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Carl5E65
Participant
October 15, 2026
Answered

I am working with Premiere Pro 26.5.2 and after editing a file for a short amount of time playback freezes and cannot edit. My computer is mac Studio M@ Ultra OS 27.0.1

I can open Premiere Pro Project and begin editing but eventually playback stops and i can no longer edit. I have tried to go to older version of premiere Pro. I have tried upgrading Mac oS to 27.01. I have tried deleting cache. I have lowered all the playback resolutions down to ¼. I have allocated more memory to application. I have tried opening a brand new project and copy pasting assets into that. I have tried both checked and unchecked “Enable Mercury Transmit” I have set Audio Input to “No Input”  The only trigger I can think of was a Microsoft Auto update happened this morning. Yesterday everything was working fine. Have lost an entire day of production and don’t know what else to try.

      Carl5E65Correct answer
      Participant
      October 20, 2026

      Converting the audio file did the trick. What made it so hard to troubleshoot was the fact that Premiere would work for awhile and then playback would just stop. Will know to check the audio file next time!

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      3 replies

      Carl5E65Author
      Participant
      October 15, 2026

      OK- I may have solved it. I received an m4a audio file and while it did let me edit for a short amount of time maybe this was causing timeline to freeze. Once i removed the m4a audio file it seems to be working (for now) Would still love any insights in case this was not the only issue.

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      Community Expert
      John V KnowlesCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 20, 2026

      Premiere traditionally does not love compressed formats. While it can import MP4, MP3, M4A etc. they don’t always play back reliably. I’ve had compressed video files from phones drag my Mac Studio to a crawl. 

      If the M4A seems to be the culprit, bring it into Media Encoder to convert to WAVE and replace the clip in the project. Report back if this improves playback.

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      -------------------------------------------------------------------------JVK | Editor/Designer/Software Instructor. Pr, Ae, Ch, Ps, Ai, Id
      Carl5E65AuthorCorrect answer
      Participant
      October 20, 2026

      Converting the audio file did the trick. What made it so hard to troubleshoot was the fact that Premiere would work for awhile and then playback would just stop. Will know to check the audio file next time!

      Translate
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