I moonlight as a crash test dummy.

Question

Right now, I have total sympathy for Buster the Crash Test dummy on Mythbusters.
If you wander by the AE forums, you'll see the saga I just finished over there. 20 hour long renders with AE and Media Encoder on tiny, tiny files. BUT I got it worked and was just getting to the point where I was almost done with my project.
Then the strangest thing happened - Media Encoder suddenly started working, all mysterious like. It not only started working but I was getting large renders done in under an hour (well, for me - my system isn't that great but I muddle through - my projects aren't really that huge either.
Then this afternoon everything went to #$^#* again!
QuickTime and iTunes stopped, AE stopped and Premiere Pro stopped. As in start loadng and immediately crash.
I'm running an AMD Windows 7 64 system and me and AMD are going to go to war here in a bit. Everytime they give me a new driver CPU or GPU things go freaking nuts.
So, wen't back to the old drivers but had a heck of a time getting QuickTime to install correctly again, along with iTunes and their Bonjour serrvice. Then I tackled Adobe stuffs. I got AE and Media Encoder working again bugt Premiere Pro is still freaking out. I uninstalled, reinstalled, and had to fix my CC account like others have posted on here. Got the new EULA and thought I was doing okay (after a bazillion hours).
But Premiere is still being stubborn. So I tried Photoshop - that worked. AE fired up too but then wigged and said Quicktime was no longer installed on my system.
And it looks like I spoke too soon - Encoder just crapped out on me again..
Oh for the long lost wealthy  uncle to appear so I can get a decent system. That would definetely help. But like I said, I don't do a lot of major stuff. I'm an indie author, so my stuff is book trailers and short marketing stuffs. But this is nuts.
I've updated all of my CC programs - AE is 12.2.1.5 - like I said, I've reinstalled them about three times now. I primarily only use AE, Premiere, and Photoshop - for right now. I'm keeping the d/l to a minimum until I get this worked out.
I'm running Windows 7 64bt Home Premium - that just did a big ole update too. I had to go put things back the way I had them. I'm doing short, small renders, lots of pre-renders but my stuff is really light in comparision to what y'all deal with. I try to keep it in H264, mov or avi, or sometimes I'll strip the footage down to bare bones just to hunt down the problem. I'm trying to render 56mg video footage right now.
Basically Premiere won't eve start. Media Encoder has been starting but is now locking up. And believe it or not, AE seems to be the most cooperative.
I've scrubbed the caches repeatedly, and not long ago, I used the Adobe cleaner, so this is basically new installs.
Since I've got 100% AMD I have no choie but to run the Mercury engine. Since this all started in the beginning of the week, I've been running this stuff lean and mean. Like I said, I thought I had it - then.
Hit the brick wall and went through the windshield.
Cheers,
Kath

Answer 1

Runtime errors can be common. They usually stem from a bad, outdated, or otherwise corrupt C++ Runtime.dll.
I would address that issue first and foremost. Google "runtime error," and begin reading. There will be many hits, but if you refine your search with words like Adobe, Premiere, etc., you'll narrow things down. There will be links to the MS site for updated runtime.dll's. Note: make sure that you get the one that perfectly matches your version of the OS. Do NOT get one for any other version, than yours. Check this carefully.
Good luck,
Hunt