Premiere won't open project or takes forever on 1 of 2 identical machines

[visigo92]

We have two identically configured custom build machines, less than 1 month old.
AMD Ryzen 3950 16 Cores
128 GB RAM
GeForce RTX2080 SUPER
10G direct network connection to file server for project files
2x 1 TB SSDs NVMe / M.2 for boot and cache drives

They have been working great, when all of a sudden, one of the machines stopped opening Premiere Pro files reliably.

One file in particular, we'll call "DRS", seems to have initiated this trouble.
There is not problem opening this project or any other project on machine "A", but machine "B" hangs at 75%.

After machine B had this problem with the "DRS" project file, it started being unable to open / work on any other Premiere project files.

Premiere opens quickly, but loading a file hangs at 75%. We've waited an hour, no significant CPU (<2%) usage, nor network/drive usage, no indication that it's doing anything.

No logs for Premiere in the Roaming/AppData folder.
No events in Windows Event Viewer other than "App Hang" and "Cross Thread" as the reason.


--------=========== THINGS WE HAVE TRIED ===========--------
Copying/opening the project file locally
4 hours of Adobe remote support doing all their normal stuff.
Resetting preferences
Clearing caches
Uninstalling/reinstalling Premiere
Uninstalling/reinstalling entire Adobe Suite
Uninstalling recent windows updates

Nothing changed.

Complete reinstallation of Windows, including wipe of boot disk.
Reinstall CC / Premiere Pro, etc.

Now, we were able to open projects again.... until we re-opened that DRS project.

Then, we were back to square one.

Interesting things to note:
Opening really, really, really simple projects (10 minutes of footage, no effects, super simple cuts, no dynamic links, etc.) can work. Where it takes less than 60 seconds on machine A, machine B will take 5-10 minutes, and it will ask again for the links to the medias.

We have three editing machines on the same network/connecting to the server, each connects to the server using a different server IP address. Any chance that causes a problem if passing a file around? Relative file paths are identical, it's just the absolute filepath that is different.

Suspicions / misc. info:
1. The CRS project was initially started by a third party freelancer, and we took it over. Any chance opening a Premiere project can cause settings changes / workspace issues / whatever that can cause other projects to fail?
2. We suspect dynamic links are part of the problem.
3. Again, the machines are identical. When premiere hangs, no sign of any use of system resources beyond idle. the progress bar stops at 75% when loading the project and stays there. The cancel button is still responsive (flashes white on mouseover). Machine A loads this and any other project perfectly.
4. I've opened up the .prproj itself, it's about 650k lines / 50 Mb unzipped. 16 Mb zipped.

Please help. I'm at my wits end with Adobe software that defies logic of how programs should behave. Thank you.

[R Neil Haugen]

How about if you create a new project, then from Premiere's Media browser panel, navigate to the old one and import/ingest the contents of the old project file into a new one?

In fact, you can even say import one sequence and work the project a bit to see if it's stable, then import another ... and on through until you even find which sequence is perhaps the problem. Although quite often, importing the contents of a previous project into a new one gets it all working again.

Neil

[visigo92]

Hi Neil,

Thanks so much for the suggestion. I've tried this, and it hasn't worked.

On Machine B (problem machine):

Importing the entire project causes the dialog box to freeze during the import process, similarly to opening the project.

The option to import sequences shows no sequences in the list of options (of sequences to import).

Will try now to do this on Machine A, and then open it in Machine B, stand by 🙂

[visigo92]

Hi,
Today we tried to import the full sequence in a new project on Machine A without dynamic links. I did this by copying/pasting the timeline into a new project and saving.

It worked! It did take 2-3 minutes to open on Machine B (vs. 13 seconds on Machine A), but it’s working

Then, after closing that file and re-opening on Machine B, it opens at correct speed (10-20 seconds).

I’m now trying to import the problem project including dynamic links.

[visigo92]

Importing the problem project on Machine A (working machine) WITH dynamic links did not work - froze the program, not responding.

[Michael Grenadier]

when you say dynamic links, do you mean AfterEffects Compositions?  If so, have you tried opening the relevant AE projects in AE before trying to open the premiere project?   Are you using any 3rd party plugins?  And just in case it's something basic, are you running the same versions of all creative cloud apps?

[visigo92]

Yes, I'm talking about AE Comps. Thanks 🙂 

I'm going to try opening the AE project before opening it in Premiere.

No 3rd party plugins.

All CC apps are completely up to date on both machines.

Thank you!

[visigo92]

This didn't work, project still failed.

