Premiere Crashing (Serious Error)

[StarMasayume]

I know there's a lot of Premiere crashing threads, and I tried scoping out quite a few and have been googling adobe premiere troubleshooting for the last two days. Really wanted to get this video finished before Halloween. Thought I would throw my problem out there to see if anyone has an idea.

OS is Vista, 4gb RAM. CPU usage or physical memory doesn't seem to be a problem.

I'm editing with AVS files pointing to d2v/VOB files for the first time but have found I really prefer this method now. Gives me more flexibility in choosing clips and I can recreate the project if I ever want to in the future.

It was working GREAT for the first 50% or so of the vid. I could export the entire thing, no crashes. I added some later AVS files for more footage as I went, so I'm still trying to figure out if the problem is any of those or just the sheer number of editing and clips or something else entirely. I have a total of 12-13 AVS clips I'm working with.

First symptons was the timeline would go black (the messed up kind that if you scrolled over some clips would show again). Sometimes I'll get random black lines in the timeline itself that warns me before it gets worse or potentially freezes. Usually I've been able to save, exit, and reopen but the problem would reoccur every few minutes or less. I think around the same time, I started getting the "error compiling movie" when exporting and have resorted to exporting small portions only.

I'm about 90% done with this AMV. As frustrating as the above was, I'm now constantly getting the "serious error, adobe encountered a problem and needs to close."

I don't believe the project file itself is corrupt. I've tried opening it with all the clips-avs files off line. Also some much older saves seemed all right but I have too much work done to go back. I really haven't changed anything on my system since I started the AMV but I tried most of the troubleshooting tips I could fine, including taking off almost all start up programs and having nothing else running. Help! T_T

[Pwolf]

what version of premiere, avisynth?

[StarMasayume]

Sorry, I have Avisynth 2.58 and Premiere CS3

T_T And I officially made it worse! I've been messing with my computer way too much today trying to get things to work. Changing start up and processes, trying to restore to a few days ago to see if that made a difference.... it did.

Now for some reason I have no playback in the preview, not even if I drag through the timeline! Windows problems and solutions thinks it has something to do with ffdshow, and I tried reinstalling but didn't help. I've never had this problem before and it just happened since yesterday so I'm sure something screwed up. The preview area is just gray, the only time something would show is a still if I double click one of the clips.

And for reference it's also giving me the "serious error / must close" when I'm in a project that had no problems. Seems to do it consistently now also when I go to close Premiere. So I think the problem is not just with that particular project or avs files.

[Pwolf]

reinstall video drivers and directx

[StarMasayume]

Okay so I finally got the preview working again after a few hours. I had installed an update for CS3 I think before I messed with the restore points. After reinstalling a bunch of codecs and ffdshow, I tried installing that update again and preview files show now.

If it just started occurring within the middle of a project I started a week ago, can it really be the driver? It still seems worse in the one project. Still get the black timeline every few minutes so far one more error - must close.

Edit: Found this weird. I had a folder for DirectX that was empty. I tried installing the latest I could find and at the end it says that it found a newer or equivalent version on the computer and wasn't necessary. At the same time it said it was finished installing but I can't find the files.

[Pwolf]

directx is a windows system component so any folder labeled "directx" is most likely a temp folder for something, don't worry about. Have you updated you're graphics drivers yet?

[Pwolf]

i would also like to know what your preview settings are set to.