Premiere Pro 2020 crashes with external monitor on macOS Catalina

Report · Jan 06, 2020

Dear forum, I hope I can provide enough information so that someone here can help me:

I am working with an iMac Pro running Catalina, I have an Atomos Shinobi as an external monitor connected with an USB-C to HDMI adapter. This setup causes my whole computer to crash after a couple of minutes so that I have to do a hard reboot. It is very hard to pin down what exactly causes it. It is my third adapter so probably this is not it. After Effects runs fine in this setup. My feeling is that it crashes more often when I use the Metal acceleration instead of the OpenGL legacy. Also I have the feeling that it is somehow dependend on the footage or effects I am using. But this is very hard to pin down as I am working on collages with a lot of effects, different footage and various blend modes. Today it is especially bad. The recent days I was working on the same project almost without crashes. Today it crashes premanetly. I didn't really change anything nor updated OS or CC in between.

I hope someone could give me a hint!

Report · Jan 06, 2020

I've plugged my Atomos Ninja Inferno (HDMI to HDMI) into my older MacMini (which I realize doesn't meet Adobe's recommended system specs anymore), and had similar problems. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer, but figured that I would at least share my similar problem using the Ninja Inferno on High Sierra. So I think we can weed out the Mac OS.

Two questions that might point us in the right direction: What kind of iMac do you have? Does it work any better when you use a different workspace? Since you say that everything works fine with After Effects, I wonder if there is one particular panel that is causing issues. For example, I have had issues with my color grading workspace from time to time.

Report · Jan 06, 2020

Thank you Brandon. I have a mid-range iMac Pro. Didn't try it yet on another system as my Macbook ist not really beefy. And yes, when I have just the iMac running and the Shinobi as a second monitor as well as with AE everything is absolutely stable. No crashes whatsover. Also I have to add that the only crashes I've had so far with my iMac Pro came with that display kerfuffle. Before I had it it didn't crash once. Neither Premiere nor the Mac itself.

It mostly happens during playback or scrolling through the sequence. I can't remember it happening when I was just scrolling in the preview monitor. But I can be mistaken. It also happend once during rendering the sequence.

Another hint may be that I can still move the cursor. Eventhough the whole Mac is frozen and I have to hard reboot.

Report · Jan 06, 2020

Hmm...I wonder, since you have the Shinobi plugged in, are you using that as a color grading monitor? Could one of the color workspaces be causing it by chance? Does Premiere Pro still crash when you use just one of the standard workspaces? I know that's not a fix right off the bat, but I wonder if it's the size of one of the panels causing Premiere to get moody.

Report · Jan 06, 2020

Not your setup, MacOS or hardware but I have previously had issues with a second monitor connected through a third party device. In this case an OWC breakout box to MacBook Pro. Premiere Pro would regularly crash while rendering or exporting. Particularly if I switched to any other app while doing this.

Bypassing the breakout box and connecting the monitor directly to the Mac (Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adaptor) solved the crashes.

As I said - not your situation - but I would consider looking at your USB-C to HDMI adaptor first and testing another adaptor.

Does your iMac have any Thunderbolt 3 ports? Try these too.

Also do you have any other HDMI monitors handy (TV)? Worth trying this just to remove the Shinobi from the equation, just in case this is contributing to your problems.

Report · Mar 11, 2020

Just a quick update: I couldn't solve the issue myself but with one of the recent updates (MacOS, Adobe Black Magic Raw Plugin, Premiere Pro) the problem just disappeared. Everything is running stable now. Thank you for your help!