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Anicca2321
Participating Frequently
August 19, 2021
Question

5 second freeze when start playback or select clip

  • August 19, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 4619 views

I'm working in a fairly large and complex project (15 minute episode of a lifestyle webseries). When I press the spacebar/play button to resume playback, there's a ~5 second pause before it plays, and it's starting to drive me nuts.

 

Here's a video of the issue:

 

Once playback gets going, there's no lag at all - I can play at full resolution without any dropped frames. And if I pause it for a just a second or two and then resume, it'll pick right back up. But if I go idle for more than ~30 seconds, there's always that hangtime when I press play. Doesn't matter if I'm in my massive main sequence or a 10 second nest, there's always that pause.

 

The same thing happens when I try to select a clip in the timeline. I click, nothing happens for 5s, and then the clip gets selected. If I then immediately click on other clips, they select instantly, but if I wait 30 seconds and try again, the 5s lag is back.

 

It almost feels like my processor goes into an idle state after a bit, and then it needs to ramp up to a certain speed before playback will start or clips will select. My processor (Ryzen 9 5900x) is only a few months old though and typically hovers between 20-40% utilization during playback (on the left side of my video above you can see real time performance). Don't think RAM is the issue either as I have 64GB and typically ~30% utilization during playback.

 

Interestingly, when I copy over just the last 60 seconds of the main sequence to a new project, I can play back that section in the new project without any lag (see 0:30 in my video) - *even when the laggy project is open at the same time*. But when I copy over the entire project bin into the new project, the 5s lag returns. Perhaps it's something to do with the amount of files/media I have in the project bin? I already went through and removed every non-essential file I could find, so unfortunately there's no more fat to trim.

 

System specs:

  • Windows 10
  • Premiere Pro 15.4.1

  • Ryzen 9 5900x

  • RTX 2060

  • 64GB RAM

  • Internal 1TB NVMe SSD 1 (OS + software)

  • Internal 2TB NVMe SSD 2 (project files + source media + cache + scratch disks)

 

Things I've tried:

  • Copied project content to a new project

  • Made sure cache and scratch disks are on a different drive than the OS/software

  • Deleted cache and scratch disks

  • Reset preferences

  • Made sure there's plent of space on SSDs (currently 500GB+ unused on each)

  • Updated my GPU

  • Optimize rendering for Performance

  • Made sure GPU Acceleration (CUDA) is on

  • Disabled Mercury Transmit

  • Set Default Input to No Input in Audio Hardware

 

Have any of you encountered this five second lag issue before? Any ideas for a fix?

4 replies

Kevin J. Monahan Jr.
Community Manager
Kevin J. Monahan Jr.Community Manager
Community Manager
August 24, 2021

Hi Annica,

Sorry about the performance issue. From what I've read, your performance issue seems odd from the outset. I suspect you may have either a corrupt sequence or a sequence that has too many operations going on. It may be both. 

 

What I would try first is to create a new sequence. Copy/paste the items from the old sequence into a new one. Then, if your sequence plays back normally once more, then a corrupt sequence was your issue.

 

If it was a corrupt sequence, know that this is rather common, I found, if you have a sequence that you've manipulated more than usual. For a longer time than usual. With more effects than normal. It's a longer sequence than typical. The worst thing? I updated my project midway through the project, updating the sequence across major versions - a definite "no no." After doing these things to the poor sequence, no wonder it fell down!

 

If you are still having poor performance in a fresh new sequence, you can try the same in a fresh new project.

 

Still problems in a new sequence, you have to look at your media and the workflow you are using. It's largely 4K media and that's going to be rough on a computer, especially anything that is H.264/Long GOP footage. Essentially, you are placing 4K media in a HD sequence with highly compressed media. When you do that, you are taxing the GPU with a "Scaling" process to get your 4K footage to playback in a HD sequence. To avoid that GPU process and to get better overall performance, you can transcode all your 4K footage to HD clips using "Render and Replace." Rendering the timeline has the same effect. Usually that is done before you even edit (unless you need to repositon some clips - leave those at 4K) in a process that is referred to as "transcode on ingest." So with less scaling going on, you get better overall performance. Next time you can try this.

 

64MB RAM is great, but you said you had a "massive" timeline. Looking back it is only 15 min. That sounds fine.

I hope we can help you with your performance issue. Hopefully, it's something small.

 

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
    maxbuzin
    maxbuzin
    Participant
    January 23, 2022

    Thank you! The sequence was corrupted... Just create a new one and it's perfect now!

    Kevin J. Monahan Jr.
    Community Manager
    Kevin J. Monahan Jr.Community Manager
    Community Manager
    January 24, 2022

    Cool, Max. Thanks for the report.

     

    Regards,
    Kevin

    Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
    Richard van den Boogaard
    Community Expert
    Richard van den BoogaardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 24, 2021

    Have you tried setting the input in the Audio hardware to None?

     

    Hope this helps.

      A
      Anicca2321Author
      Participating Frequently
      August 24, 2021

      Thanks for the suggestion Rich, unfortunately I already tried that one.

        Jeff Bugbee
        Community Expert
        Jeff BugbeeCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 24, 2021

        If you create a brand new project, then IMPORT this old project in it's entirety, does the issue persist?

        A
        Anicca2321Author
        Participating Frequently
        August 24, 2021

        I hadn't tried that actually (had only tried copy pasting the old project into the brand new one). Alas, I just opened a new one and Imported, and the problem is unchanged.

        A
        Anicca2321Author
        Participating Frequently
        August 24, 2021

        Anyone?

        Ann Bens
        Community Expert
        Ann BensCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 24, 2021

        You have a decent machine, but why are you rendering the timeline.

        Does not say what kind of footage is used or origin.

        Post screenshot of clip in MediaInfo in treeview.

        Post screenshot sequence settings.

        A
        Anicca2321Author
        Participating Frequently
        August 24, 2021

        Thanks for the reply. There were some dropped frames when I played back sections with motion graphics, so I let the timeline render while I was on a break.

         

        I didn't mention the footage type because there is a large variety of footage in these sequence (4K 23.976FPS .mov from a Canon C300; 4K 24FPS .mov from an iPhone 11; 4K stock footage; SD screen recording; etc.), and no matter which sequence I have open (even one with <1 minute of resolution clips), the lag always occurs when I'm within this project.

         

        As the most common clip type (and the one featured in the video in my first post) is the 4K iPhone footage, I ran one of those through MediaInfo:

         

        And here's my sequence settings:

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