Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

[csc-uk]

I installed Premiere Pro CS4 this last weekend 11-12 April 2009.

I have a Quadcore 3.0GHz with 8Gb of RAM, a 150Gb C: drive fo rthe op sys Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1 and programs, a 500Go D: drive for general data and a K: drive 2Tb RAID0 volume useable about 1.8Gb.

My C: drive was healthy after installation of Premiere Pro with tens of gigabytes free at least. Then I started experimenting with building projects. I put my files on a mix of the D: and K: drives especially the AVCHD video assets on the K:.

While importing these AVCHD assets I eventually got a message from Vista that the C: drive was full and I did a clean up and that gave approximetely 30Gb free, I went back to importing, in a couple of hours the 30Gb was gone, this can only be Premiere Pro CS4 eating the C: drive and never returning what it takes. This of course is a disaster precisely because it is my op sys drive and Vista will periodically want to make new restore points especially before applying downloaded updates from Microsoft. I ahve run also chkdsk and defragmenter with no effect. I think Premiere Pro is using some sort of secret work files on the C: drive somewhere and that they just accumulate, of course this would be a bug.

Support Center does not appear to let me open web support issues even though we are in the 90-day bug fix period and I have registered the product with the product key so that is another bug that gets in the way of fixing the first.

Any ideas please?

Thanks!

Peter.

[csc-uk]

I am confident that it is the .PEK and .CFA files that do not get deleted when the project gets deleted and I will soon be able to prove it. Once I know whether these files are better off going onto the RAID0 drive then I intend restoring my computer to the point just after installation of PrPro so I can rebuild projects correctly with no bad hangovers from these experiments, just before such a restore I can delete the projects and see whether PrPro cleans up the .CFA and .PEK files and report the result.

Message du 22/04/09 16:39

De : "the_wine_snob"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

As to PrPro doing the cleanup, when a Project is deleted, I'll bet that it does - for its own files. However, it seems that what you are seeing might be files created by Vista. These would not be reported to, or known by, PrPro. This would be especially ture if these files were marked as "System," or "Hidden," which seems to be the case. I'd not want PrPro deleting any System file, even if it knew about them, and thought it safe to do so. That should be done manually, by the user. I've had programs that would delete files, and they "got it wrong" too many times.

Your post has made for some interesting discussion, and I've picked up some tips on the workings of Vista. Thanks for posting it in the first place.

Hunt

>

[Jim_Simon]

HOW SHOULD CS4 KNOW WHEN TO CLEAN-UP ITS PROJECT RELATED FILES?

For the third time - it doesn't, and it shouldn't.  You do that manually when you're done with a project.

[Jim_Simon]

I am learning by experience, apparently it does not change your original media files when you specify edits that therefore it produces some sort of copy and applies edits there

That is not actually what the created files are for.  Premiere is a "Native" NLE, which means it does use the original media for playback and export.  It does not create 'copies' for editing purposes.  The files it creates are for other things.

It can be said that Premiere is a 'non-destructive' editor, so you are correct in that the original media files aren't changed when you edit.  But the original media files are used for the purposes of playback and export.

[csc-uk]

Lets us approach it the other way around, what is it going to use the really big 1.47Gb file (that it created when it imported the near 2Gb original AVCHD asset) for?

Message du 22/04/09 16:50

De : "Jim Simon"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

I am learning by experience, apparently it does not change your original media files when you specify edits that therefore it produces some sort of copy and applies edits there

That is not actually what the created files are for. Premiere does use the original media for playback and export.

>

[Kostas Arvanitidis]

Hi all these are snapshots of my Commons Folder. As you can see there are TWO Media Cache Folders. One with the database files and one with the .CFA and .PEK files. The second folder is a all-file-'bin' duplicate from all projects i have on my Video Drive. Normally these files should be deleted automatically when i close the project (in my opinion they never should be created since they alredy exist on my project /MediaCache subfolder)

[csc-uk]

So you figure that the .CFA and .PEK files should be directed to the disk that is best suited for the video, in my case namely the RAID0 drive??? Yes?

Message du 22/04/09 20:00

De : "Kostas Arvanitidis"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Hi all these are snapshots of my Commons Folder. As you can see there are TWO Media Cache Folders. One with the database files and one with the .CFA and .PEK files. The second folder is a all-file-'******' duplicate from all projects i have on my Video Drive. Normally these files should be deleted automatically when i close the project (in my opinion they never should be created since they alredy exist on my project /MediaCache subfolder)

>

[Kostas Arvanitidis]

What i say is that the files are already on the video disk but they're also on the system disk.

[Bill_Gehrke]

don solomon wrote:

Hmmm.  Shadow copies on C:.  One question.  Is there any way to shut the shadow copying completely off in Vista Ultimate.  I do not want any form of 'system restore' eating up any space on my drives.

