Premiere 2018 Import Extremely Slow

[ashleylynchsl]

With the move to Premiere 2018, importing footage has become ridiculously slow.  Just importing a single image or audio file will cause Premiere to think about it for about 1 1/2 minutes.

It's slowing down my work so much.

Is anyone else having this issue?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi AshleyLynchSL,

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

Just importing a single image or audio file will cause Premiere to think about it for about 1 1/2 minutes.

Are you on Windows? Is this a large project? Bins with lots of footage?

Is anyone else having this issue?

If the above is true, I'm afraid so. It's a bug. I hope we can help you work around it, though.
I advise you to open a case with support here.

Do you have any project backups? Is CC2017 still installed?

Thanks,
Kevin

[DPowers]

Same issue here. Even just a small file import causes the spinning wheel for about 40 seconds. (Mac OS)  Happening among other projects too. So far I have not had time to create and start a new project clean in 2018CC, all of my slow import experiences have been with projects started in the earlier version.

No longer have 17 installed.

[ashleylynchsl]

Kevin,

I'm on Windows 10. i7 4GHz, 32GB RAM, GTX 980Ti

The slow import occurs in projects updated from Premiere 2017, new projects, empty projects, projects with bins already inside.... it's consistent.

I've cut about 7 different projects in Premiere 2018 now, a few were migrated up from 2017, the rest created fresh in 2018, and all experience the same issue regardless of how many bins are in the project.

Just loading in all the media at the start of a job takes about 8x as long as it used to and while editing a project the simple task of bringing in a sound effect now brings my workflow to a standstill while I wait for the import lag to pass.

I do not currently have Premiere 2017 installed.

Ashley

[josiahd15475317]

This is still a huge problem. It's taking HOURS to import footage from an SSD, and its just XML files round tripped from resolve. It's put us several days behind on a feature project, and likely be the reason we switch the company away from adobe altogether as we have great hardware for the professional environment but the software can't keep up. On the latest version, PC, updated drivers.

[noahc13504133]

Just wanted to say I have this problem too. Doesn't matter how big the file is that you are importing. Takes a t least 30 seconds to bring over a 1 mb picture.

[Yoni_Sandler]

Thanks Ashley for the insight - same thing has been happening to me since the beginning of the year.

[ashleylynchsl · Accepted solution]

UPDATE: The 12.0.1 update has provided much improvement over import issues.

Thanks Adobe team.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks for reporting back, AshleyLynchsl.

Regards,
Kevin

[DaJoNate]

So I am still seeing slow import times and slow playback times. Resolve can import and playback much much quicker and its a free program. I perfer to use premiere but I cant use it if it is slowing down my workflow. Is this being looked at or is just assumed to be fixed with the 12.0.1 update?

[thijsr36729811]

Hi there,

This issue is a BIG time waster. Latest update didn't help at all.

I'm working on the new Mac Pro with high specs and my external drives are top speed.

This is an issue that really holds you back when working. Why is this simple importing thing

all of a sudden so bad? Like others said, even importing an audiotrack can freeze the whole program for half a minute or more.

You must have noticed this when testing... I really don't get how you can put a version like this out.

Please explain and please fix this rather sooner then later.

ps: Yes, it gets even worse on bigger projects with lots of footage... But, this is what you're software should be designed for.

Hope to hear from you soon.

[moksiubun]

4 clean installed computers with High Sierra. and only Adobe Premiere. same problem.

never happened before, what happened, Adobe? please help...

also Media Encoder takes forever to load the task....

it was smooth and OK 6 months ago... what happened..

[irsick]

I'm so upset after Cloud forced me to install 2018 update. I use Premiere on 2014 Macbook Pro and iMac 2011(16GB RAM + SSD upgrade).
While Premiere 2017 took 1-2 minutes to import 15-20Gb Sony AVCHD footage the new one takes at least 15 minutes. It's ridiculously slow and buggy.

I use MacOS 10.12.6 Sierra on both and Premiere CC 12.0.1 Last update didn't make any performance improvement in my case.

[rickrickrickrick]

same problem, also after updating.. i've waited for an hour to import all my footage. yes it was alot of footage, but still..

also after every single clip the software just freezes for like 5/10 seconds. my disk drives are definately not the bottleneck

[Paddy B]

Same problem.. no resolve.. I'm wandering whether is has anything to do with (in my case) coming from a raid server through, ethernet? (Although I had no issues before upgrading OS Sierra / Prem pro 12.1.1)

Anyone tried this directly from a SSD attached for example? A good test would be to set scratch disks / renders all to internal/external SDD then test that.

But IDEALLY.. ADOBE please look into this further.

[mattt23769367]

Same with me. This is BEYOND Unacceptable. I have been an Adobe user since 2000. I have never experience this long of import times. It just took nearly 10 minutes to import footage into a brand new project.

[moksiubun]

It is the same result even if i am on a fully SSD environement. even if i

only have clips to import - it takes MINUTES ...

what is happening, Adobe?

On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 1:56 AM, mattt23769367 <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[cameronsmitchell]

Having this issue with about 500 jpgs less than 4 MB each.

[MamunEdt]

Same Hear Too Late To Import File or Folder .... 

[DaJoNate]

It is now February 2020 and I am still seeing long import times! You guys havent fixed this yet? Im running a ryzen 9 3900X, Nvidia RTX 2070 OC, 32G DDR4 Ram. Adobe installed on M.2 SSD, footage is coming from Samsung Internal SSD. I mean really guys, what else do I need to throw at this to speed up my workflow?

[DaJoNate]

UPDATE: Not only am I seeing super long upload times, I'm also seeing that my playback is extreamly slow as well.... I NEED HELP WITH THIS! I cant continue to work this slowly or Im going to have to drop my subscription and go to Resolve or something

[seshling]

I'm also having this issue - it's painful. I'm using Resolve for other projects and it imports incredibly fast. I'm having the same issue in Media Encoder as well. Last time I used Premiere it was CS 2015 - like v9 or something - and it never was this slow to import.

File size: 17 GB, 2 hrs, .mov format

Cleared my cache - nothing.

Reinstalled Premiere and Encoder - nothing.

Reallocated RAM in the settings - nothing.

Restarted my computer - nothing.

Macbook Pro 15" 2019

2.3 GHz 8 Core Intel i9

32 GB RAM

Radeon Pro Vega 16 4GB

1 TB SSD

[haleys87572190]

I too am seeing REALLY long import times for large .mov files. These are H264 4:4:4 ~200Mb/s videos with multiple audio tracks created in OBS studio. It takes about ~25-30 min for an import?!@&$*#(
And then... drum roll,.. you select "New Sequence" and have to wait another ~30 minutes for Premiere to think about it. Please help. I also note that Resolve brings the same files in instantaneously. 

[robg60006889]

3.5 Years later. Any progress on fixing this? Trying to import 1.5 MB background image. Progress bar just sits there, doing nothing. I have to close PP then re-open. Imports immediately after that. Same happens with .mogrt files.

Windows 10 - Beefy hardware specs

[Feristela]

the same happen to me