I'm so effin sick of Premiere I want to hang myself.

I have a 3.25GHZ machine with 4GB RAM and Premiere crashes randomly about 15 times a day.

I have 39 process running on my PC and have turned off everything I can. I run Premiere alone, with no other programs running.

I have Boris Continuum installed and gave up on Sapphire Genarts as the effects would cause random crashes, too and would rarely stay in place after exported. I've already deleted toonIt and three other plugins programs (for which I paid big bucks, mind you)

I'm at a loss. Everytime I make ONE simple change to a clip, the entire timeline disappears then has to reload. I have uninstalled and reinstalled...twice.

I've scanned my computer with TWO antivirus programs, nothing. I can't find an 800 number to get a LIVE person at the RIGHT Adobe department to save my life.

Any suggestions?

I'm 10 minutes away from buying a MAC and sending dog turds in envelopes to Adobe.

The 4GB of Ram is good, but when you say 3.25GHZ, what type of processor is that - P4, Dual Core, Quad Core, etc? Also, what type of media are you editing? And what type and how many hard drives do you have setup?

Trust me, I edit with PPro every day and it works great.

It's a dual core processor.

I'm editing HDV 1080i 60fps.

I have two. A C drive with 250 GB on it (60GB free) and the E drive, with 500GB, 290GB available.

Cache for Premiere is on the C drive. Files are captured on the E drive, both audio and video.

Final export is at 29.97 fps.

My total project size is 6 minutes, tops. I've given up on elaborate effects, I'm using basic cross dissolves, OCCASIONALLY some Film Damage by Boris.

My work can be found at www.bikinidrivingschool.com

My challenge is this: I film on a Saturday...I have six hours to shoot...that's it. Episodes MUST be live by Wednesday...that gives me four days to capture 13 hours of footage, edit, render and export. It's gotten SO bad, I'm closing Premiere every 30 minutes and am restarting just to ENSURE that my changes are saved...hitting "SAVE" does NOTHING. If it crashes, that "SAVE" is GONE.

I would have reponded quicker, but I've watching the clips on your site...

That is odd. I know that HDV is processor intensive, so that could be the problem. But it does sound, to me at least, like something else is going on. Just going over the basics, which I'm sure you've done - all your video card drivers are updated...and what kind of video card do you have? Are your hard drives 7200rpm? For HDV, again, you've got to have some fast drives...

Does it react that way even with DV footage?

Also, you're editing with antivirus turned off I assume?

1-800-642-3623 is the Adobe tech support number - give them call tomorrow. Hope you can get it working...if I think of anything I'll post back.

Thank you, Eric, for your help thus far.

Yes, my hard drives are 7200rpm eSata drives. There is occasionally DV footage mixed with my HDV footage, so I guess yes, it does it with DV footage too.

Yes, antivirus is disabled.

My video card is a brand new Nvidia 8800GTX specifically chosen for it's HDV capabilities.

Interestingly, I tried using Cineform before...it caused so many crashes, I deleted it.


As for the clips on my site, Episode 7 and Episode 10 are what I consider to be the best of that lot...granted, I've been editing for four months total, so I know it's not perfect. A big part of the problem is that what I render and view does NOT always export out that way.

I'm using accelerated GPU effects now and so it seems that after a render inside Premiere, once I export, it seems as if the footage matches, in that there are no surprises.

In the past two months, I've deleted ToonIt, Digital Anarchy, Cineform, Sapphire, and Walker FX suspecting those plugins were giving me fits.

I will indeed try Adobe tomorrow.

It sounds to me like a hardware issue - I'm just not sure what it is. Cineform is used by a great many people who love it, and it makes editing HDV on less powerful systems possible so it causing PPro to crash to tells me something else is going on.

One thing I didn't ask - what version of PPro are you running? CS3? If so, are you running with the latest update - 3.2? Are you on WinXP or Vista?

Wow, I'm running Premiere with a system really just half of what your's is. A 2.2 Ghz AMD dualcore, 2gig ram, 7800GT video card.