To turn off "System Restore" you would go to the "Control Panel/System/System Protection", as I said I have it turned off on all drives execpt the C: drive. There it is a good insurance value.

[Bill_Gehrke]

I have all my drives turned off of System Restore (Shadow Copy) except the C: drive.  As you can see from the attached document from Microsoft Vista Help Files Shadow Copy takes up no more that 15% of the disk space.

"System Restore doesn't protect FAT32 and other FAT disks because FAT disks don't support the use of shadow copies. Shadow copies contain information about changes to documents and system files. Shadow copies require the NTFS file system. In this version of Windows, System Restore uses shadow copies to create restore points. If you store system files on a FAT disk, you cannot use System Restore to undo changes.

How much disk space does System Restore require?

To store restore points, you need at least 300 megabytes (MB) of free space on each hard disk that has System Protection turned on. System Restore might use up to 15 percent of the space on each disk. As the amount of space fills up with restore points, System Restore will delete older restore points to make room for new ones. System Restore will not run on disks smaller than 1 gigabyte (GB) "

[csc-uk]

You may be able to find a transcoder to make an AVCHD copy and then try importing the transcoded copy, I do not know if CS4 itself can do the transcode.

Message du 22/04/09 03:41

De : "Bill Gehrke"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Well here are my results capturing a HDV 52 minute tape into CS4 on Vista 64 Business;

Before:

http://forums.adobe.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/1915/Before-V64.jpg

After:

http://forums.adobe.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/1922/After-64.jpg

As you can see on the project disk (SAS RAID 0) drive, the 52 minutes took up the expected 10 GB of space and the C: drive added 1.2 GB. Unfortunnately I do not have access to a AVCHD camera or a large file to do the same thing with it.

The three files produced in the Media Cache Files were a .cfa file of 1.14 GB, a .pek file of 4.58 MB and a .mpgindex file of 1.64 MB.

>

[the_wine_snob]

Bill,

Thank you for running the test and making the data available.

Hunt

[Havalilsi]

I had to reinstall Premiere on my machine last night. I'm using Windows 7 64 bit, which is similar to Vista. I forgot to set my scratch discs again and I started seeing my C: drive filling up. I produced about 3 DVDs with an average of 45 minutes to 70 minutes of content. I just erased about 7 Gigs of rendered files for those 3 projects plus a new one I just put in.

I could only find the folder by doing a search by Date Modified because the folder is invisible. The last time this happened and before I realised I needed to  change the scratch disc loaction, I put a shortcut on my desktop to the folder to erase the files. After the reinstall last, I was able to go right to the folder to erase the files..

[csc-uk]

That is near correct, I found the files produced on the D: drive folder to be nearly the size of the imported asset, BUT this can only be confirmed if the asset is AVCHD. For my original AVCHD asset of just under 2Gb taken off my camera, after import one of the files (the .PEK or .CFA) was 1.47Gb, I think this is the so-called waveform file and I think one of the previous people explained that these are BOTH audio files. Now I ask again, for such a huge file should I not want it produced on the RAID0 drive?

Message du 22/04/09 02:28

De : "Bill Gehrke"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Let me see if my understanding of this is correct.

If I capture with default settings in CS4 to my project disk in Vista 64 SP1 and import this to a project, I should see a correspond size increase my C: drive. Is this a correct statement of your sitution?

>

[Jim_Simon]

Now I ask again, for such a huge file should I not want it produced on the RAID0 drive?

It certainly won't hurt anything to put them on a RAID, but neither is it really necessary.  Nor are you likely to see any performance improvement with playback if you do.  A single modern drive is much more than sufficient for the task.  You might see improvement in the time it takes to create those files.

[csc-uk]

My drives are all SATA0, probably around 5500rpm, so I am tilting towards putting these huge files onto the RAID0 after all, it is 1.8Tb usable so unless there is need to uncompress and recompress using lots of disk in the process I see no reason not to shove these things on the RAID0. I am still pondering. Thanks for the advice.

Message du 22/04/09 16:40

De : "Jim Simon"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Now I ask again, for such a huge file should I not want it produced on the RAID0 drive?

It certainly won't hurt anything to put them on a RAID, but neither is it really necessary. Nor are you likely to see any performance improvement with playback if you do. A single modern drive is much more than sufficient for the task. You might see improvement in the time it takes to create those files.

>

[Jim_Simon]

So CS4 & Vista DO create copies of the actual Media Cache files on the C:\ drive. Wonder what that is about.

If you leave the Scratch Disk settings alone, yes.  If you move them to another drive, then no.

[the_wine_snob]

Jim,

Am I correct then, that there are no duplicate Media Cache files?

