How is this possible?

[M***@adobeforums.com]

I have PPro 1.5 set to auto save every 6 minutes.

At 1:50PM today (ET) Premiere Pro 1.5 simply stopped. It did not bomb with a serious error. It simply vanished while it was doing an auto-save. I have over 40GB of space where the project is saved. The most recent auto save of my project was at 1:16PM and I had been working on the same project and opened since 12:30PM. So if PPro did an auto save every 6 minutes, I should have had a saved version from about 1:22PM, 1:28PM, 1:34:PM , 1:40PM, and 1:46PM, that is 5 auto-saves that are "missing" before PPro crapped out. My last normally saved version was at 1:25PM, which is a surprising long time. I would have bet money that I had saved no more than 5 minutes before it crapped out.

Why isn't PPro auto-saving? How can PPro simply vanish?

The vanishing act during auto-save has happened before. It appears to become more frequent as my project grows. Early on in this project, I had zero bomb-offs or vanishes. Now, they are becoming more prevalent and this is why I am saving more often. How can PPro not auto-save when it is supposed to?

[E***@adobeforums.com]

Mike, give Adobe a call. If this is a problem with PPro they will not charge you.Cheers
Eddie
Forum FAQ <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.2ccd4455> PPro Wiki <http://ppro.wikicities.com/>

[M***@adobeforums.com]

Really, how do I call them? Do I call the pay per call tech support line?

thanks.

[E***@adobeforums.com]

Mike, yes.Cheers
Eddie
Forum FAQ <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.2ccd4455> PPro Wiki <http://ppro.wikicities.com/>

[M***@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, I will do this tomorrow morning.

[j***@adobeforums.com]

The only times that has happened to me was when I had 512MB of RAM. When I added another 512MB, it stopped. Adobe Premiere (even 5.1) didn't gracefully handle being out of memory - they just went away with no error message. If you blinked, you would miss it.

If you have 1GB of RAM already, what are your Virtual Memory values?
I have 1GB but set my Virtual as 2000MB min and 2000MB max. (making them the same value means the swap file doesn't contribute to disk fragmentation because it never moves or adjusts)

[M***@adobeforums.com]

I've got 2GB of RAM on this machine. I'll have to check what I have my VM set to, but I think it is also 2GB-2GB. I can tell you that when this has happened that I was likely using a lot of RAM at the time. I know that I had the Bridge opened and PSCS2 at the time. And after PPro 1.5 disappeared, I had a hard time closing these other applications and the task manager said that I was using over 1GB of memory with just these two apps open and almost nothing else running. I had to do a hard bounce of the box to get it to respond afterwords, I think.

[M***@adobeforums.com]

As I work on this project and it becomes more and more complicated. PPro becomes more and more unstable. Now it is very repeatable that PPro will bomb EVERY time an auto-save starts while a render is in progress. There are some serious issues with auto save. I think that I simply need to go back to not using an auto save and remembering to save my project after every edit. But since my project file is now over 25MB, it is a bit slow to do this.

The other problem that PPRo has now is that when I render, I have to render each clip by itself. PPro simply stops rendering after each video segment after it has bombed and before the next reboot.

As we all start to think how we are going to edit HD, I am seriously thinking that Adobe simply does not have a reliable enough NLE to edit complex sequences or large files. It is very reliable for small projects. But the larger the project gets, the more unreliable the program is.

[R***@adobeforums.com]

Mike, your results are simply not typical. I edit two hour long projects with hundreds of elements on a system that is connected to the internet and runs 24/7 -- and never crash.

Something in your system is misconfigured or inadequate -- anything from a bad RAM chip to a flakey power supply or an evil TSR ...

GB

[M***@adobeforums.com]

I would agree that my results are not typical. But neither are the type of projects that I do. I use a lot of effects. This project has at least 8 hours of footage and hundreds of clips and edits. The length of time of the overall project has little to to the frequency of the problem. But the amount of edits and effects appear to. When I first started editing this project with all of the footage loaded, everything was stable. But the more edits that were made, the more problems PPro had.

