Audio dropping out during playback in timeline

[JordanLynn1]

Hey everyone,

I've dug through these forums and unless I just completely overlooked it I have not found a solution to this issue. I've listed my setup below and then have stated the issue I'm experiencing.

27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac

3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

16GB 1333 MHz DDR3

AMD Radeon HD 6970 1024MB

Running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)

Currently working off of a portable 1TB G-Technology G-DRIVE via FW800.

Working in Premiere Pro CS6 Version 6.0.2

Editing in a sequence with settings:

1920 x 1080 23.976fps (also tried in a 29.97fps timeline with same issue)

Working with footage that is 23.98fps

Working with a combination of ProRes 422 (LT) and native H.264 Quicktime files strait from a 5D Mark 3.

The issue I'm having is during playback the audio will competely drop out. The video will continue playing on just fine but the audio drops completely out. All audio levels drop as well in the audio mixer meters so it truly is losing all communication with my audio layers in the timeline.

I read in other forums to go into Finder and delete out the .caf files, re open Premiere Pro, wait for them to be recreated then carry on. I tried this approach with no luck. Deleting the .caf did not change anything. Audio is still dropping out as I try to play through my timeline. The only way to get the audio back is to pause then press play again. I have 5 total channels of audio with only 2 of those channel active.

Any ideas on what is happening would be greatly appreciated. This is incredibly frustrating have to export out a video just to be able to watch it through.

[dsfsdsdfsdffdsf · Accepted solution]

I had the exact same problem when transitioning from FCP to Premiere the other month. It was indeed incredibly frustrating. I solved it in my instance by keeping my projects and cache on the system drive (Documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro/6.0 on a Mac). Haven't had the audio dropouts since. I'm guessing it might be a similar problem for you as you're working off an external drive. Try keeping the media and assets on the external drive but the project on the system drive in the Adobe default location. Good luck!

[Kevin-Monahan]

PaulM-Aus wrote:

I solved it in my instance by keeping my projects and cache on the system drive (Documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro/6.0 on a Mac). Haven't had the audio dropouts since.

Thanks PaulM-Aus,

JordanLynn1, let us know if this works for you.

Thanks,

Kevin

[S D Best]

This hasn't worked for me, despite using a Mac Pro, late 2013.

[JordanLynn1]

Hey Paul,

Sorry for the delay in my response. I wanted to give your suggestion a fairly thourough test drive before saying that IT WORKED. At least for the time being! That's strange, I wonder why moving those things to my system drive would make any difference? I guess I should have mentioned this in the original post but one thing I did notice was that I would only have this issue on projects that were pretty intensive. I edit a weekly web series which is a very basic set up of two layers of video and two layers of audio and I never have that problem.

Anyways, thanks for the suggestion! It has *knock on wood* solved my problem for now.

-J

[dsfsdsdfsdffdsf]

JordanLynn1 wrote:

That's strange, I wonder why moving those things to my system drive would make any difference?

Go figure! The glitch drove us crazy until we worked it out. Our workflow with FCP in the past relied on all the media, projects, renders, etc being stored on shared network drives as jobs bounce around suites a lot. We still keep the bulk of the assets on the network drives and at the end of each day dump our project files down to them as well in case another editor needs to pick them up. They just copy the project file into their Documents/Adobe/.. folder and away they go. To date we've had no further glitches, touch wood.

[JordanLynn1]

That's good to hear. I recently switched from FCP as well and my workflow was pretty much the exact same as yours was. Store everything in the same spot. So naturally I carried that over to Premiere not thinking anything about it. This is great info to know. Thanks again, brother!

-J

[moosefuel]

I also have been struggling with this issue with the exact setup as JordanLynn above (iMac 27", etc.). The only difference is that my FW800 is a permanent RAID5 storage device.

I searched high and low for info and posted on CreativeCow: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/935424#939701 and spent hours on the phone with Adobe.

I will post this as a solution back on CreativeCow and try it myself.

[JordanLynn1]

Just wanted to update everyone on how things have been going using this option we discussed.

So for a few days now everything has been running great. Unfortunately I just started having the same issue again out of nowhere. I have no idea what has made it decide to start dropping the audio again as I have not changed anything at all in how I've been working over the past few days.

So I'm not sure what the answer is. But certainly moving the project and cache files to my system drive helped stop the problem for a few good solid days.

