Premiere Pro CC giving "unable to create image buffer" error and crashing after installing a GeForce GTX 1070 video card.

[tomandre]

Hi all,

I recently installed a GeForce GTX 1070 videocard and current drivers into my editing rig, excited for the potential leap in rendering and playback (I was previously using a very old ASUS Radeon HD 7850). I have had nothing but problems since.

When I first tried opening a Premiere project, the audio refused to play (speakers, headphones, everything...I looked at the volume mixer while playing through the timeline and no audio was showing up). Everything else seemed fine. I closed, cleared the cache, opened Premiere again, this time holding down Alt while doing so to reset the preferences. Opened fine, audio played back fine, only now Premiere was stuck endlessly generating PEK files for a short audio clip in the project.

After a very long bit of troubleshooting across the forums, I went ahead and did a full uninstall of Premiere Pro and After Effects, then reinstalled both programs to their current versions (2015.4 and 2015.3, respectively). No more PEK generation issues, but something far worse. Now, every time I try to edit with CUDA Acceleration enabled, I can get maybe five minutes of performance out of Premiere before I get "unable to create image buffer" errors, warning notifications from Windows that the computer is low on memory, and eventually, a full crash where the screen goes black, flickers a couple times, then stays black for good, with only the mouse cursor displayed onscreen.

The footage I'm editing is all Go Pro footage, no effects applied. I'm doing this for a client and need it ready within a week, but the constant crashing makes it hard to work around. I can get it to more or less work by switching Renderer settings to Software Acceleration Only, but it is much slower and the memory still gets eaten up like crazy (If I open up Task Manager and start scrubbing through the timeline I can watch the memory usage get up to 95% within about 20 seconds). Playback consequently suffers after the RAM is filled to nearly full.

Technical Specifications

Premiere Pro CC 2015.4 (latest version)

OS: Windows 10 Pro (Version 1511)

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz

RAM: 16GB

GPU: EVGA GTX 1070 (latest drivers)

SSD (OS and Adobe Suite installed): SanDisk Internal SSD 240GB 2.5-Inch SDSSDA-240G-G25

Hard Drive (where I keep my media files): WD Black 2TB Performance Desktop Hard Drive: 3.5-inch, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB Cache

Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 LGA 2011-3 ATX Intel

Source Footage -The source footage is about one hour of Go Pro footage, all laid out on the timeline, no effects applied (I am simply trying to edit the original footage into a shorter video).

Type: MPEG Movie (.mp4)

Image Size: 3840 x 2160

Frame Rate: 29.97

Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0

It is worth noting that with my dusty old Radeon GPU I was able to edit these clips with ease. No playback issues, no image buffer issues. I don't recall seeing my RAM ever go above 60% usage when I had that card installed.

Also worth noting, other than Premiere, I've noticed absolutely no issues and the video card itself seems to be working great. I can play MGSV at max settings with perfect playback, as well as other graphics-intensive games.

Any help?

[R Neil Haugen]

When you uninstalled, did you do so with the OS uninstaller, or did you use the Adobe CC Cleaner tool? There are some files that can be problematic that are NOT in the "program files" location and normally not removed by the OS uninstall. I'd recommend downloading the Adobe CC Cleaner tool,  and using it to do BOTH the uninstall and cleanup, even though the instructions suggest running this AFTER using the OS to uninstall.

From good personal experience (for three different issues), using the Cleaner tool to to both tasks just ... worked. Using the OS to do the uninstall didn't before using the Cleaner tool didn't do anything for me.

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs5-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

Try this first ... and of course, reboot after doing the cleanup. THEN sign back into your CC account, and download fresh copies. Again.

Neil

[tomandre]

Hey Neil, thanks for the advice! Actually I always uninstall Adobe programs using the Creative Cloud application in my system tray. I open that up, click the gear icon next to the program I want gone, and hit "Uninstall".

I've never heard of the CC Cleaner Tool. Does uninstalling through Creative Cloud perform the same cleaning actions as CC Cleaner Tool (I'm assuming not, but worth asking)? Wondering if that might've solved my issue...

Nevertheless, I seem to have (tentatively) found a working solution to my problem! I uninstalled both Premiere and After Effects, then reinstalled them back to the last known stable configuration on my rig (Premiere Pro 2015.2 and After Effects 2015.2). So far, running these versions has been very smooth, even with CUDA Acceleration enabled.

Memory still gets eaten up, but not nearly as fast as before. More importantly, the RAM dumps old memory not in use and stays relatively stable at about 75% usage, when editing a project containing the exact same clips/footage as the one I was editing before. I've experienced no crashes, image buffer issues, etc. So far, I'm able to edit as usual. Relief!

The downside is I've got about 10 hours of editing to re-do, since the projects I was working on were all made in Premiere 2015.4. But that's okay. I've experienced far worse than that with previous projects.

Worth noting: Before I uninstalled Premiere/AE, I did try a last-ditch effort to save my work. I attempted to render out my edited project in a lossless format but...no luck. While rendering, Adobe Media Encoder got about 15% through before my RAM ran out, then AME stalled and didn't budge any further. I did have CUDA Acceleration enabled for that render, as I thought the problem was limited to Premiere only. This might suggest otherwise?

But back to the present. I'm going to keep editing today. If I experience any bugs/crashes, I'll post it here. If a week passes and I've experienced no issues, I'll post that here too.

[R Neil Haugen]

The Adobe CC Cleaner tool is different than the basic uninstall through the CC app. Don't ask me why they didn't include the heftier capability but ... oh well.

And glad to hear you're working, at least!

Neil

[excited_Genie16B8]

I can play MGSV at max settings

I can't say definitely that this is the problem, but as a general guideline, you should not install anything on your edit system that does not need to be there to get the job done, and that most definitely includes video games.

Keep a clean edit system.  Use a separate machine for gaming, email, office work, etc.

Having said that, Adobe is aware of the memory issue and has said the next update will include a fix.  There is no ETA for when that update will arrive.  In the meantime, you will need to roll back to 2015.3.

The graphics issue sounds very similar to this.

Re: Premiere Pro CC "Unable to Produce Frame"

[tomandre]

Hi Jim! Thanks for the advice. It's a relief to hear that Adobe is aware of the memory issue and has plans to fix it with the next update. I did end up rolling back and it seems to have fixed my problem. I'm able to edit as normal and have experienced no crashes/bugs so far.

If I experience no crashes/bugs editing through next week, I'll post back here so others can know. Thanks for the help!

[Bill Gehrke]

What version nVidia driver are you using?

[tomandre]

I'm using version 372.70. As of this writing that is the latest driver available. I've read on the Adobe forums about people rolling back drivers to fix intermittent issues, but those were largely for older GeForce GTX series cards (500 and 600 series, etc). For now, rolling back to Premiere Pro version 2015.2 seems to have fixed my issue, but if things change I'll make sure to update the posts here.

[tomandre · Accepted solution]

It's been almost a week and I've had zero issues. Premiere Pro CC 2015.2 works like a dream! I'm gonna go ahead and mark this thread closed.

For those just tuning in, I was able to find a solution by uninstalling Premiere Pro and After Effects, then reinstalling them back to the last known stable configuration on my rig (Premiere Pro 2015.2 and After Effects 2015.2). So far, running these versions has been very smooth, even with CUDA Acceleration enabled.

The only downside is that all projects I made in Premiere Pro version 2015.4 had to be re-edited from scratch. But I've had absolutely zero issues using the program, which is a relief. Hoping Adobe fixes this whenever 2015.5 gets released!