Premiere Pro: Playback Monitor and Source Monitor keep freezing and turning black

[manu.W.]

Hey everyone,

My source and playback monitors in Premiere Pro keep freezing and turning black every 1 to 4 minutes. When this happens, I can still move the cursor through the timeline, cut and move clips, and save the project, but the playback stops working. If I restart Premiere Pro, it works again, but only for a few seconds or minutes before freezing again. I first encountered this issue in PP version 24.6.1, but I've also tried rolling back to previous versions, and the problem persists.

I'm using a MacBook Pro M3 Max with 48 GB RAM, running Sonoma 14.6.1. I'm working with MXF broadcast files. This issue is occurring in several projects, including older ones that used to work fine.

Here's what I've tried so far:

• I read about a similar (but not identical) problem in an older thread, so I disabled Mercury Transmit—no change.
• I rolled back to Premiere Pro 23.5 and imported an XML file of my sequence—problem remained.
• I tried consolidating and transcoding my project and clips, thinking the issue might be with the original MXF files—no change.
• I'm currently transcoding all the MXF files via Media Encoder and will try working with those. I'll keep you updated on whether this helps.

I'm feeling pretty clueless and frustrated right now, and I don't know what else to try.

Has anyone else experienced this issue and found a solution?

Thanks,
Manu

[Paper Sky Films]

Same here and it's driving me insane! 

I've got a tight deadline to meet and I'm constantly having to close and reopen the damn thing just so I can review the last edit I made. 

How does Adobe manage to make things worse with every update?!

[manu.W.]

Update: Transcoding the original MXF files via Media Encoder and replacing them with the new ones didn't change a thing.

Bummer.

[jamieclarke]

Hi @manu.W. - Would you be able to post a screen recording, so that we can see what issue you are experiencing?  Do you have any plugins installed?  Have you tried to reset your media cache?

[Paper Sky Films]

From my own situation, I can get 'one' playback when I make a change to the timeline. If I try for another - the 'play' button beneath the monitor is activated and the monitor itself freezes and I can't get it play the footage. 

Guys, I really need this thing to work - my deadline is on Monday moring. 

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Paper Sky Films - Do you have any plugins installed?  Is the effects panel activated?  Do you have any external monitors that you can try and unplug?  Have you checked your settings under audio hardware and made sure default input is set to "no input"

[Paper Sky Films]

Do you have any plugins installed?

Nope.

 Is the effects panel activated?  

Nope.

Do you have any external monitors that you can try and unplug?  

Nope.

Have you checked your settings under audio hardware and made sure default input is set to "no input"

Done that. Didn't make a lick of difference. 

Sorry, @jamieclarke - I know this isn't your fault but this isn't the first time that I've had my workflow brought to a major slowdown because of Premiere's glitchiness. 

[jamieclarke]

Hi @Paper Sky Films - Would you be able to post a screen recording, so that I can see what the issue is.  Thank you for your help troubleshooting, sorry for all of the steps.

[Paper Sky Films]

Here you go. As you can see, the 'play' button offers the 'stop' button but freezes. You can keep editing but you can't play back any of the footage on the timeline. 

Also, the software freezes if you 'close project' rather than 'Quite Premiere'. 

[Kevin-Monahan]

The status of this bug report is updated.

[Jessdesign]

I think it's Sonoma 14.6.1

I just replied to this thread with the same issue

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-bugs/urgent-sonoma-14-6-1-and-premiere-24-6-1-playback-p...

On top of that, I'll add I've also tried troubleshooting with Adobe, no change

• tried in safe mode
• did a re-install of the OS
• erased the entire laptop and did a fresh install since Time Machine migration assistant failed, so if there was an issue with the OS install and system preferences, this really should have fixed it, but it did not