Numerous issues - reinstall?

[dsttexas]

In Project Assets panel, I dragged in movie clips from Organizer but some not in sequence by date or filename. I sort on Name to reorder then if I expand a clip into it's multiple segments, the sort order goes back to where it was when I dragged in clips. The delete button or delete key does not work in Project Assets. Upon shutting down and starting up again, all the Project Assets are lost.

The timeline zoom in, out, or slider does not work at all, in either Expert or Quick Mode. The "fit visible" button in Quick mode will either expand to individual clips, or fit all to visible timeline. In Expert mode it just shows two slightly different variations of fitting into visible timeline. Almost impossible to work with it this way.

EVERY time I save, then exit the program, it gets a "Adobe Premiere Elements 11 has stopped working - close program", and I have to force close it.

I don't see these problems anywhere in the Forum, so suspect a re-install is needed. I'm suspicious that my PREL file may be messed up as a result of all this so may have to start the project all over again. Yuk!

What do you all think?
Don

[Steve Grisetti]

Nope. You've definitely got a wild one there, dsttexas.

Have you tried some simple troubleshooting? For instance, does the program act buggy before you add any clips to your project?

What model of camcorder is your video coming from and what format and resolution is it? What happens if you leave the Organizer out of the mix and just add a couple of these clips directly to Premiere Elements? Do you see the buggy behavior then?

Meantime, I assume you've gone to Windows Update and downloaded all of the non-critical updates and that you've got the latest version of Quicktime. I also assume you've run Disk Cleanup and your Defragmenter and that you occasionally run a registry cleaner like CCleaner? Just to keep that very old operating system in good working order. (I also check my programs list in the Control Panel once in a while, to make sure no rogue program has snuck in. And I personally stay away from programs by Norton and even McAfee.)

Version 11 is not without its strangeness -- but we're seeing it mostly on Windows 8 and Macs with Retina display. And it's rare to hear of the kind of problems you're describing. Our challenge, then is to work with it as conservatively as possible, adding and element at a time until we figure out when it goes bad on us.

[dsttexas]

My previous post signature had an old PC configuration in it. Currently using Dell Vostro quad core i7 Win7 64 bit at latest levels and all reasonably clean.

Update: I tried starting a new project, used Project Asset panel to get all my Canon EOS t2i .mov clips from hard drive (captured previously using Prel 11). I first dragged a dozen clips to timeline from project panel, and timeline zoom features worked normal. I then dragged the rest over as well (total 166), giving me just over an hour and 15 minutes of total video on the time line, and timeline zoom no longer works, in either Quick or Expert mode. I save, exited (this time no crash) and when restarted the project panel assets were all gone, and timeline issues remained.

I then deleted clips from the timeline reducing project to about 20 minutes. Same problems, no change. Another issue is that the pause button has no effect, it temporarily freezes then starts playing again. This time when I exited, it crashed again.

And once I whittle down and edit the video clips (probably to less than half hour total), I have 744 photos to sort through and intersperse (probably use less than 15% of them). I expect final video to be just over an hour to fit on a DVD.

Yes, it is a big project. Perhaps too big for PrEl?

However, I then opened another new project, brought ONE clip into Project Assets, drug it to timeline. The dead pause button issue returned, and when I closed (it crashes again) and reopened the project, the clip was gone from the assets panel.

Don

[Steve Grisetti]

I guess it wasn't clear that you also had so many photos in your project! They may definitely be your bottleneck.

Have you resized all of the photos in this project to no larger than 2000x1500 pixels in size? This will definitely allow the program to function more efficiently. And be sure to render your timeline whenever you see the yellow lines above your clips in Expert view!

BTW, speaking of the yellow line, are you seeing this yellow line above your movie clips as well? Premiere Elements 11 usually automatically matches your project settings to those of the first clip on your timeline. However, it can sometimes have trouble reading the project specs of .mov files.

If that's the case (and, if you are seeing yellow lines above your clips when you add them to your timeline) then you'll need to start a new project and manually set the project settings. This camera shoots video in a variety resolutions and frame rates, so you'll have to determine what mode you're shooting your video in first. At its highest quality, for instance, its shoots H264 at 1920x1080 30fps -- in which case, when you start your Premiere Elements project, you would select the settings for a DSLR 1080p30.

Set up your project to match your video specs, keep your photo sizes optimized and render whenever you see the yellow lines above your timeline in Expert view and you should get excellent performance and results.

