A very common cause is that the destination drive is out of free space, preventing Premiere Pro from finishing the writing of the output file. Clearing space on that drive usually resolves the problem. If freeing up space doesn’t help, try the additional solutions below—we’ll go through all three methods next.
1. Make Sure Your Drive Isn’t Full
First, confirm that the drive you’re saving to has plenty of free space. A good rule of thumb is to have at least twice the size of the final file—preferably more. Example: If the export is 120 GB, aim for at least 240 GB free—300–400 GB is safer. During rendering, Premiere (or any NLE) generates temporary video and audio files, so the working drive must accommodate those extra files until the export finishes. If your internal drive is crowded, consider exporting to an external hard drive or SSD.
Also, clear or move the Media Cache folder (Edit > Preferences > Media Cache)—the cache can balloon in size and contribute to disk-full errors.
2. Update Your Studio Drivers
Premiere Pro shows Error 39 when its H.264/H.265 exporter calls NVENC functions that an outdated NVIDIA Studio driver does not provide. Adobe’s System Compatibility Report flags an obsolete GPU driver as a critical issue and instructs you to update before exporting. The new driver refreshes the NVENC DLLs, restores the missing API hooks, and removes the bottleneck that triggers Error 39. After a reboot with the updated driver in place, users report the error disappears on the first retry.
3. Switch to Software Encoding
By default, hardware rendering uses your GPU to render your files, while software rendering relies on your CPU. If you’re encountering Error Code 39 while using hardware rendering, switching to software rendering may resolve the issue. This problem often occurs when the GPU is overheating, underpowered, or incompatible with the rendering workload, causing it to fail during the process. If none of these methods work, contact Adobe support and let them know about the issue. They will get back to you with a solution specific to your case.
