Preferences > Memory.. )

2) Screen recording is a VFR (variable framerate) footage.  It's highly recommended to transcode such clips to CFR (constant framerate) before editing. Tools people use for this: Handbrake, Avidemux, ffmpeg, nvencc, or even a build-in Windows editor. Transcode, then just relink new media (and don't forget to clear media cache)

3) Try to create new project, import old one, then export

4) Try to turn off Hardware accelerated DEcoding in Preferences > Media... Remember to clear media cache each time you change this settings, also after any app/driver update as well. Better to do it manually: close all Adobe apps, goto %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common and clean/delete folders: Media Cache, Media Cache Files, PTX, Peak Files)

[kristinah93726222]

Hi basil1891,

Awesome, thanks for these suggestions! I was actually trying to find the optimize rendering option earlier but must've been overlooking it. I'll try this along with turning off the hardware accelerated coding.. Hopefully it's something simple and one of these or transcoding the clips will work. 

[Peru Bob]

Please use the free MediaInfo and post a screenshot the properties of your media in tree view:
https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Many users are having issues with VFR. If the file is variable frame rate, use Hand brake to convert to constant frame rate:
https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php
Here is a tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=xlvxgVREX-Y