Crashing, performance, and save Issues: Premiere Pro CC 2019 (13.1.3) on Windows

[eikonoklastes]

13.1.3 has been the most unstable release I've encountered for a long while now. The UI performance has tanked and several glitches and crashes have surfaced.

These include:
- Save dialogs that do not go away, even though the file has been saved. This went away after a computer restart.

- Auto Save straight up not working. This is likely linked to the above bug, and I had no idea that I went nearly a full day without a single auto save. Pretty scary. Again, this resumed working after a computer restart.

- Extremely unresponsive multi camera timeline. From a flickering playhead and selection rectangle, to the UI just freezing up randomly when in an MC timeline.

- Hard crash while attempting to play a MC timeline. I hit play, and the UI completely locked up for about a minute before the Crash Report dialog came up.

All this has happened in the space of less than 24 hours. A bit of a shit show to be honest. Hold off on this for a while.

My system specs:

- Windows 10 - updated

- Core i7-7700K

- 64 GB RAM

- GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - updated drivers

- Dedicated SSD for Media Cache with over 300 GB free space

Moderator warning: Please do not use profanity. We have minors reading here.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi eikonoklastes,

Sorry for these issues. Are these issues cropping up in an existing project a new project, or both? If the latter, what drivers are you running specifically?

Thanks,
Kevin

[eikonoklastes]

Hi Kevin, thank you for reaching out. I am on 430.86 Standard Studio drivers.

Windows: 1903 (18362.239)

The issues are on an existing project, but it is a fairly new project - just a couple of days old, with only initial prep work done on it. There are no effects on any clips, and only the gain on some audio tracks have been affected.

On a fresh launch, the performance is good, but very quickly (as in under 10 minutes into a session), the MC timeline goes to pot. There's unusually heavy flickering of the playhead and selection rectangle. It has always flickered as far back as I can remember with Premiere and After Effects CC, something Adobe just never deemed important enough to fix, but it was always minimal and something that could be ignored. Currently, however, it's extremely distracting and the flickering is accompanied with lagging performance to make things worse.

The playhead even flickers when paused, which boggles the mind. I have tried setting my display scale to 100% because that is directly related to performance issues in AE, but it doesn't make a difference in Premiere.

As I was preparing this reply, I recorded an accompanying video to demonstrate these issues. However, when I tried to export an edited version of it, Premiere just completely froze at the Save As screen. I had to eventually force quit it after it remained frozen for around 5 minutes. I am not editing it again.

Another issue I have been seeing is that Premiere always seems to be navigating the Project panel to a view that wasn't active when the project was saved and Premiere was closed. Upon restart, it keeps going to a different bin, every single time. Pretty damn annoying.

The original title of this thread was changed by a moderator, but I will reiterate the essence of it here: Stay away from 13.1.3

[Kevin-Monahan]

I changed the title for the benefit of others. I know you're unsatisfied with the version, and please give your opinion (looks like you have above), but not everyone is having this issue with 13.1.3. Telling everyone to "stay away" is more a like click bait title rather than a helpful post that may assist others. I do this for a lot of posts, so it's nothing personal. You've been very helpful around here, so please know that is appreciated.

It sounds like your young project is corrupt. I know that this usually doesn't happen to new projects, but somehow it sounds like some wires got crossed when you were gearing up for the project. Can you look to your backup archive to see if a recent copy behaves this way. If you do not have an archive that you have created, check the Auto Save folder for a decent back up. A more recent one might be in your Creative Cloud folder if you set that preference.

Hope we can assist you in getting going again.

Thanks,
Kevin

[eikonoklastes]

Hi Kevin,

Moving on from the title editing bit, I have an update with regards to the performance and stability issues I have been facing. I've detailed them in this thread:

UI issues with audio waveforms displayed

Basically, it's the display of the audio waveforms that is tanking Premiere's performance. It seems it cannot handle a large(?) number of waveforms displayed simultaneously. I clarified the word "large" because my project isn't that large.

Pretty much all my previous issues have been mitigated by turning off audio waveforms display, including the crashing.

As to my project possibly being corrupt, I don't believe this is the case. I have imported the old project into a new 13.1.3 project, that was on a fresh installation (I uninstalled 13.1.3 and trashed all preferences and reinstalled), with no plugins installed. This project was fine from what I can remember in the previous version, and all these issues seemed to have cropped up with the new update.

The issue with the bin navigation seems to have gone away after I imported the project into a new project, and I have not had a crash after turning off waveform display.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi,

Sounds like you are untangling this mess. Good job!

Importing such a project into a new project is the workaround for fixing corrupt projects so it sounds like that is what worked, in addition to having some problems with your waveforms. It does appear that waveform files might be the things corrupting your project, though. I would inspect the folder containing such files and making sure that you have RW permissions set for that folder. I'll report this to engineering.