If I had bad ram, wouldn't this problem show up in the event log? And wouldn't it show up on 10 hour+ AE renders? I never have these problems using AE or Photoshop, never. Are your two hour projects over 20 MB in size? I'm going to start editing on another machine to see if the same project has the same issues. If so, I do not think we can blame hardware. I can go back to the same project files when I first started this project and edit without problems. If this were a hardware issue, editing using the same source files without as many edits should also produce bomb-offs. It is simply not logical that a project with the same source files and less edits would run smoother than one with more if I had a hardware issue.

And this is not the only project were I have experienced these same issues that increase in frequency with more edits and effects. I used to use a Matrox RTX-100 and everyone blamed my issues on this card. Me too. But now I know differently. After I start editing with a new machine and the problem happens, I will be absolutely sure of what I am now convinced.

[e***@gmail.com]

Ok, I am having the serious errors message on a machine I've used to
edit over 30 programs on. I too use a RTX 100 card and was blamming the
problem on that. It all started while batch capturing a new project and
know I can't run anything without the system going to error. Did not
change anything from previous project. Any ideas?

[R***@adobeforums.com]

Mike, my projects are often huge -- 100GB of source file DV.avi, hundreds of stills, every still with PnP effects, colour correction, motion keys, audio effects, titles, output to WMV files, DVD MPEG2 and DV.avi -- hundreds of edits, effects and titles. Multiple layers, with each shot measured in seconds.

It is my conclusion, based on the problems expressed here, that the most likely source of your problem is a system build or configuration error. JHMO, but my experience with big projects is clearly quite different from yours.

Cheers,
GB

[M***@adobeforums.com]

GB, my source project files are well over 100GB in size, but that is not what I was mentioning. How big are your "project files", not "source" files. While it is comforting to know that PPro "can" work for length, complex projects, your experiences do not preclude issues with the software.

I just love how people simply blame the "computer" rather than the software because the problem does not happen to "them". Before you conclude that the computer is at fault, please explain away the inconsistencies I mentioned in my last post that would preclude a system problem, otherwise your "conclusions" are meaningless to me. If you have something constructive to state in this thread that might lead to some incite into my problem, I'm all for hearing it. But if all you want to say is "I do the same as you and I don't have any issues", then you are not helping much.

With over 18 years of software development and management, and with annual budgets in excess of 4 million dollars to develop and maintain software, I do have some experience in identifying software problems when I encounter them. The final proof will be when I port over this problem project to another problem free machine and have the same problems. If there are problems here as well, will I also hear that "it must be with your computer"?

[R***@adobeforums.com]

Do what you want. As I work with very large projects, and have not had problems it was my intent to suggest you look at issues unique to your system as it is safe to say the software is identical.

You did in fact mention the size of your source files, describing it as eight hours of material -- this is the 'trigger' that generates very large project files.

It is clear from reading this forum that your problems are not typical -- so either your usage is unique or your system is problematic. I have no desire to argue with you, and if you find nothing useful in my answers ... I can only wish you good luck. I have no stake in Adobe, and if you can identify a problem with the software that would seem to be a positive step for all.

Cheers,
GB

[j***@adobeforums.com]

Mike, take a look in the Task Manager when you have your monster project loaded. How much virtual memory is being used? Is it trending up? Is your virtual memory a fixed amount or does Windows auto control the size? You never mentioned how much RAM you have, the size and layout of your drives, whether or not you have an RTX.100 board; so many things.

While I've never managed software development projects, I work with computer hardware. Based soley on the little bit of info you've given, I would come to the same conclusions as GB. PPro works your RAM to the point of overload. If it isn't plentiful, perfect "to the bit" and cool, it will do exactly what you describe - it will go "poof," especially during auto-saves.

You problem is not unheard of - it has happened to me before I increased my RAM and put heat spreaders on the RAM modules. I also set my Virtual Memory to a fixed, large amount, but that may only reduce fragmentation, not crashes. My suggestion to Adobe would be to "Pause" ongoing threads just before doing an Auto-Save, or delay an Auto-Save until rendering completes, or for you to Disable the Auto-Save. Honestly, Auto-save has never saved me from anything.

JonB