Not trying to rub it in, just doesn't make sense why it isn't running correctly for you.

You sound like a smart person, check the very basics? Motherboard drivers up to date? As well as any other drivers. Which version of Windows are you running? Which version of Premiere?

I'm so effin sick of Premiere I want to hang myself.

I have a 3.25GHZ machine with 4GB RAM and Premiere crashes randomly about 15 times a day.

I have 39 process running on my PC and have turned off everything I can. I run Premiere alone, with no other programs running.



What OS are you running? If you're using XP, I think there may still be a few to many things running in the background - when I start my system I have something like 27 processes running.

You also might want to make sure you don't have a faulty RAM chip. Try other RAM or take out one module at a time and see what happens. I think Microsoft makes some kind of RAM testing utility.

Run a disc check and a ram check. You probably have a bad stick of ram.

Is this machine used exclusively for video, or do you have "other" software installed? Like disk duplicating software, word processing stuff, games, etc? Premiere CS3 was giving me fits until I uninstalled some backup software that was apparently remapping some resources. It was trial and error, kicking stuff out until the problems went away.

I keep one machine for video work only, with only a few items of related software installed (Cinescore, Photoshop, and some sound editing software). It's easily the hottest machine I own, and has very few problems with crashing and locking up, even when I have projects in the 2-3 hour range in the works. I've explained it to my puzzled computer-geek friends that it is a specialist tool, intended to do just one thing, and only that one thing VERY well.

Martin

I'm going to have to side with Yossi, 39 processes is about 10 too many. Sounds like there is quite a bit going on in the background.

It may well be a CPU overheating issue, or even a power supply issue. All kinds of strange things can go wrong when the CPU gets too hot or the power supply stops giving consistent output. When you're rendering, you're giving the CPU a good workout, and it only needs one "bit" to not go where it should...

I think you need to ascertain whether this is a hardware problem or a software problem.

If you Google "Sisoftware Sandra" and download the shareware "free" version of Sisoft, then install it ................


(this may throw up a few "Microsoft Update not applied.....module will not be loaded" messages, which, if you're so minded, will lead you into the bowels of MS whereupon you will trip over the XP SP 3 update, which in turn will necessitate backing up your entire C drive to external, which etc etc - I started investigating this nearly three hours ago!!)

...........and fire up "Burn IN Computer", you set it to hammer your entire system continuously till it either breaks or doesn't.

If it can run for a period substantially greater than that between your Adobe crashes, it's probably not a hardware issue, no guarantee however as I'm not sure at this point whether SiSoft will hammer both hard drives at the same time.

Anyway, if SiSoft (or similar, must be shed loads of these programs out there) can't break your machine, it's probably software, either system or application.

I would visit the Adobe web site and go to the Premier support section and download the relevant "Setting up your PC to work with Premier" download (think there's a few of these).

Like this one:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402172&sliceId=1

It (they) run through just about all and any issues that can cause stability problems/ throughput issues and contain a myriad of tweaks.

They also run through how to stop programs in your Services and Startup list getting fired up, thus keeping those processes under control.

If all of that doesn't stop the shenanigans then it's time for some more head scratching.


CS


PS: XP SP3 seem to be working just f
i
n
e
................

PPS: The Cnet download site....

http://www.download.com/SiSoftware-Sandra/3000-2086_4-10556571.html?part=dl-SiSoftwar&subj=uo&tag=button&cdlPid=10834499

Is this machine used exclusively for video, or do you have "other" software installed? Like disk duplicating software, word processing stuff, games, etc? Premiere CS3 was giving me fits until I uninstalled some backup software that was apparently remapping some resources. It was trial and error, kicking stuff out until the problems went away.

I keep one machine for video work only, with only a few items of related software installed (Cinescore, Photoshop, and some sound editing software). It's easily the hottest machine I own, and has very few problems with crashing and locking up, even when I have projects in the 2-3 hour range in the works. I've explained it to my puzzled computer-geek friends that it is a specialist tool, intended to do just one thing, and only that one thing VERY well.

