Render a "long" video (> 2 mins) in one step, without running out of memory I feel like I am missing something fundamental. Here is my problem: I am producing videos (10-30 minutes each), using the Video Sequence Editor – there is no 3D modeling involved here, just stitching together a few video clips (mp4 files).

If I try to render the complete video, Blender crashes. I could track the problem down by monitoring memory while rendering: After starting, memory usage increases slowly but steadily, eventually starts to swap and then Blender crashes.

As a workaround, I started to render only 3000 frames (2 minutes). I then stich the segments together with ffmpeg. This works, but requires a lot of clicking.

So my question: Am I missing something? How can I render more than 2 minutes of video in one step?

PS: I found some answers pointing to faulty plug-ins, but I am using stock Blender without any additions, on Linux (Mint). The machine has 12 GB memory.

System Details


Blender Version: 2.76b 
Installation Source: Standard Repository (universe)
OS: Linux Mint 18 64 bit (4.4.0-64-generic) 
System Memory: 12GB
The short answer is: I was using an old version of Blender with a memory leak (thanks @3pointedit for pointing me in the right direction!).

I just installed 2.78c, and this version does not have the problem any more.

Just a note that as of March 2017, 2.76b was the latest version in the Linux Mint repository (and probably also in the Ubuntu repository).