is it just me or is CS4 the most unstable buggy software ever

[Vince Becquiot]

Never seen the error in the last years that I have been using CS3 / CS4, and we use it everyday.

These issues are often linked to other software conflict, insufficient RAM, or hardware fault.

Any more details on your setup?

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Nathan Tinsley]

I have had similar stability frustrations with CS4 but I but I think I may be on to why it is occurring. First of all the system that I’m using is roughly as follows.

Dell Vostro 410 Workstation
3 gigs ram
Quad Core Processor
Sata Raid 5 array
NVIDIA GTX250 graphics card
Premiere Pro CS4
Windows XP
Cutting Exclusively HDV sequences.

Again that is a very rough description of the system. This system does NOT belong to me, nor is it set up the way I would prefer meaning it’s connected to the net, it’s got Norton Anti-Virus software and it’s running XP instead of Vista. So it can’t make use of all the ram and it’s hampered by the 32 bit architecture instead of 64 bits which, I’ve read, is really where Premiere Pro would like to be. That’s strike one.

Strike two is that I’m working in HDV NATIVE! Which is a HUGE tax on system resources. Even though I have a quad core cpu and a relatively good graphics card I find the system boggy from time to time on playback. There just doesn’t seem to be enough clock cycles to go around. I have also had horrible luck rendering large sections of the timeline. I can almost count on a crash 100% of the time. I have to move the work area and render in chunks. Again if you work in HDV natively you really are working with a format that was NEVER meant to be edited. I really think a better idea would be to try an intermediate codec like cineform to “get out of the GOP” as they say or get out of that heavily compressed long GOP(group of pictures) format that HDV is! The thing is if you do that then you pretty much have to upgrade your storage to a raid array that can increase your video bandwidth. I know it’s cheaper to work with HDV on the front end of shooting and capturing but we really pay for it on the editing end of things in time, frustration and missed deadlines.

If it were my machine I would trick it out with brand new processors, maybe even 8 cores, tons of ram, like 8-16 gigs if possible and Windows Vista 64bit. Then I’d like to see how it handles an HDV workflow. I’m pretty sure it would be more stable. Baring that a perhaps cheaper alternative would be to upgrade your storage to a faster raid array and covert your HDV footage to an intermediate codec and try editing again. Basically that would take the load off your processor and make your edit experience smoother. I really don’t think that going back to CS3 would help you here but it might. I too lost hours of work on a project that corrupted. That’s infuriating. I dialed up the autosave to every 5 minutes and 30 versions to combat that. I don’t know what else to do regarding that one. I’m always gun shy that I will loose a project.

Well that’s my two cents. I don’t know if it helped or not. Good luck.

Nate

[David Payne]

thanks guys. The rendering in chunks issue that Nate described is something I can relate to however this is rarer. Far more common now is that I scrub through some HDV footage on the timeline and experience a green/red pixelation glitch which then fully crashes the system.

The issue is I get the same problem on 3 different set ups. All are XP, all have at least 3gb of ram.

Nate mentioned storage and I should probably say that I edit directly from a USB 2 external hard drive. I know people don’t recommend this, but it is just much more practical for me so I can take things home over the weekend and edit on another machine (where the problems still persist)

I recently edited a wedding using the pc’s local drives and STILL experienced glitch/sync/crash issues.

Surely this can’t be down to my system if it happens on 3 pc’s when using a different combination of drives?

[Nicky Van der walt]

Hi,

Sounds to me like you are trying to do the impossible.

CS4 is a monster piece of software and is very resource hungry (a lot of people see this as buggy).

We are running CS4 on systems ranging from Core i7’s with 12 GB of RAM and 4 drive RAID 5 setups to QUAD CORE XEON systems with 24 GB or 32 GB of RAM and 8 drive RAID 5 setups, all on Vista 64 and its pretty stable.

Yes every now and then someone tries to do funny things with odd media and we stumble a bit, but other than that, if you run it on 64 bit system with enough RAM and fast enough drives, you should not have many issues (of course there will always be some issues, but this goes for all software).

