Adobe Premiere Pro CC is one of the leading computer programs for video editing. Premiere Pro has a sleek, modern interface that is continually being updated to fix bugs, but same as with all computer programs, certain problems can arise. In today’s blog post, we share tips from video editing experts on how to optimize Premiere Pro’s performance and fix common problems.
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Most Common Premiere Problems 2023
If you want to learn about the common problems of Premiere Pro and how to solve them, you have come to the right place! This quick guide to troubleshooting Premiere Pro problems shares suggestions from video producers for how to fix common issues such as:
- Slow rendering
- Can’t apply warp stabilizer
- Frequent crashing
- Failed exports
- Trouble importing
- Can’t unnest video clips
- Media is offline
- Video clips wrong size in the timeline
Before we get started with our tips for how to optimize Premiere Pro, we want to mention that Adobe announced in February of 2023 that both Premiere and After Effects may crash on computers with NVIDIA graphics drivers due to a problem with NVIDIA game-ready drivers 531.18 and 531.26. This issue may also cause Apple ProRes RAW playback in Adobe applications to show black frames. To workaround, roll back to the previous studio driver version 528.49.
1. Problems with Warp Stabilizer
Warp stabilizer is one of the most popular features of Premiere Pro. It is used to correct shaky footage and usually has pretty amazing results. The downside is that using the warp stabilizer too much can cause slow playback and rendering due to the processing power it requires.
One of the common problems of Premiere Pro that editors run into is not being able to apply warp stabilizer. The error message reads:
“Warp Stabilizer requires clip to match sequence (fix by nesting)”
The warp stabilizer can not work properly if the clips in the sequence are not roughly the same size. If you have a 4k clip in 1080 sequence or vice versa, you will not be able to apply the stabilizer. You also cannot apply a warp stabilizer to clips that have been modified, such as with a speed effect.
Luckily there is an easy fix; all you need to do is nest the clips together. When you right-click on the video clips to create a nest in the sequence, you can count on the nest to automatically adjust to the ideal sequence resolution.
2. Importing Footage with Drag & Drop
Premiere Pro makes it easy to import footage with a convenient drag & drop feature. A common problem that editors run into is that when they try to drag & drop a file into the timeline, it does not work.
The latest versions of Premiere Pro use a “patching” system. You can find the patch selection buttons on the left side of the clips in the timeline. Make sure that both the A1 and V1 buttons are turned on and highlighted in blue, otherwise you may only be able to import either audio or video.
You may be wondering why this feature exists in the first place. It is mainly so that if you want to import B-roll footage into the sequence, you can just import the video clips without the audio.
3. Media Offline
If you ever get an error screen in Premiere Pro that says “media offline”, do not panic! This is a common editing problem in Premiere that is easy to fix. The reason why this happens is usually that files have been moved from one location to another and Premiere is unable to locate them. When one project is being worked on by multiple editors, this can happen a lot.
To fix the media offline screen in Premiere, you need to help the program locate the lost files. To re-link the lost media, you have two options. The first is to close the program and use the media location window from the start screen to link the footage. The second way to fix it is to press CMD/CTRL+A and then right-click to find the “link media” feature.
4. Utilize Cloud Computing with Vagon
One of the most effective solutions for tackling common problems in Premiere Pro is to use cloud PCs. In recent years, cloud computing has evolved from a storage system to a platform capable of handling GPU-intensive tasks.
If you’re tired of dealing with frequent crashes while editing in Premiere Pro, it’s time to use a supercomputer. By using Vagon, you can access high-performance remote desktops that effortlessly handle your editing tasks, ensuring a seamless and crash-free experience. Goodbye to interruptions and welcome faster, smoother editing sessions.
5. Unnesting Video Footage
Editors may get frustrated when they right-click on a nest and do not see an option to unnest the clips. If you have just made the nest, hit CTRL+Z to undo it. If unnesting the clips would undo a large amount of work, the best thing to do is to click into the nest and then copy and paste the original clips. You can then paste them back into the timeline in their unnested format.
Photo by Sanjeev Nagaraj on Unsplash
6. Mis-Matched Clip Sizes
Sometimes you need to edit footage that is recorded in multiple resolutions in the same project. The rule of thumb for working with multiple clip sizes is to create the sequence in the resolution that the majority of the files are in. You want to try to preserve high-resolution files as much as possible, so it is better to scale down than to scale up the footage.
7. Program Crashes or Slow Rendering
Adobe Premiere Pro is a graphics-intensive software that allows cross-platform integration. To optimize Premiere Pro for the best performance, you need to make it easier on your computer to run the program. You can do this in a few different ways:
- Delete media cache files
Preferences > Media Cache > Delete
- Turn off GPU acceleration
File > Project Settings > General > Video Rendering and Playback
- Reset Premiere Pro preferences
Press ALT (PC) or Option (Mac) while launching the application
- Check for software updates
- Export with Adobe Media Encoder
- Edit using proxy files
- Close and reopen the program
We hope that our list of the common problems of Premiere Pro and how to solve them has been helpful to you! Graphics-intensive professional editing software like Premiere Pro usually needs a powerful computer to run smoothly. If you continue to have problems with Premiere Pro, you might consider editing using Vagon’s in-browser supercomputer. Vagon empowers video editors to use any software without system limitations.