[dsttexas]

None of the photos had yet to be loaded to the project. I had already sized them down to 2000x1500 for this HD video project, as your book recommends, but only added a few in my testing of the issues.

I purposely loaded just a few HD video clips at first, then checked the settings, and it was DSLR 1080 30p. When I loaded a bunch more and let Smart Fix work, it adjusted a few clips that were taken inside with low lighting and those had the yellow lines over them.

However, I did try a variety of tests using New Project each time, and with only one or just enough clips to test the timeline zoom, and got more of the same issues. Some times the timeline zoom would work, and sometimes the pause button would work, but switching back and forth between Quick and Expert and the problems returned. Closing and reopening the projects would sometimes result is crash on closing, but every time the project assets panel was empty upon opening.

The clips all play fine, both in PrEl and in other .mov players, so I don't suspect them. Having these problems with very simple projects suggest that anything more complex would be even worse.

My conclusion was as originally thought, that something is wrong with the installation so I uninstalled and am now in the process of re-installing. Will re-post with results.

Don

[Steve Grisetti]

So you're saying you are or are not seeing yellow lines above your video clips in Expert view?

If you are, try one more thing, Don, if you would.

Make copies of a bunch of these video clips and change the suffix at the end from .mov to .m2t. This often allows the program to better identify and interpret the videos. See if that gives you any better performance -- and if it eliminates the yellow lines above the video clips on your timeline.

Meantime, you didn't say, but I assume you've done all of the updates and maintenance I recommend above. When you're working with a program as intensive as Premiere Elements, any instabilities in your operating system will be magnified.

[dsttexas]

The yellow lines only appeared over those 2 clips that Smart Fix changed due to low lighting. All others were normal.

Yes, all maintenance and updates were done before I started this project - Win7 64bit and drivers are latest, Quicktime is latest, etc. CCleaner latest version was run.

So I then did do an uninstall and re-install of PrEl 11. No issues with that.

I then changed the filenames on some .mov clips to .m2t as you suggested.

Test 1: Opened a new project, loaded 3 .m2t clips, and all seemed to work. Closed and reopened and project files were still there. Loaded 5 more clips (total 1 min 30 seconds of video now), and all previous problems returned - timeline zoom non functional, pause button just hiccups then starts playing again. Closed project and it crashed. Reopened and all project files were gone and above symptoms remained.

Test 2: Opened a new project, loaded same first 3 m2t files, rendered them, and all seemed ok in both Quick and Expert mode. Closed and no crash. Reopened same project, project files are missing and all the same symptoms returned. Closed that project and it crashed.

All the m2t clips play fine in Windows Live Movie Maker. m2t files in Windows Media Player won't play sound, but .mov versions work fine.

Test 3: Opened Premiere Elements ver 10, new project, set presets to DSLR 1080 29.9 and loaded all the 8 m2t clips and all works fine. Looks like I may have to proceed on version 10 unless something can be figured out with ver 11. Any other ideas?

Don

[Steve Grisetti]

Sorry no. You've clearly got some sort of instability going on at some level intensity -- but it's hard to say why. Have you tested your RAM? Windows has a diagnostic tool. Just click Start and type Memory Diagnostic to launch the tool.

And do you have any programs like Norton 360 running? What antivirus program are you running?

Sorry to be just throwing out random suggestions, but an i7 running Windows 7 Pro with 6 gig of RAM should run without a hiccup. And Premiere Elements 11, which runs at 64-bit, should also have no problems handle heavy loads of video. I'm kind of stumped what could be at work here.

[dsttexas]

The memory test showed no errors. Disabling Norton 360 antivirus and firewall didn't change anything. In all other ways, the laptop and Windows has been rock solid with great performance. I think I will move on with using PrEl ver 10 for now to get this project done, and look into PrEl ver 11 again later.

Thanks for your suggestions. This is a weird one.

Don

[Steve Grisetti]

So you do have Norton 360? That could be significant, as many people have reported that Norton 360 sometimes treats Premiere Elements like a virus (particularly newer versions of the program, which do a lot of communicating with with Adobe, similar to what a virus would do). Disabling Norton would not be enough to sidestep this. In fact, removing Norton 360 from your system can be a major task. So it's up to you if you think it's worth it. (Or we can see what other Muvipixers recommend.)

And which antivirus program are you using?