Thanks for the report,

Hunt

[Jim_Simon]

If you change the settings after the files are created, then yes, there will be duplicates as new one will be created in the new location.

But if you delete those files, change the settings and then capture/import/open the project, no there should not be any duplicates.

[the_wine_snob]

Thanks for that clarification. I'm familiar with the Cache Database files, and as you state, they are very small, not accounting for what is being observed and reported.

Hunt

[don_solomon-z3JEFz]

Premiere puts stuff all over the place by default on the C drive.  Set preferences so it doesn't. Put it all on another fast drive in one directory.  Raid is fine also. Clean out the stuff it does put on C that you can't avoid regularly. Yes, it is a royal PIA, but that is life with CS4. The rule is, keep all program genrated files off C that you can.  Jim is right.  Keep C small, clean, and mean.

[csc-uk]

Thanks. I am going to restore my C: drive from backup to the point just after CS4 installation, reset the file locations to mostly the RAID0 drive and then rebuild the projects. After that hopefully Lesson One, setting up CS4 and importing the assets, will be complete.

Message du 23/04/09 18:18

De : "don solomon"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

Premiere puts stuff all over the place by default on the C drive. Set preferences so it doesn't. Put it all on another fast drive in one directory. Raid is fine also. Clean out the stuff it does put on C that you can't avoid regularly. Yes, it is a royal PIA, but that is life with CS4. The rule is, keep all program genrated files off C that you can. Jim is right. Keep C small, clean, and mean.

>

[Phil_Griffith]

I'm glad that you are on your way to working with cs4. However, if you had done a little homework and educate yourself at the beginning, you would have saved yourself a lot of grief over all this. Instead, you jump first then complain that its a bug and it eats all your drives. Kinda like jumping into a car with blinders on and drive off into a tree then say the car was defective....it should have known there was a tree there!

[csc-uk]

Huh?

I was following Adobe's own educational material, "Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Classroom In A Book The official training workbook from Adobe Systems". I am doing a little homework, and educating myself. The workbook takes you step by step through basics of creating a project some edits and then generating your outputs. I am at the project set-up stage.

The C: disk eating as something done by default IS a software bug, either the origin is in CS4 or it is in Vista, but creating files not allowing the files to be seen or manipulated and not cleaning them up nor allowing user to clean them up, this is a bug, it does not matter that you then say that there is a work-around for the bug.

I am restoring my C: drive from a backup made just before project creation so that I can recover the currently permanently lost C: drive disk space amounting to tens of gigabytes which will be invisible .PEK and .CFA files, this is the only way to clean them up and recover the space. Immediately after the restore I will apply the workaround, namely expressly allocate the .CFA and .PEK files to a folder, on another disk, so they'll be visible.

I am a software developer, are you a computer systems analyst/designer/programmer? This is a bug and there is also a workaround, there we go, yippee. No I am not a professional videographer, this is a one-off special I am working up to. What I am doing at this stage is the learning, the integration testing, and finding out any issues and workarounds prior to start of proper work. This is otherwise known as user acceptance testing and training and issue resolution, it happens in large scale software development projects and is entirely legit. Of course at the moment I am on the side of the fence of the user rather than the developer.

Message du 24/04/09 17:35

De : "Phil Griffith"

A : "JONES Peter"

Copie à :

Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

I'm glad that you are on your way to working with cs4. However, if you had done a little homework and educate yourself at the beginning, you would have saved yourself a lot of grief over all this. Instead, you jump first then complain that its a bug and it eats all your drives. Kinda like jumping into a car with blinders on and drive off into a tree then say the car was defective....it should have known there was a tree there!

>

[csc-uk]

Disk eating happens by default after installation and when importing large AVCHD assets, I do not say here that it never happens under other conditions nor that it happens in all installations. The cause is that .PEK and .CFA files are being created on the C: drive as these assets are imported and they have an approximately similar size to the imported asset, BUT the creation is flawed in that the files are not visible to the user nor does CS4 clean them up itself. Whether the invisibility of the files created is CS4's or Vista's fault we need not discuss, because there is a workaround. Go to Edit->Preferences->General and expressly reset CS4 workfiles therein to folders you create, then the files become visible as they are created. For full details follow the thread. Thanks for all those who contributed.

[tmsatterfeld]

Greetings, it sounds to me like your space s being taken up by an ever increasing number of restore points being created. In Vista, unlike XP there is no simply GUI with which to adjust your max allowable space to be used to create restore points. Instead you must launch a command line and set a limit through the VSSAdmin as is is the Volume Shadow Copy which takes the snapshots, you can only find out as well has limit the amount of space allowed for these snapshots through the command line to the VSSAdmn. If your system is set to "Unbounded" there is no limit and it can eat your entire drive away until you get a drive low warning. Since you cannot "See" restore" points or there size, this may be your problem. TMS