What project caused the crashes?
I just completed a long, complex documentary about the Covid disease. It is 72 GB of media in 69 folders. The project had 15 sequences. Why was Premiere Pro Crashing? I don’t have the exact answer but it has to do with the compatibility of the MacOS and the version of Premiere Pro.
System Compatibility
I work on an iMac 5K, 27” with 32 GB of RAM that is about 4 years old. I had High Sierra. I experienced many crashes. My computer would lock up. I couldn’t force quit any app and had to power off the computer loosing any changes to the timeline since my last save. This was unnerving because I had 5 video tracks and 5 audio tracks in my final 2 sequences of the film; hard to recall all the minor changes to the timeline.
I had updated Premiere Pro to 2020. I’ve learned recently that two experienced editors are still using 2019. The first Adobe support person gained access to my computer and deleted many items in the Activity Monitor app found in the Utilities folder. He said he fixed the problem. It locked up again. The second Adobe support person told me that the 2020 version is more compatible with MacOS Catalina, so I upgraded the OS. Crash! The third Adobe support person told me that the 2020 version runs best on Mojave. He exported my Premiere Pro project file and saved it on my desktop. I was told to call Apple and they walked me through the frightening steps to erase my computer. Luckily I had a recent Time Machine backup when running High Sierra. Then I did the update to Mojave. I opened the “’exported Project” that had only the one final sequence. I learned that with the new versions of Premiere I could open two projects at the same time, then I could copy the other sequences from my original project into the new “exported” Project. Editing with this exported project with less sequences did not cause any crashes.
These incompatibility issues between Apple’s OS and Adobe set me back about 4 days, not to mention the stress it caused when trying to complete a huge three month long project.
No More Legacy Title; Using the Graphics tab
After updating to 2020 my text layers drew warning signs. All text had to be redone. I was forced to use the Graphics tab which I was not familiar with. I did a tutorial to learn the basics. I must admit that using the graphics tab for text had some advantages. I was able to make a lower third title that has “responsive design” and I saved the template. The person’s name and/or title and a background solid would expand to accommodate a longer name when typed in and kept the same motion settings to slide on and off the screen. I only added a narrow grey bar behind the name and it expanded to match the length of the name.
Since running Premiere 2020 with MacOS Mojave I have not had a crash, however, Media Encoder suddenly shut down while exporting a short sequence for a new, simple project.
The Apple rep said that due to the multiple issues with Catalina they are working on a new OS called BigSur that should be out in a few months.
The Covid documentary can be seen in my Video Gallery from the home page menu.
Link to the video on this website: https://www.johntrotto.com/video/arizona-video-production/