After render (all green) and saving after restart some parts have to render again

[Yoebas020]

Good afternoon,

I have an issue with rendering in Premiere Pro. After i've work on the project i render it and save it afterwards (before closing the program). After rendering the whole project is green. Once i restart Premiere (let's say the next day) some parts, after loading the project, are yellow or red again. What is the problem and how can i solve it? Thanks in advance.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi @Yoebas020,
I read your note. I have seen this issue. Thanks for your info. Can you try using a different codec to render previews? Access is available in Sequence Settings. Try DNxHD/HR. Let me know if that works better.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Yoebas020]

Good afternoon Kevin, if i change the sequence setting (editing mode: DNxHR 4k) i am getting a warning: changing to Preview File Format or to the frame size require all preview files to be deleted. This operation cannot be undone". I don't exactly understand what the consequences will be of this action. In the sequence is a lot of material i worked on for weeks and i don't want to lose it and have to start over again. I'm new in Premiere Pro so i'm a bit careful. Looking forward to your response.

[Richard van den Boogaard]

The consequences of this action would be that all preview files would be deleted and that you'll get yellow and red lines back in your timeline. No big issue if you have the time to render out previews again.

Please bear in mind that previews are only needed for smooth playback inside PPro. Unless you instruct Media Encoder to use these previews at the encoding stage, they won't benefit you in terms of speeding up the export.

Hope this helps.

[Yoebas020]

Thank you Richard for the response. It's clear.

[tylerholtman]

Changing to DNxHD previews finally worked for me! Thank you!

[Peru Bob]

If the solution offered by Kevin-Monahan doesn't solve your problem, is the Media Cache on an external drive?

[Yoebas020]

He;;p Peru Bob, i haven't tried @Kevin-Monahan solution yes, cause of a warning. So waiting for a response now. I checked the media cache and the location is my laptop (C:). not an external drive. I do import all the videos from my external hard drive, but maybe that has nothing to do with what you meant.

[Richard van den Boogaard · Accepted solution]

I typically prefer to separate Apps from Previews and Data, so in my system I have separate SSDs for this set up, with the temp (read: preview) drive being a superfast M.2 drive. So far, this has proved to be a pretty robust strategy, as my workstation is from early 2017 and I can still edit 4K footage with it.

Hope this helps.

[Peru Bob · Accepted solution]

If the external drive doesn't have a fixed drive letter, that could be the cause.

[nicholasg51627093]

Adobe REALLY needs to address this crappy problem of losing render files.  It happens to me all the time where I render out a 90 minute project - save the program and close it.  Then when I open it all the previously rendered files are back to YELLOW.  FU$KING FRUSTRATING !!!!!  No file locations have changed - nothing has been altered.  All my source and rendered files are still in the same folders - on my laptop hard drive, so not even an external hard drive.  NO FU#KING REASON for this to continue happening on a program as widely used as Premiere.  I have the newest version and an extremely fast computer.  Can SOMEONE FROM ADOBE please address how to fix this problem ?????

[Avisekh Mukherjee]

This had been the case for years now and seems Adobe is more busy doing GenAI and god knows what that doesn't really work inside of fixing basic problems. I am kind of getting out of patience. It seems adobe is forcing me to move to something else! I even contacted their support. They wasted 2 hours of my time and nothing happened!

[nicholasg51627093]

AGREED !!!!!!   Since I mostly only do basic "Cuts Only" editing, getting tempted to use other programs - hate to go back to Final Cut or Avid, but Adobe is apparanrlty "to big to fail" and doesnt give a crap.  Hopefully enough people bail that they get the message.  I hear Davinci is cutting into their market a little bit - would LOVE to see that continue until Adobe gets their sh!t together

[Geoffrey37968971duzb]

Same problem in November 2025. Still hasn't been addressed.  I have my preview files on an Extreme Scandisk ssd (yes with a fixed drive letter) connected via usb 3 port because I edit 4k multicam interviews and the preview files are huge and will not fit on my local disk.  I rendered an hour of footage to be used later with exporting (DNxHR), timeline is green, smooth playback, great.  Saved the project, come back the next day and open the project to find the timeline yellow. 500GB of preview files are useless now?   Really?  Add it to the list of reasons I will be switching to Davinci. 
Hey but at least we got another coool AI feature in the latest update!!!