Dropping lots of frames and major lag issues during playback of basic videos

Sent you a message @valeri_1058! 

Thanks for replying, Dani.

Would you also be interested in sharing an affected project and its media so the team can take a look? I can message you if so.

By @Dani_V.

Yes, I would be interested, please message me so that I can share the affected project.

And yes, to the other two queries:

1. I've cleared all Media cache (both in program and on SSD). 

2. No other applications are open when I work with Premiere Pro.

Please note, I have made another video demonstrating the issue. I speed up the playback three separate times (L) and you can clearly see it causes a chaos to the project. I tried to "sample edit" the video by cutting it a few times, but it's totally unworkable.

https://youtu.be/4ASWY3_mbgw?si=qX8T4Vf0PcIfyrgR 

PS: I've checked my CPU/RAM usage during the playback and it was hovering around 3%-4%. I don't really know what's happening but, at least, it's not a hardware thing.

Thanks for sharing additional details @valeri_1058. That is very frustrating, especially with your hardware specs.

Have you tried clearing your media cache? You can do so by holding down a modifier key (like shift) right when launching Premiere and selecting "Clear media cache"  in the Reset options window.

Do you see the same issues if you only have Premiere open and you close all your other applications?

Would you also be interested in sharing an affected project and its media so the team can take a look? I can message you if so.

Only the latest and the previous major releases are available for download in the Creative Cloud, versions prior to that are no longer available.

Hi Dani,

Thanks for replying. Here are more details:

1. Source media is in format: 4K (3840 × 2160), HEVC, 8-bit, MPEG-4 AAC

2. All media is stored on internal SSD. Full SSD storage is 1TB.

3. I have checked that HQ Playback is NOT selected in Program monitor

4. Audio Hardware is set at No Input

5. No. Not all affected projects are utilizing Multicam mode. In fact, this was the first time I've used it. All other projects (which also have the same issues) are in traditional Single cam non-nestled mode.

6. I've tried multiple Adobe Premiere Pro version with no success (including the latest 26.0.0. but also tried 25.6.4 and a frew before that)

I would like to share that a friend of mine has a Macbook Pro M3 Max and also uses Premiere Pro (v22.5.0 Build 62). The specs on his laptop are slightly better than mine (he has a bit more RAM and 2TB SSD storage). 

However, my machine is an M4 Max and should be capable of similar performance. Needless to say, he experiences no issues at all and I've worked on his Premiere Pro projects which utilize After Effects, Transitions, Captions etc. He uses both 4K HEVC 8-bit and 4K H.264 video formats during project assembly which theoretically should be even more resource-demanding...

This is very discouraging for me because I can't even playback a single video without experiencing major lag issues.

Can you please let me know what can I do to reslove this issue. Also, can you help me with finding Premiere Pro v22.5.0 Build 62? I am open to installing it and giving it a go, seeing as how flawlessly it's working for my friend.

Hi @valeri_1058, 

Welcome to the Premiere Pro forums and sorry you've been experiencing issues. Thank you for sharing a video. 

Could you provide a few more details on the kind of source media you are using and where it is stored? (camera, frame rate, resolution; external HDD or SSD, network, internal/local, etc.)

A couple things you can check: If you right-click on the Program monitor, check to see if "High Quality Playback" is selected, and deselect it if so. 

Under Preferences > Audio Hardware, set the Default Input to "No Input". 

Are all the affected projects using multicams or multicam-enabled nests? Do you see the same behavior if multicam view is disabled in the Program monitor? 

And just double-checking, is the latest version you've tried v25.6.4 and you're seeing the same perfomance issues there? 

Sorry for the frustration, 
Dani