[dsttexas]

I uninstalled Norton 360 using Windows, and ran Norton Uninstaller. Completed ok.
Installed Microsoft Security Essentials so not to be without any protection.
Uninstalled Premiere Elements 11.
Re-installed Premiere Elements 11.
All ok, no problems.

Test 1:
Opened new project, used Expert mode project assets panel, right click to add media from PC.
Loaded all my .mov clips, let Smart Fix work. Total of all clips resulted in 1hr 15 minutes of video.
Had 11 clips with yellow line, due to Smart Fix updating clips with indoor low lighting. Rendered timeline.
At first, timeline zoom worked, play/pause worked in both Quick and Expert modes. Then all the symptoms returned.
Timeline zoom no longer functional, pause resulted in brief pause and immediate playing again.
Saved project, Closed. Resulted in timeline and monitor being emptied and hung with empty panels showing. "Unresponsive" forced close.
Re-opened project, project assets panel was empty, other symptoms still there.
Closed and hung again the same way.

Test 2:
Opened new project, used Quick mode add media to get only a dozen clips, about 2 minutes of video.
Again worked fine for only a brief period then all symptoms returned.
Saved, Closed and it crashed as it did in previous posts.

Test 3:
Renamed 5 clips from .mov to .m2t
Opened new project, loaded clips, all had yellow lines, rendered them.
All worked fine back and forth between Quick and Expert.
Saved and Closed ok
Re-opened, Project assets empty, timeline and pause issues all returned.
Closed and it crashed again.

Whatever is going on has nothing to do with Norton since it was gone.

This is really frustrating. Looks like ver 11 is just not going to cut it for me.

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm really sorry, Don. This is unlike anything I've experienced with version 11 -- and I've been testing it on three different computers! I'm just not sure what else to say or do.

If you've got a Dropbox account and you could share some of these .mov files with me, I'll be glad to test drive them on my system(s) and see if they're at the root of the problem and what we can do about that.

MOV files are a bit harder for Premiere Elements to decode than .m2t, .avi and .mp4 files. But, even if the project settings are not matching your video specs, you shouldn't be seeing this type of instability! Not with an i7 running Windows 7 with 6 gig of RAM!

So if you'd like to share some of these files, I'll be glad to dissect them and see what I can learn. But other than that, I just wish I had an afternoon with your computer so I could run some diagnostics on it and do some bug hunting. It really should be much easier than this, Don. And I'm really sorry this is such a struggle.

Meantime, you may want to download the free trial of Sony Movie Studio. It's not quite as user-friendly as Premiere Elements, but it's a very stable product. The free trial is fully functional -- so, if you get the same instability issues with it, we'll know it's either your video files or something loopy on your system.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope

[Dave McElderry]

My own experiences are much like Steve's. I've found V11 to be the most stable and forgiving version yet. I regularly throw over a hundred high res photos into a project without bothering to resize and I never have issues. And additionally I just finished mixing AVCHD and iPhone video and it never even hiccupped. I can't imagine what's going on here.

[dsttexas]

I tried another test, remembering that I had re-installed Premiere (without Norton being active) from the previously downloaded files (that were downloaded with Norton active). So I stopped Norton, then both re-downloaded and re-installed without Norton being active, but same problems remained. I did notice the file dates on all the Premiere files were Sept 2012, and it says no updates are available, so the original shipped version is what we are all running.

I also remembered that Steve said to change the .mov files to .m2t, which I tried earlier by just changing the file type - which is not the same as converting mov to m2t. So I purchased Movapi, and converted mov to m2ts files, and to avi files as well.

Started a new project, loaded in the m2ts clips, and at first things all ran pretty good. I noticed the project settings said DSLR 1080p at 25 fps (not 29.97). Then saved, closed with no errors. Reopened project and we're back to same issues - no project assets, timeline and pause problems. When I closed this time, it crashed like before.

Started new project, loaded avi clips. Noticed all the clips in project assets panel had sound icons, and when dragged to timeline only had audio, no video at all. Maybe this was a conversion issue with movapi video converter, don't know.

So I'm guessing my problems have nothing to do with my video clips themselves - whether mov or m2ts formats, but some other unique system conflict issue that no one else is seeing.

I did work about 2 hours editing videos in Release 10 using original mov files with no problems at all, opened and closed several times. I did some online reviewing of Sony Movie Studio Platinum Suite, and went ahead and purchased it. I will play with it when I get it, and decide to proceed either with it or PrEl ver 10.

Thanks for the various suggestions.
Don