I would never try and run CS4 on XP with only 3GB RAM or on a single internal drive or USB 2.0 drive (even worse!!). That would just be torture.

Good Luck.

[David Payne]

nicky i see your point, but the previous version worked with virtually no problems. Sure a bit of lag from the external but thats it. The PC I have the major problems with and use most often is 4gb ram with 3 seperate sata drives. I have set up scratch discs on one drive, system files on another and video on a third (and sometimes on the USB)

I don’t have an option to upgrade this particular PC as it is at my work. Whenever I shut down the PC after editing I get various not responding messages (Front Capture is one that I can remember from the top of my head).

When I have finished this project I think I will revert back to the previous version of premiere and see if the problems persist. If they do I’ll make up an excuse with the PC and try to get it upgraded…

Thanks
David

[Nicky Van der walt]

Hi,

Windows XP 32 bit only uses 3 gigs anyway, so the extra gig does not really make a difference.

I understand what you are saying about previous versions working, but also remember software manufacturers develop new versions based on advances in technology (both hardware and software).

CS4 is optimized to run on 64 bit systems and perform much much better on Vista 64 / Win 7 64 than XP/Vista/Win 7 32 bit. Add at least 8 gigs of RAM and you have a system that should run smoothly.

Something else to note is that on a edit system you should run NOTHING else but CS4. Dont use it for internet / email / office work. NEVER play games on it. Also make sure you have the latest updates.

I guess we are lucky in the sense that we have access to budget to acquire the technology needed.

So to answer your question… No, its not just you… BUT with enough budget and technology CS4 can be stable and a pleasure to work with (in my opinion that is) 🙂

[Todd Roush]

It’s not just you.

My gut is that they just tried to do too much. Adobe bought up and combined a bunch of software’s some time ago and have been trying to patch them together.

My issue with CS4 is that it does not play well with much of anything and I have 4 computers to prove it, 2 of which were bought band new with little on them.

I am running Adobe now with Vegas since I am new to the Vegas interface but I have to pass my projects back and forth to get them out of the computer.

Adobe is in trouble with this one and everybody knows it. If you build your own computer specifically for it to their specs you may do all right.

Good Luck!

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Todd Roush]

PS, CS4 has been stable on my i7, 6 gig RAM, 5TB system, but suddenly I can no longer export ANYTHING. Not to media encoder and not to my HDV cameras. When I attempt it, all “set display” icons go blank along with all the arrows in that track section. I have tried reverting to previous setups in the operating system (system restore) but to no avail.

Too bad, this system was really rocking for a while but I have had export issues with 3 other systems so there is something up with the DLL thing.

I am no computer troubleshooter anymore and the time required is obscene so I keep buying new computers and working around things using other software. VERY frustrating but we’re behind and have deadlines. No time for BS.

Cheers,

Todd

Todd Roush
Dreamscape Digital Media
Canon XH-A1’s – Dell Studio XPS i7, 920, 2.66 gig,6 gigs RAM (soon to be 12) 650 gig SATA, 1TB eSATA external, 3TB USB(storage). 512gig ATI video card, 28″ HannsG Monitor, 24″ Dell Monitor.

[Tim Kolb]

I’m not sure what to make of this issue… When you test various systems, have you been moving the same media from the same project around? Media problems wouldn’t be out of the question…

While I wouldn’t recommend it, I use CS4 on a a Dell M90 running XP Pro with only 2 GB of RAM to edit EXcam footage on a USB2 drive. I allow for the occasional lag…it seems to work without crashing.

The one caveat I have is that even on my laptop, I only run Quadro series display cards… I’m not sure if that makes a difference, but I’ve not had a lot of issues. Anecdotally, it does seem that many people with problems seem to have ATI display cards, or NVIDIA gamer cards.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Vince Becquiot]

Todd,

If a major system issue like this happens, be it because of a windows update, plugins, or corrupted files, a Windows restore will do nothing to solve the issue.

What WILL work 99% of the time is a re-installation using my method.

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/894550#894554

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area