Martin

Yes, there's other stuff here.

I work in CS3 and have Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects, Flash (all CS3 versions) plus one video game installed. All my Office programs, including Powerpoint, Word and Excel are here, too, as well as ITunes.

I've optimized my system for running Premiere now, and I've defragmented both my discs.

RAM Check and disc check both provided no errors and no new clues.

All drivers are updated, I just basically "rebuilt" this machine two months ago...new CPU, new power source, new video card, new hard drives, basically everything but the motherboard was changed.

I've also turned off some programs running on startup and have 32 processes running now.

I do indeed have 3.2 running and yes, I agree that Cineform would be awesome to run. I'm going to TRY this new configuration for a day or so. Once I get 30GB's of footage loaded to this file and start compiling clips with edits, dissolves and effects, if the fits start again, I'm pulling an Office Space destruction routine on this sucker and am buying a MAC.

I have a 3.25GHZ machine with 4GB RAM and Premiere crashes randomly about 15 times a day.
3.25GHz?

I assume that you have overklocked the processor which is i great way to chrash applications. IE, dont overklock. :)

3.25GHz?

I assume that you have overklocked the processor which is i great way to chrash applications. IE, dont overklock. :)

Yup. I'll try pulling it back, too.

Thanks for all of the help, guys. I think 'were making progress

Craig, Premiere is not the most stable app around, but CS3 is a LOT more stable than PPro 2. I was pulling my hair last year when I got a gig that required cutting 7 minutes from last day musical festival, and PPro 2 crashed like 5 times an hour.

I had it fixed by increasing CPU fan speed in my computer. Isolating your edit bay from internet (and thus avoiding system-invasive apps like antiviruses and firewalls) is also good idea.

Overclocking may work for gaming, but I recommend to stay away from it when working with Adobe apps. They are VERY picky about software and hardware stability.

Dont immediately think that a Mac will solve your problems!

I have been using a 4gb MacBook Pro with the Adobe CS3 Collection for the last 3 months and although I have produced several succesfull videos Premier is very temperamental - I can be editing away for hours and everything is fine and the very next day it will crash every 3-4 minutes and keep this up for the rest of the editing session - it is now at the stage where I manually save everytime I do anything like move a clip or trim audio!

I really like editing with Premier but im considering going with Final Cut Pro one day to see if its similar workflow and no crashing

Craig, Premiere is not the most stable app around, but CS3 is a LOT more stable than PPro 2.

Wow, that seems odd to me. While CS3 has become MUCH more stable through updates, PPro 2 was always rock solid for me. I never worried about it, and it very rarely ever crashed.

One thing I've learned about PPro (and most NLEs) is that it really works best on a dedicated system. I've got a workstation and a laptop that do nothing more then editing (and capturing through OnLocation on the laptop), and I have very few problems. Both were built with editing in mind.

Late to the party, but here's my experience with HDV. It can work, but not always. I run a 6600 Quad core with 4Gb RAM. There is nothing, repeat nothing loaded on it that's not critical to production. CS3, Colorvision, Contour (shuttle), printer driver, QT, Sound Forge and that's about it. All software and rivers are up to date.

HDV will work as long as you don't do much more than cut it. Color correction, multi-camera editing, tricky effects will eventually cause everything to go pear shaped. I did an 11 minute "webisode" in HDV for a race track I shoot for and everything went pretty well. You can see the results here: http://www.vimeo.com/1240445, but it's pretty simple stuff.

I originally cutting the races in HDV but it was crash, crash crash. I was losing a day a week to damage control. Went back to DV and got almost two days back which was good and delivery was SD DVD anyway, so nothing's really lost.

So... I'll cut something short and simple in HDV, but refuse to do anything longer. Can't wait until next month when my friend wants me to shoot his wedding in HD. As for Cineform, I've tried it three different times over the last six months and while it may be a good product, on Vista it's junk. It causes as many problems as it solves and their support team (which I think is one guy) has an average four business day response time with me. YMMV, but I cannot afford to have my business flat on its back that long. Cineform may work very well for some but no one gave me the secret decoder ring and I will not touch Cineform unless they change their SOP big time.