Thanks,

Kevin

[RobyBehrens]

This fix needs to be prioritized over new features and have more resources directed to it until it is completely stable. This is a basic function when working with multiple camera angles on a long video or multi-cam marketing piece. Adobe, you will lose business if you don't fix this.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Roby, we're here in support, so you should give this feedback to the devs where they register bugs. It's here: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro They are the folks that fix things. Thanks, Kevin

[RobyBehrens]

I feel like someone needs to chime in here in defense of the poster. Changing the title of someone's post is an odd practice and in most cases, indefensible. In the modern ecosystem of software and our evolving relationships with the companies who make them, forums, social media and reviews are the only places where we hold any leverage as a user. It allows us to have our opinions heard by the companies, warn each-other about bad updates that could affect our livelihoods, and in some extreme cases, protest. Censoring the title of a contributor's post is egregious because it shows a culture of hiding things you don't want to hear instead of prioritizing the user. Put your fingers in your ears all you want Adobe, but if you break this software any further, we'll stop using it for the other ones out there.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Roby, I frequently edit the title of posts in order to maintain the search ability of this forum. Others need to be able to find solutions which are usually searched for from search engines. People searching for answers might not find a solution without the right title. We can address any potential support solutions within the body of the post. eikonoklastes is an ACP on this forum and I do hope he is not really offended. I am just doing something I've routinely done for years. Thanks for understanding, Kevin

[Christian.Z]

I have to agree with Kevin on this one. Forums are not a software review platform or a bug warning outlet. Changes to titles are essential to help other users easily and quickly find what they are looking for.
However, Adobe did provide a place for bug reporting that ressemble software review. And Kevin mentioned it in a message above.

Cheers.

[Letty2019]

Hi Keven, I'm having the same issue also. But there is a pattern. As I condense a sequence, the flashing slowly starts, then when I'm all the way condensed it really flashes. As I expand, it slows down, then when I expand almost full, it stops. It seems like a warning flash but for some unknown reason. I have 32gb ram, so it couldn't be a memory issue. The footage I'm using is SD. When I upscale using PPRo, and condense a 4 min sequence, the flashing starts. Very annoying. I have to keep the sequence almost all the way expanded to keep the flashing from appearing. It must mean something? It's a controlled response to condensing a sequence that may be over stuffed? Crazy thing is, I have all the sequences dropped into a master timeline of 2 hours, and no flashing there??? Yet another bug I'll spend hours of wasted time on. I can't believe this advanced program still has bugs like this. I'm on the lastest 13.1.5 w/ryzen 7 gtx1050Ti 32gb. Thanks for your help.

Also, I read the other post about audio waves...  I muted all my audio, and the flashing went away.  So it's something about those audio files. But what?  😞

[sabrinaa18898574]

You're not alone! I'm having these same MC timeline issues with a very high end computer (14 core i9, Titan RTX, 64GB RAM, accessing all media from M.2 drives) and I'm even editing with proxies.

When the flickering playhead thing happens I often can't scrub the timeline at all and the flickering seems to be a sign of things progressively getting worse. In addition to that I've been having issues with waveforms not loading correctly (or even at all sometimes), and audio randomly not playing back on certain clips past a certain point in the timeline despite being present when I export from a spot that isn't playing back in the timeline.

Only thing that fixes the flickering playhead for me is closing the entire project and opening it back up but it often comes right back after a few edits. I've found sometimes copy and pasting the audio that isn't playing back somewhere else in the timeline sometimes fixes the audio going out thing, but not always. All of these issues happen literally nonstop every day in various projects. It's super frustrating and I might not meet a deadline because of it.

[travisn47885001]

I am experiencing these same issues.

Windows 10.0.18362

Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core

32 GB Ram

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

[deanr78955246]

I am having the same issue as well. The playhead starts to flicker and then my whole timeline is inactive. I can't select clips, make adjustments or move anything. There really isn't a workaround, it comes and goes randomly. I get it on both my home and work computer. Happens on big and small projects. There is a new update out, not sure if this will fix it. 

Work Computer: 

Windows 10.0.18362

Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core

16 GB Ram

AMD Radeon RX 580

Home Computer: 

Windows 10.0.18362

Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core

32 GB Ram

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060i

[eikonoklastes]

In the newest update 13.1.5, this issue seems to have been resolved. The performance is now good. Things are still extremely flickery, but at least everything works as expected.

[deanr78955246]

I'm still having interface issues, its so so. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt.

[JayLayton]

Same here, flickering followed by various issues. No playback, won't bring up proper effect controls and certain buttons or functions are unselectable. 

[Handarand]

- Extremely unresponsive multi camera timeline. From a flickering playhead and selection rectangle, to the UI just freezing up randomly when in an MC timeline.

Having the same issue with the latest Premiere installed. 

Closing and opening the program helps for some time, but then again it comes back in about 5-10 minutes.

[Handarand]

Found a workaround? Kinda....

Turning off Show waveform stops the bugs imidiately. Sadly though - I need the waveforms almost always when I work in premiere.

Any workaround to load only chosen tracks? And hide muted etc

[Dronebrothers]

Same here. Flickering playhead. Nothing is selectable.