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Question

H.264 Exports Unusable - Freezing Playback

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
January 29, 2024
11 replies
1079 views

Ever since the new update, my H.264 exports from Premiere and Media Encoder produce files that freeze during playback. 90% of the video will run smoothly, but at random points in playback the file will freeze from anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. Sound cuts out, frame freezes, while the runtime keeps going and then eventually it unsticks itself.

It's ridiculous that Premiere can't even produce an mp4 file that works. I found discussions from a few years ago sharing the same issue, but the work arounds from back then don't work on today's version of premiere.

Hilarious that you have to pay so much for a yearly subscription for a product that doesn't work.

Export

L

logans93

Participant

Hey, I'm having the same problem. It happens for both Premiere and Media Encoder. Did you find a solution that worked for you?

Thanks!!

MyerPj

Community Expert

I don't hold out much hope for reinstalling but you never know. It seems to be working just fine here. It exports and that file plays well. I exported from PP and ME and using the export settings you had last used.

You could try reinstalling. Backup everything first, preferences, workspaces, etc.

Run the Adobe Cleaner after you uninstall the programs and before you re-install them:
Also, reboot your computer between steps even if you are not asked to...

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

M

mayjain7130546

Community Manager

Hi @Jazzman420 ,

We haven't seen any such playback issue with H264 exported files. You can try clearing the cache once if it makes any difference. Check this https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/faq-how-to-clear-your-media-cache-in-premier...

Please keep updating us on how it's going at your end.

Thanks,

Mayjain

J

Jazzman420Author

Participating Frequently

Possibly a problem with my computer, then? Do you think uninstalling and reinstalling premiere would be worth trying?

J

Jazzman420Author

Participating Frequently

Forgot to mention the freeze occurs at 04:01

MyerPj

Community Expert

I downloaded and fired up your project, created a h.264 (10:45) I played it in a loop for about an hour and there was no problem with it.

J

Jazzman420Author

Participating Frequently

I've had around 10 projects recently that have had this issue. Here's a link to the first one I noticed it with. I put the project file and media in the same folder.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mcv8w3RJ4KfY6YAZgqMcktHft-i2G9xg

With my current project, I tried exporting with no bitrate change and it did not have the issue. However, the issue does not always manifest even with a bitrate change, so this isn't conclusive evidence.

Fergus H

Community Manager

@Jazzman420 We're not aware of this being a widespread issue. As you can probably imagine, H.264 exports are extremely common for our video customers. They are actually the most popular export format, and more than twice as common as the next most exported format.

Could you share with us a project, the associated media, and a sample exported file that shows the problem? If you do not change the target bit rate, do you still see the issue? (Changing the bit rate shouldn't matter at all.)

Thanks,

Fergus

J

Jazzman420Author

Participating Frequently

The issue is absent when exporting to other codecs, by the way. Seems specific to h.264