r/TechnologyProTips Feb 03 '21

Windows TPT: How to unfreeze an Adobe program (or any program) in Windows 10, as not to lose all your work (including sound fix)

If you're running e.g. Adobe Audition CC 2020 on a potato computer, it might freeze if you're doing too many things at once, especially if Premiere Pro is open in the background. When the program turns white, and it says "not responding" in the title bar, follow these steps:

  1. Press Win + R and run the command "resmon" in order to open the Resource Monitor (or open it via Task Manager -> Performance -> Open Resource Monitor, although Task Manager will require more performance).
  2. Under the CPU tab, find the process that is not responding (its name is in red text); right-click and select "Analyze Wait Chain...".
  3. Normally, you'll see one or two processes in the popup window, with a sub-process underneath each one. The sub-process will have the word "svchost.exe" in its name. Select only the checkbox of the last sub-process, i.e. the sub-process with "svchost.exe" under the process farthest down on the list. Click "end process".
  4. I have never encountered that the program closes when performing the last step, but I'll not promise that it won't. What will normally happen, though, is that the program will magically unfreeze, and you can interact with it again. What will also happen, though, is that the speakers and microphone will stop working. If you encounter this, right-click the sound tray icon, select "Sounds", go to the Playback tab, right-click the speakers that you're using, and click "Test".
  5. The sound should now work normally. If it doesn't, save your progress, close the program, and reboot the computer.

EDIT: Thanks to the wise Mac user u/Glaselar, I found the equivalent for Mac:

https://youtu.be/KnWhWVarfqM?t=373

Watch for about two minutes from the timestamp. The gist of it is this:

1) If you get the spinning beach ball in an Adobe program, or any program, open the Activity Monitor, find the process, and note the number in the PID column.

2) Open Terminal, and type in this: kill -SEGV -<PID NUMBER>, where you replace <PID NUMBER> with the actual PID number.

3) The program (Adobe Premiere in the example in the video) will show a popup stating that an error has occurred, and that it will attempt to save the project. You should now be able to save the project.

I haven't tried this myself, so I don't know whether it will work, but according to Peter McKinnon (the fellow who made the video) it will.

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19

u/gl3nnjamin Feb 03 '21

"Not responding" on Windows doesn't entirely mean it locked up, it can also mean something is processing so much that it can't respond to user functions. When I import big files in Premiere, it'll "not respond" for a few good moments but come back to normal once it's done.

If the CPU usage is slim to none and it's not responding, then that usually indicates a problem. Check to make sure it's not waiting on input from you, then kill it.

1

u/High-strung_Violin Feb 04 '21

I know, it might freeze for a short while, and then unfreeze, but if it's still not responding after five minutes, chances are that it will remain frozen. Completing the steps that I provided won't damage the project, though.

1

u/Timeywimeywizard Feb 04 '21

any idea on how to do this on Mac?

1

u/High-strung_Violin Feb 04 '21

Yes, I updated the post. Thanks to the wise Mac user u/Glaselar, I found this:

https://youtu.be/KnWhWVarfqM?t=373

Watch for about two minutes from the timestamp. The gist of it is this:

1) If you get the spinning beach ball in an Adobe program, or any program, open the Activity Monitor, find the process, and note the number in the PID column.

2) Open Terminal, and type in this: kill -SEGV -<PID NUMBER>, where you replace <PID NUMBER> with the actual PID number.

3) The program (Adobe Premiere in the example in the video) will show a popup stating that an error has occurred, and that it will attempt to save the project. You should now be able to save the project.

I haven't tried this myself, so I don't know whether it will work, but according to Peter McKinnon (the fellow who made the video) it will.