Another miserable issue with Premiere 'Pro' CS4 Any advice?

[Superfly]

Well, I installed CS3 and 4 both on 2 different computers before I got my new one.  I thought maybe CS3/4 sucked so bad because I was using HP although Adobe recommends HP themselves.

I bought a Dell i7 8 core, 3 gigs RAM, blah, blah.....CS4 worked great for about 3 months, then all of a sudden it would no longer export to ME.  I found out that I was able to pull projects into ME from a Premiere project file but that left all kinds of dead space.

Bottom line, the Jury is now in and it's Adobe, guilty of 3 counts of industrial espionage perpetrated against video professionals. 

I have now done a system restore to before the last Windows Update and attempted to uninstall and reinstall but it did not help.  Now I have to re-activate.  What a nightmare.

A helpful guy at Creativecow.com gave me a link to a massive page of troubleshooting tips, some of which I don't even understand and regardless it would probably take me a couple full days to go through it.

Sony Vegas 8 does not preview nearly as well, it does not appear to use more than 1 core but at least it works.  Will I be forced to re-learn how to edit again on Vegas?

Is there an Apple computer in my future?

I just need to be editing, I am not a computer tech.

Any advice?

Todd

[HankCastello]

Todd,  I've been using CS4 PP on a Vista 64 3.0Ghz machine for about a year now (I'll have to check and see when I wrote the article about building the computer).  It does crash a couple times a day and AE won't run more than a few minutes, but other than that and other than my big complaint that they dropped Ultra, I haven't had any serious issues.

What is ME and why are you trying to import into it?

[Superfly]

Hey Hank,

I successfully reinstalled the program and it works fine but the one problem persists.  I believe it's something to do with the Dynamic Link (DLL?) that sends info from the timeline to Media Encoder (ME)

It ran fine for me as well until one day I could no longer send objects form the timeline to Media Encoder.  I can open projects directly into ME but this method does not allow one to send pieces of the timeline to ME. 

We'll get it figured out  .  Working around it for the moment using Vegas. 

Cheers,

Todd

[ampsonic]

Does anyone here edit with Final Cut on a mac?

[HankCastello]

Ya know what?  I had that very same problem once.  It happened right after I'd installed another program that must've messed something up.  I uninstalled the program, then restored my windoze settings to the previous day.  That fixed it.

With CS4, if you can't get the project to media encoder, you're sunk!

[trevor]

I use a mac and FCP!!! But lets not get this stared again! haha

[Superfly]

I may be headed to a Mac at 6x the cost of a PC but starting from scratch on a new editing program is a tough pill to swallow.

I honestly don't think this is a computer issue, Premiere is simply the most sensitive, fragile program that I have ever dealt with but it sure rocks when it works.

Hank,

I did a system restore to weeks before and still the same problem.  The only things I remember changing were Microsoft updates, allowing Active X and allowing a Flash update, all of which I think should be no problem.

Regardless, I guess I'll have to try tech support but this seems to be a common issue.  For now I'll use the work around since it's literally 1000 times faster to take stills from Vegas anyway.  Dumping "Out Takes" will be practically impossible.

Best,

Todd

[HankCastello]

I believe our RSS feeds (from home page) include Adobe support feeds.  Also, Adobe has a decent support forum and, if you don't mind half hour waits, you might be able to get a decent tech on phone support.  Please let us know the solution to this issue when you find it.

The program I'd tried to install was Command & Conquer Red Alert / Aftermath (best computer game ever!!).  I didn't realize it wouldn't run on a 64bit PC.

[HankCastello]

No - I forgot that I also installed Ultra from CS3 - that's what blew out ME.  I just found it on the adobe forums.  You must uninstall all CS3 then uninstall all CS4 (not just PP and ME) and finally reinstall all CS4.  That should have ME working again.  If you reinstall any CS3 software, you may have problems.  In my case, restoring windows settings to the day before I installed CS3 Ultra, solved the issue.

[HankCastello]

Another user posts that creating a new user account and running PP under that account solved his ME problem.

Checkout the thread:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/387979

[HankCastello]

Before uninstall/install, etc., try this -

1. Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to the folder that contains "dynamiclinkmanager.exe"
2. Open a second Windows Explorer window and navigate to the folder that contains "Premiere.exe"
3. Arrange the windows side by side.
4. Right-click on "Premiere.exe" and drag to the first explorer window, targeting between the files so as to avoid any specific file.
5. Release the right-hand mouse button.
6. Select "create shortcut here" from the pop-up menu.

BUT make sure the shortcut its name "Premier" just that, not "Premier Pro Shortcut" or "Premier.exe", just "Premier" and it will work.

(from the adobe forum thread linked in the post above)

[HankCastello]

Digging further, this is the "official" solution from adobe -

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do one or both of the following solutions:

Solution 1: Create a shortcut to the Premiere Pro executable file, rename the shortcut to Premiere, and move the shortcut to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\dynamiclink.
Close all Adobe applications.
In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. (If you installed Premiere Pro CS4 in a location other than the default of C:\Program Files\Adobe, then navigate to your custom installation location.)
Right-click on Adobe Premiere Pro.exe (which might appear without the .exe extension) and choose Create Shortcut.
Rename the newly created shortcut to just Premiere.


Important: The name of the shortcut must be exactly Premiere with no other characters.

Open a second Windows Explorer window, and navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\dynamiclink.
Move the Premiere shortcut that you created into the dynamiclink folder.
Solution 2: Remove and reinstall all Premiere Pro CS4 components or all Adobe Creative Suite 4 components.
Do one of the following:

Windows XP: Choose Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.
Windows Vista: Choose Start > Control Panel > Programs and Features.
In the list of installed programs, select Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, or Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection.
Click Change/Remove (Windows XP) or Uninstall (Windows Vista).
Follow the on-screen instructions to remove all components of Premiere Pro CS4 (including Adobe Encore CS4 and Adobe OnLocation CS4) or to remove all components of your edition of Adobe Creative Suite 4.
Re-install your Adobe software.

The url is: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/407/kb407106.html