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sophiewillox
Participating Frequently
September 24, 2025

Premiere Pro Stuck on “Preparing Audio”

  • September 24, 2025
  • 8 replies
  • 503 views

Hi all,

 

I’m running into a really persistent issue with Premiere Pro: whenever I hit play, it just hangs on “Preparing audio” for a long time and won’t start playback.

Here’s what I’ve already tried (with no success):

  • Reinstalled Premiere Pro

  • Updated GPU (NVIDIA Studio driver)

  • Set Audio Hardware > Default Input = None (helped once, but the problem came back next day and now wont work again)

  • Cleared Media Cache (both in Preferences and manually from AppData)

  • Moved Media Cache to a fast SSD

  • Disabled/uninstalled extra audio devices (Dolby APO, NVIDIA/AMD HDMI drivers) so only Realtek(R) Audio is active

  • Reset Preferences and Plugin Cache (Alt + Shift launch)

  • Renamed Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\[version] folder to force a new profile

 

It does it track by track and takes about 20 minutes each, the video is 1 hour 30 with multiple audio tracks, the footage is Proxy. 

 

Really not sure if its a Premiere issue, or a Windows Issue. Everything is up to date, its just very frustrating as I need it for my job! Any fix or suggestions would be massively appreciate. Thanks so much

Sophie

8 replies

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Edward Scissors
Participating Frequently
November 10, 2025

After various bits of trouble shooting turning off Generate wavefore on import seems to have resolved things for the time being.

E
Edward Scissors
Participating Frequently
November 10, 2025

I'm ahving the same problem. Mac Studio m3 Ultra has ground to a halt preparing audio for a new project. Yes lots of interviews but ita taking ages and making Premiere unusable. All footage and scratch disks running off a hiugh speed RAID via TB4

jamieclarke
Community Manager
jamieclarkeCommunity Manager
Community Manager
September 25, 2025

Hi @sophiewillox - Can you navigate to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common and move the folders "Peak Files" and "PTX" folders out of the common folder. same with your external hard drive.

S
sophiewilloxAuthor
Participating Frequently
September 25, 2025

Same issue unfortuently

Sophie
jamieclarke
Community Manager
jamieclarkeCommunity Manager
Community Manager
September 24, 2025

Hi @sophiewillox - Can you check version 25.5 and let us know if you are still having issues.

S
sophiewilloxAuthor
Participating Frequently
September 24, 2025

For some reason this reply won't send so here's a screenshot instead! 

 

 

Sophie
S
sophiewilloxAuthor
Participating Frequently
September 24, 2025

Following from last message I had Generate waveforms automatically during import ticked but not and Generate waveforms and conform audio using multithreading

Sophie
jamieclarke
Community Manager
jamieclarkeCommunity Manager
Community Manager
September 24, 2025

Hi @sophiewillox -  Thanks for submitting your bug report. We need a few more details to try to help with the issue.
Please see, How to Report a Problem.

 

Can you post your system specs from the link above.

What version of Premiere Pro are you using?

 

In your Preferences > Audio do you have "Generate waveforms automatically during import" and "Generate waveforms and conform audio using multithreading" checked?

 

You say you moved your media cache to a different drive did you delete your old media cache?


Sorry for the frustration.

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