Audio drops out randomly in timeline Premiere Pro 2023

[Spacecadet1968]

Hi,

The audio drops out randomly in the timeline during playback.

Additionally, the video is choppy in random places, just before or just after the audio drops out. It’s almost as if Premiere is running out of memory, yet when I checked settings, it’s got 26GB allocated.

After speaking with Adobe support, with the only solution that seemed to work was to open Premiere in Intel mode and change the rendering engine to Mercury Playback Engine Software Only, rather than Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (Metal). This worked once, but the problem has since returned.

I was told that the issue is “Apple’s drivers are not able to cooperate with the latest version” of Premiere,(direct quote) and to contact Apple, but that doesn’t make sense. 

Is anyone else having the same issues?

I’m running a Mac Studio, macOS Ventura, with an M1 Max and 32 GB of RAM.

Thanks!

Michael  

[Ishan Y]

I can understand how frustrating this must be for you. I suggested transcoding to isolate if the issue is with how the source file is encoded. If you could send us the source file, the Premiere Pro project file, and the exported file with the audio drop, we can share them with the engineering team for investigation. I have recently seen some issues with third-party plugins causing some source files to act up inside Premiere Pro, so knowing what plugins you have installed will give us more information to work with. 

[Philip35181694m0oo]

Hi Ishan - I am having the same issues. Can you let me know which third-party plugins are causing problems? I'm about to delete and uninstall everything in the hope of resolving this issue. 

[pittsure]

All, that's right. All 3rd party plug ins are the problem. Before the 2023 updates, Magic Bullet worked fine, but not anymore. It's impossible to edit. As soon as I finish this project, I'm done with Premiere. 

[chimepup]

I know it's been over a year but I've also been experiencing this since last year and even with the new update, I'm still experiencing the same thing. I saw you're considering switching software but have become comfortable with Adobe and don't want to. I'm in the same boat. I don't want to do workarounds to fix something that I never messed up. For me, this happens with even simple recordings from OBS. MP4 files. It exports just fine, but having to take extra time during review/playback before exporting just to scroll my playhead back to make sure audio and everything sounds fine is becoming a very problematic hassle. 

Were you ever able to fix the issue for good? Or have you since moved on? 

[pittsure]

No. Adobe blamed audio plug ins, which I took out and still have the same problems. Then they blamed Apple. There is no fix to my knowledge. 

[Disaster Media]

I noticed that my issue was that I was working off of external drives and the processing speeds were the bottleneck. 

I moved 4TB and SSD and SATA drives, has not happened since. 

[PieMatt7]

can you explain how you did it please?

[ciaranl76720475]

I have found that proxying every file to lowres (<1080) prores LT seems to solves. I have been caught out recently by assuming that Premiere can handle files like 1080 MP4s without proxying (like it used to be able to do) - but it can't.

ALSO be careful - you need to make really digestible proxies (low res Prores LT seems to work best for me). I was working on a feature project recently where the Edit Assistant created medium resolution H264 proxies (using one of the default proxy settings) - and premiere couldn't handle them. Sound still dropped out. So I had to re-proxy the entire project using a custom lower quality proxy setting (project was shot on an Alexa LF at a non-standard aspect ratio, so a custom ingest preset had to be created).

Make proxies workflow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-52YPI6fpqY&ab_channel=KatieM%C3%BCnch

Custom presets for non-standard aspect ratios: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPD7z8MPmOY&ab_channel=AdobeCare

[ciaranl76720475]

I feel slightly sick helping solve Adobe's problems. They are a terrible company, who keep making their software worse and worse for no reason.

But I know how frustrating it is to be a user of their software - this is to help users, not Adobe.

[PieMatt7]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Idk why adobe does to us, every update....

[default5b8lspejca41]

This is also happening to me on a 2022 Mac Studio, w/ Ventura. It's incredibly frustrating. Reading through the fruitless troubleshooting below, I am even more disheartened. Clearly there's a fundamental incompatibility with this version of Premiere and this computer setup. Bummer.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi @default5b8lspejca41,

I read your case. Is it possible to get more info about your media and workflow? I hope the community can assist.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Richard van den Boogaard]

Try setting Audio Input to None in Audio Hardware preferences.

Hope this helps.

[KonaLyman]

than you Richard, Ill try it.

[ashwatch]

Hello, 

I'm have the same problem, audio drops out during playback.

I've changed this:

as well as this:

But no luck.

Please help, as this is extremly frustrating.

Thank you.

[KonaLyman]

correct, extremely frustrating. Ive had this problem for at least 8 months. Davinci Resolve is looking better everyday.

[ashwatch]

@KonaLyman, no solution for you either?

I've been a PPro user for over 12 years now, so hoping to get a solution on this.

Come on Premiere Gods;)

[KonaLyman]

Nope, no solution. With every PPro update there seems to be a quirk of some type. This one I hate.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi @KonaLyman,

Are you attaching more than one monitor? If so, try a single monitor setup.

Thanks,
Kevin

[KonaLyman]

2 monitors yes. Work off 1 monitor? I'd rather move to Resolve.

[ashwatch]

Yes, i'm on 2 monitors as well.

Single monitor is not a permanent solution for me.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Can you try a test? 

[KonaLyman]

here is my sample: Timeline plays, audio drops out but timeline continues to play. I Stop playback, Start play and audio is fine until the next drop out.   Its happening right now as I send this message .  Its been going on for 8 months so you can assume I tried everything to correct this problem. Everything. Previous Adobe tech support left me a long time ago. 

[KonaLyman]

Been about 18 months for me. Audio drops out everyday. I just live with it. Hopefully PPro '25 will have a fix. 

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi,

I meant try a test with a single monitor. Does it work? What is the resolution of your monitors? Are they larger than 4K? Have you tried the workaround? Enable Displays have separate Spaces in macOS System Settings > Desktop & Dock. https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/known-issues.html

See if that works for you.

Thanks,
Kevin