That's my experience, but then you may not want to be me.

I've got to say that my HDV experience has been far less painful. I've cut a couple short films both close to 20 minutes with effects, titles, you name it. I had very few problems - none that I can think of with one. The most annoying thing was just the long load time for the projects. And I'm working with native HDV in PPro - no Cineform.

Ppro 3 crashed ALL the time for me. Then I changed over to x64; aside from working out a few kinks with Cineform (they were very helpful) Ppro hardly ever crashes anymore and the performance increase is huge. I also get to use the entirety of my 4GB of RAM, which is definitely crucial in longer projects.

... Then I changed over to x64...
Tempting thought based on your and others' opinions but I have fundamental problems moving to an environment that is unsupported by an application software vendor.

What I wish would happen is that Adobe would simply make CS3 work on Vista. I do get better results when editing HDV on my XP laptop. Those who recommend "upgrading" from Vista to XP may have cracked the secret code.

I have PPro CS3 working on both an XP workstation and a laptop running Vista. It runs both great in both systems, however the laptop with Vista is pretty much dedicated to editing and production (using OnLocation, AE, Photoshop, etc.) so that might be why it works so well there.

Eric... My desktop Vista machine is dedicated and has problems. My XP laptop has everything on it plus a dirty sock and runs like a deer. Go figure.

Sometimes it just sucks being me.

One thing about PPro 2 is that it has never ever crashed on me without first saving the project and thus numerous hours of work. It was very stable anyway.

When CS3 crashes, it hardly ever saves your work, usually just immediately closes. Not nice. Much more stable with 3.2.0 update, but still is not as good as old PPro 2.

Plus the fact that so many effects from PPro 2 are left out of CS3 is a shame. This actually makes some of my projects not workable in CS3.

I do a lot of troubleshooting of video systems for a living, and I have to say, that 99% of all "it's always crashing" faults are hardware related.

Usually either overclocking or a bad RAM stick.

Here's a couple of really easy things you can do right now.

Step1.
STOP OVERCLOCKING! :-) see if it makes a difference. Overclocking is great for gamers, but you're a serious professional - it's just not worth the hassle for a (maybe) 10% improvement.

Step2.
Take out half your ram, so it's only running on 2gb. See if it makes a difference. If there's no difference, then put it back in, and take out the other half. If it makes a difference, then you know it's a bad bit of ram you have.

Not enough memory doesn't crash healthy computers, it just slows them down. You can run windows in 256mb RAM, but it's just really slow, it doesn't crash.

now finally, say sorry to Premiere for your thread title. :-)

good luck!

I have been using Premiere since 4.2 and today CS3 or CS4 is coming soon. Hardware is the may problem with video editing. SD or HDV is based on hardware setup. For the past, I used to setup my own PC. Now I switch to DELL. So far so good in production studio CS3.

Cache for Premiere is on the C drive. Files are captured on the E drive, both audio and video.


Why Premiere cache files on C drive?. Those are video files, should be on the E drive.

Try Vegas before going to Mac. Longtime Premiere User, CS3 was much worse than CS2 for me, and slower as well. Vegas performance is stellar although I've had problems with 24f footage from XHA1, which I used intermediate files for DV performance with HDV and then swap the HDV files in for render (Gearshift) with "Great Success". Try the free Vegas trial.

For what it's worth, I noticed that you have ITunes installed. I was having some big time problems with compatibility between Vista and ITunes. I had to keep deleting the lower and upper filters in my registry in order for my CD/DVD player/writer to work. I was having some sluggishness problems too. I finally gave up and just deleted ITunes altogether and everything is working fine for me now. You might try deleting ITunes or at the very least go in to your registry and do a search for "lowerfilters" (one word) and deleting them and do another search for "upperfilters" (one word) and deleting those. You will need to restart after you do that. I heard a rumor that Apple was working on a fix for that and that they were close to releasing something. I haven't checked to see if that has happened. Good luck.