[visigo92 · Accepted solution]

UPDATE WITH SOLUTION (WE HOPE):

Adobe support suggested we do the following, which did not work:

1. Please go to edit from the top left of application page and select for preferences and then go to media and un check the "Enable hardware acceleration encoding and decoding"
2. Change the render engine as software only mode and render the project
3. Please open scratch disk and change the video and audio preview location 
If the issue still persist then open control panel and you will see the Microsoft visual c++ files please right click on them one by one and repair all these files and then restart your system and then check for the issue 

Their final suggestion, however, seemed to have been the fix:

In Windows control panel, under "Programs and Features", repair all possible instances of "Microsoft Visual C++".

After doing this and restarting, one of the problem files opened in 1 minute. Closing and re-opening, it opened even faster (9 seconds).

Opening the problematic "DRS" file, it seemed to freeze, but opened after several minutes. Saving the project, closing and re-opening, and it opened 'normally'.

We're praying the fix holds!

[R Neil Haugen]

Thanks for posting that, the whole fix the C++ things is useful information.

Neil

[Ridemade]

This seems to be happening with us when we open a project that was edited on a different computer. For some reason the project loading hangs at about 75% and takes forever. Once you get it open and save it or make a copy, it opens quickly the next time. I've also tried creating a new project and importing, but that crashes Premiere every time. I tried the C++ repair trick but didn't help. Neither does trashing all the cache files, preferences, etc. Seems to be a 2019/2020 bug. Don't remember it happening before.

[jandrewramsey]

I'm having the exact same problem on that latest version (2022.2.0). All project files created on PC1 hang at 75% and take hours and hours and hours to open on PC2. Completely unusable as I go back and forth between systems with my asst. editor frequently. Thought it was a networking thing (the project files reference media on our network drive) but the same issue occurs when opening on any other m The C++ solution did nothing, nor do any of the other solutions people have suggested. @Ridemade did you find a solution to this? achine, even those running earlier versions of Premiere.

[jandrewramsey]

Editing for insert glitch:

I'm having the exact same problem on that latest version (2022.2.0). All project files created on PC1 hang at 75% and take hours and hours and hours to open on PC2. Completely unusable as I go back and forth between systems with my asst. editor frequently. Thought it was a networking thing (the project files reference media on our network drive) but the same issue occurs when opening on any other machine, even those running earlier versions of Premiere. The C++ solution did nothing, nor do any of the other solutions people have suggested. @Ridemade did you find a solution to this?

[Michael Grenadier]

working with media connected via network is probably the issue.  Never a good idea unless you've got a network designed for this workflow (and an IT expert to manage it).  That's why Avid has dominated this market for using shared media.    What happens if you connect the media drive(s) directly to the editing system?     I work in a couple of locations on a variety of machines and just shlepp the media drive between systems..  and even working on macs and a windows machine, there are only the occaional issue with Premiere losing links to media which have always been easily fixed...

[jandrewramsey]

I've been working with networked media for a year and a half and it's smooth as silk. No issues. And if it were the media, then opening the project on my colleague's computer while he is not on the network should result in opening the project quickly to reveal a bunch of unlinked media (which is exactly what used to happen when I copy media to an external and someone opens it on their computer miles away from my NAS). Now no one can open my projects suddenly. This can't have anything to do with where the media is because it happens even when the media is not connected.

[R Neil Haugen]

Sounds like Premiere is struggling with some part of its files ... you know the way the Adobe apps use mulitple files in different spots for the preferences, cache, this, that, the other thing?

I'm guessing the place one computer is putting them is not available to the other computer for some reason. So it's missing some key file or files to be able to operate that project.

Neil

[jandrewramsey]

If anyone is reading this via search for this issue (like me), I spent a couple hours with Adobe on the phone today troubleshooting this and have a workaround but not a solution. The problem is not with networked media but with the fact that a network drive is connected at all. If you physically unplug the cable connecting to your NAS and open your project, it will open just fine. Then reconnect the cable and link your media. The rep I spoke to described this as a bug that he will present to the engineers. Entirely possible it's a setup problem with the NAS but he couldn't imagine a scenario in which that would be the case. But at least I have a way to open projects now.

[Michael Grenadier]

Thanks for posting the workaround...   would be interesting to see if you had the problem if the drive was connected directly to your computer.  Networks are complicated things and there can be issues with reserved characters in file and folder names that may not be obvious or easy to diagnose.  

[virtuall58455616]

Thank you very much, this is the temporary solution. I hope Adobe engineers will soon release the update correcting this bug.