-J

[dsfsdsdfsdffdsf]

Bugger. My last ditch piece of advice would be to create a new project (on your system drive, keeping the associated cache files in the same hierarchy) and then import your existing project into that. I tried that early on and it seemed to resolve one problem project, but no guarantee it'll fix your issue. Is anyone else accessing your media or files on any other machines? We've found issues with simultaneously accessing shared media.

[Justin16]

So I have had this same problem for a few months now when I am editing in a multi sequence.

I have tried saving and quitting, deleting the Cache, rendering audio, rendering in to out and nothing worked.

I have been working with footage on a Raid drive, with the Project file and scratch disks on a separate external SSD.

Finally, I moved my project file and scratch disk (cache) to my internal drive and still had the same problem,

As I was verbally processing with my good friend Mariah, I went into the Multicam sequence and just moved the audio tracks that wouldn't play all onto one NEW audio track.

Hope this helps. Maybe I just got lucky.

[bubbadoonyc]

Bump.

Getting this same problems in Premiere 7.2.1.

Suddenly my sequence's audio drops out entirely. The waveforms are there. Video plays back at the full frame rate. But no audio.

I'm working on a 2012 Mac, 24GB RAM, OS 10.9.1, with Prores LT files in a Prores sequence, 29.97. No mixed frame rates. Previews and caches are stored locally on the startup drive.

All I can do is to duplicate my sequence periodically, and then I revert to my last saved version when this occurs. This is obviously not ideal.

[lehestro]

I'm also having this issue. It wasn't a problem for me, actually, until the move to CC 2014. I have my cache files on my SSD system drive, and all my media on a fast USB 3 SSD external. Still this issue. Rendering audio doesn't help. I just increased by audio buffer from 512 to 1024. Hopefully that will help somewhat. Will report if it does.

Also, I should say, it doesn't do this all the time. Just at random. It has, however, gotten progressively worse.

[Hgexia]

I have the problem too,wait for Adobe....

[WillemvdKletersteeg]

Same problem here. Since the update to CC 2014 I'm having this problem on various projects. Once it starts dropping out audio there is no saving it seems. Doing a system or program restart seems to help but only for a few minutes. I'm trying to get projects done for very important clients and I just CAN'T right now. It is unworkable and I hate it.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Willem,

What happens if you increase the buffer size in Audio Hardware preferences?

Thanks,
Kevin

[digividkid]

I have had the same issue since installing CC 2014 in 3 edit rooms. All 3 have had this issue. Increasing the buffer size helps for a bit but the issue returns.

[lehestro]

I can't speak for Willem, but I've tried increasing the buffer sizes to every available option to no effect.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Lehestro,

OK, thanks for letting us know.

Kevin

[jorisvanr]

Any updates since last post? I've been struggling with this issue for quite a while now (since CS6, now in CC 2014) and it's pretty annoying! Copy everything to my local drive (as suggested by PaulM-Aus) is not an option as I am working with a new MacPro which only has a 500 gig harddrive.

[digividkid]

Two observations really:

1) Having all media on a optimal drive system - in my case 24TB, RAID 0 Array, I am working with 4K footage - reduces this issue about 30%.

2) The audio starts to drop out significantly and system becomes unstable within 10 mins. when I open source footage in a folder and have that folder selected to Icon View.

Increasing the buffer size and monitoring the audio using different outputs from the Mac system did not change this issue for me.

[mchart]

I've been having this issue on two separate iMacs (a 2011 i7 and a 2014 i7 Retina) with different versions of Premiere CC14 for a while now.

My suspicion is that it has to do with editing a timeline that has non i-frame codecs as it seems to happen more often in these cases.

My media is on an external Thunderbay Raid5, my local iMac hard drives are SSDs and the projects are local.

Would love a fix to this as it makes editing impossible.

[zip91436]

Having this annoying problem also.  Using the Space Bar to play timeline it takes pressing and holding to a count of three or trying press play three time in a row using the space bar to get ungarbled audio, or any audio at all in a normal uncomplicated sequence on the timeline.

Really annoying.  Audio used to be so simple and untaxing to a sequence.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014.1 release

8.1.0(81) Build

OSX 10.8.4

40 GB RAM

G Raid G Speed Q w/ ESATA connection

1920x1080 29.97 Progressive Scan Sequence

48Khz

Apple PRoRes 422

12 channels of audio/ only 2 of 12 monitored.

1/2 resolution on Program monitor

ADOBE.....WISH THERE WAS A SOLUTION?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Zip,

zip91436 wrote:

ADOBE.....WISH THERE WAS A SOLUTION?

Check out the next update coming really soon!

Kevin

[zip91436]

It's on my Christmas Wish List !!!

Thanks.