Adobe Media Encoder freezing

[Marco Leavitt]

AME worked great when I first installed it, and now it always freezes when the job is about 3/4 through. I tried re-installing and no dice. Any ideas? I'm using a fairly slow machine (2011 Mac mini) which will only support the software encoder. My problems started mysteriously about three weeks ago. I had been using MPEG Streamclip for years and it suddenly started freezing, so I switched to another cheap app whose name I can't remember because I unistalled fairly quickly as it also just froze on me. So I downloaded AME because I was paying for the CC suite anyway and at first I loved it. Now it's just not working. If the program doesn't freeze the time remaining clock starts counting up at some point. I've tried leaving it on all night and it makes no progress. I'm just trying to encode clips of about an hour and a half in length for Youtube, so I'm not doing anything that should be too difficult. Footage is sourced and outputted at 720p. Any suggestions on what to try? It seems odd that so many programs that perform the same task would suddenly be failing on me. I was hoping to put off upgrading my machine until next year, but is it just the end of the road?

[Battle Vaughan]

Check your hard drive(s) to see if they have used a major amount of their capacity. Had similar problems once due to not enough drive space for temp files and such.

Update: Just had a FB comment from a former colleague --- very experienced and expert professional --- complaining about the same problem. Responders to his post said they have experienced the same thing recently. His workaround, copy to new sequence then reboot computer --- seemed to work. May be an Adobe problem.....although if you have similar problems with other apps (mpegStreamclip is solid and has always been trouble-free for me) I re-iterate the possibility of too-full storage....

[Marco Leavitt]

First thing I did was clear off as much space as possible and it didn't work. I tried moving the source files to the desktop and disconnecting all other drives and it still didn't work. Then I figured, how could the same thing be happening with three different pieces of software? The only thing in common seemed to be the source file, so I re-outputted from FCP that an lo and behold Streamclip was working again. Didn't try AME, but I'll start with that on the next job. Very strange, nothing seems to be wrong with the original file. Plays fine in any player with no errors. Maybe it's time to move on to Premiere I guess. Thanks for the response!

[Andrew Smith]

Retrograde back to CS6. It's what I elected to stay on rather than pay rental, and it works. :-)

Andrew

[Mike Watson]

When I have trouble with Encoder, I find a direct export out of Premiere works fine. I for one am just glad I get to pay monthly to be a beta tester and establish workarounds like this one. I couldn't wait to dump AVID when Final Cut Pro came into favor, and I will be the first one diving off of the Adobe train when someone comes up with a competing product.

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Mike Watson

...I will be the first one diving off of the Adobe train when someone comes up with a competing product.

Have you taken a good look at DaVinci Resolve lately? The 12.5 version looks pretty sweet. And the price is right. The free version has some restrictions however, like no support for control surfaces or 3D, or collaborative work (like someone editing while someone is grading, or an assistant is doing pre-grade cleanups, etc.). No biggie for a one-man-band like me.