Known Participant

Image frozen during a gap in the timeline after export

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
June 19, 2026
4 replies
87 views

Hi,

I'm experiencing a strange issue in Premiere Pro.

In my timeline, I intentionally left a gap of about 3 seconds between two clips to create a hard cut to black before the video continues.

Inside Premiere, everything works as expected. During playback, the screen goes black for the duration of the gap and then the next clip starts normally.

However, after exporting the video, the last frame of the previous clip stays frozen during the entire gap instead of showing black. Once the gap is over, the next clip plays normally.

I've already tried several things:

Leaving the gap empty.
Replacing the gap with a black video layer.
Adding a fade transition.
Deleting and recreating the cuts.
Clearing render files and exporting again.

The issue only appears in the exported file, not inside Premiere.

Has anyone encountered this bug before or found a solution?

Thanks!

P

PaulMurphy

Community Expert

Your sequence is set to a non-standard frame rate of 30.027 fps, most likely inherited from creating a new sequence based on variable frame rate (VFR) footage. This could be causing the issue.

Try the following:

Duplicate your sequence.
Select the duplicate in the Project panel.
Go to Sequence > Sequence Settings and set the Timebase to 30 fps.
Export the duplicate sequence with your usual settings and check whether the issue is resolved.

SyneosAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks a million! It worked on my test export! So, the frame rate was indeed the problem! How can I be sure to choose the right frame rate for my other projects—especially when I have multiple imported videos with different frame rates?

P

PaulMurphy

Community Expert

The most important thing is to make sure your sequence uses a constant frame rate (CFR) rather than a variable frame rate (VFR). With variable frame rates, the frame rate changes over time within a media file, which is not ideal for frame-accurate editing.

After you create a new sequence based on your footage:

Select the sequence in the Project panel.
Go to Sequence > Sequence Settings.
Check the frame rate. Standard frame rates are 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94, and 60 frames per second. If your sequence shows any other value, especially one with an unusual decimal such as 30.027, it is most likely based on VFR footage.
Set your sequence frame rate to the nearest standard frame rate.

Otherwise, to choose the best frame rate for your sequence, I would recommend either the most common frame rate across your media, or the highest frame rate, to ensure frames are not dropped and motion stays smooth.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

“Replacing with a black video layer” … is that one you’ve created, or the ‘synthetic’ black video created by Premiere?

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

SyneosAuthor

Known Participant

I left the area empty (aside from the sound effect).
I also tried creating a transition that was less abrupt, yet still quick.
I also created this black corridor layer.

J

Jonathan+Editor

Community Manager

Hi @Syneos,

Welcome back the Premiere Forums and thank you for submitting this report about this export freeze. The team will need some more detail to try and help with this:

Premiere Version: What is the exact version of Premiere you’re using when the issue occurs?
Operating System: Specify macOS or Windows along with the version.
GPU Driver (Windows only): Please let us know your video card driver version. We recommend updating to the most recent version; for NVIDIA users, we strongly recommend the Studio version of the driver.
Playback Format: Please specify the format (and ideally share a sample video if possible).
Would it be possible to share screenshots or a screen record of your Premiere timeline?
Does it affect other projects as well?

For additional context, here are helpful links about Premiere 26.3:

What's New: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere/desktop/whats-new/whats-new.html
Release Notes: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere/desktop/whats-new/release-notes.html

Best,

Jonathan

SyneosAuthor

Known Participant

Hi @Syneos,

Welcome back the Premiere Forums and thank you for submitting this report about this export freeze. The team will need some more detail to try and help with this:

Premiere Version: What is the exact version of Premiere you’re using when the issue occurs?
Operating System: Specify macOS or Windows along with the version.
GPU Driver (Windows only): Please let us know your video card driver version. We recommend updating to the most recent version; for NVIDIA users, we strongly recommend the Studio version of the driver.
Playback Format: Please specify the format (and ideally share a sample video if possible).
Would it be possible to share screenshots or a screen record of your Premiere timeline?
Does it affect other projects as well?

For additional context, here are helpful links about Premiere 26.3:

What's New: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere/desktop/whats-new/whats-new.html
Release Notes: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere/desktop/whats-new/release-notes.html

Best,

Jonathan

I am using the latest version of Adobe Premiere.

Here is the relevant information about my system (I know my graphics card is very old; I get a notification about this when launching Adobe software).

As for the format, it is 1080x720p or sometimes 4K.
Examples here: https://www.youtube.com/@syneostudio/videos

This affects all my projects whenever I try to use that same abrupt transition.

In the screenshot below, you can see a purple layer—it’s a color matte—but the problem persists whether that layer is there or not. The issue occurs right at the end: the video freezes instead of cutting to a black screen.