Choppy playback in CC, suddenly

[vrvince]

Yes, yet another mysterious choppy, jerky playback out-of-the-blue issue.

Premiere Pro CC 7.01, Mac, was working relatively fine for a few weeks on a couple projects. Now, on new project, exact same setup and media as before, I get playback that is fine, then after a few moments or a minute, gets choppy, as my CPU becomes increasingly pegged, as if GPU acceleration becomes disabled with time. Cannot edit when it is like that. I give it a rest for a few moments, can play ok for a minute, then CPU and choppiness creaps up again.

Premiere Pro CC 7.0.1

Mac OSx 10.8.2

Nikon D800 and D7000 .mov files, 1920-x1080 23.976fps, High Quality

Sequence: DSLR 1920x1080x23.976fps

Project: Mercury OpenCL GPU (via AMD Radeon 6770m in Macbook Pro.) No change if switch to Software Only.

Premier Pref/Memory: either Optimize for Performance or Memory, and restart. No effect.

Playback Resolution: 1/2. Always worked before.

No other software running. (Time Machine enabled, not backing up. Crashplan paused or service unloaded did not help.)

When CPU pegs, it is kernal_task and Premiere at top of All Processes/%CPU table in Activity Monitor.

Macbook Pro, late 2011, quad-core 2.5 GHz i7, 16GB memory. Apogee Duet2 audio output.

Source files and cache files and preview files on Pegaus Raid on Thunderbolt. NEC monitor on Thunderbolt. Premiere on internal drive.

No complex layers, effects. Just straight video and 2-4 tracks of audio. So little to no Previews rendered.  Timeline bar is yellow, which always played fine (via OpenCL.) Rendering Previews of a few minute section does not help.

Happens whether doing multicam sequence or simple cuts.

Cleaned media cache (Premiere/Prefs/Media/clean cache.) No Previews to clean out.

Graphics Switching disabled, so always on Radeon.

Only Changes since it was working -

CC app update (i.e. the menu bar thing, but I usually Quit that anyway.)

Indesign CC, Extension Manager update (but never launched.)

More memory allocated to Crashplan (but if I pause or unload that service no effect. And memory does not seem to be an issue looking at Activity Monitor.)

Checked Files on and rebuilt Thunderbolt raid directory (with DiskWarrior, just as general maintenance.)

Apple Timecapsule firmware updated to 7.6.4.

Maybe Java updated to v7 update 25 during that time.

Thanks,

Vincent

[BrotherBloat]

Hi Kevin,

Sorry, my earlier reply was really rushed, as I was with a client.

Here is the full story. I'm on win8.1 PC. It's a fairly old CPU (i7 920), but kitted out with 24GB of RAM, GTX 560 DirectCU II 1.5GB and SSDs, too. It runs projects up to 8x 45mbit DSLR multicam just fine.

Recently, I installed the Razer audio controller, which mounts a virtual speaker output on the PC (it installed itself alongside some Steam game). There was no issue whatsoever. The other day, I uninstalled it and that's what broke Premiere! Literally every time I'd bring the focus back to Premiere CC from any otehr app, even from the desktop, it would stagger for 5-10 seconds before anything was clickable. Scrobbling through the timeline was impossible, etc. Also, the application had the old audio hardware entries in the Audio Hardware section of settings. Changing them prompted the audio sync warning.

Prompted by the top answer in this thread, I figured it out and re-installed Razer's speaker driver/emulator. After a restart, Premiere started running as normal! Woohoo

best wishes,

Mike

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks for the report, Mike!

Here is the full story. I'm on win8.1 PC. It's a fairly old CPU (i7 920), but kitted out with 24GB of RAM, GTX 560 DirectCU II 1.5GB and SSDs, too. It runs projects up to 8x 45mbit DSLR multicam just fine.

OK, a PC user. Thanks for the info.

Recently, I installed the Razer audio controller, which mounts a virtual speaker output on the PC (it installed itself alongside some Steam game). There was no issue whatsoever. The other day, I uninstalled it and that's what broke Premiere! Literally every time I'd bring the focus back to Premiere CC from any otehr app, even from the desktop, it would stagger for 5-10 seconds before anything was clickable. Scrobbling through the timeline was impossible, etc. Also, the application had the old audio hardware entries in the Audio Hardware section of settings. Changing them prompted the audio sync warning.

Prompted by the top answer in this thread, I figured it out and re-installed Razer's speaker driver/emulator. After a restart, Premiere started running as normal!

So, reinstalling an audio hardware device driver (Razer) did the trick. This seems to be a potential fix for many Windows users having trouble with audio in Premiere Pro CC 2015.

Thanks again for the report!

Kevin

[BrotherBloat]

Correct - re-installing the (emulated!) HW device did the trick - but the key point is - Premiere worked perfectly for months before I ever had that device installed to begin with. In other words, bog standard audio driver was not an issue until a new driver was used in its place - then reversing to the vanilla one caused a problem.

[Meliodas_Sin]

it helped me too. i needed to plug out my amplifier... i hope they update this very fast.

[AzzieScott]

Yes I have noticed the same issue on my system. I have experienced opening up a project and the timeline plays slow and audio pitch is slowed as well. I also get intermittently  choppy play back occasionally. I'm running the latest version Premiere Pro CC. This started happening recently and was not doing this before. I have a 2008 8 core MacPro with a 480 gig SSD drive, ATI Radeon 5770 card and 22 gigs of ram.

[miller-creative]

I followed advice and rolled Premiere back to 7.0.1 - It's now running at a professional speed again. Clearing cache, setting to software rendering did nothing for me.

Rendering was taking such a massive amount of time. A 100 sec sequence was taking 2.5hrs to render comapired to 3.5mins before installing the CC update to Premiere 7.2.

This problem is not effecting everyone. Seem most apparent on older Mac's/Macbook Pro's etc.

Hope Adobe sort this out as there were some nice additions in 7.2.

[CalvinandHobbes]

Same playback issue.  Never had this problem until a few days ago.

Premiere CC 7.2.0

Macbook Pro early 2011  10.9.1 Mavericks

500GB 7200rpm

AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB

8GB RAM

Working with DSLR h264 footy.

Cleaned all the cache

Reset preferences

Still super choppy playback and excruitatingly long exports when GPU accerlation is enabled.   Works so so at 1/2 res playback using software only option.

Adobe tech support tried to help me out.  Said that my driver needed to be updated and I needed to contact AMD for that...

Ya seems like the problem is more likely in the 7.2 update.  I never had a problem until last week.

[CalvinandHobbes]

Also so this:  http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/14/apples-2011-macbook-pro-lineup-suffering-from-sporadic-gpu...

[crispacket]

come on Adobe... sort this one out. We are having the same issues here with Adobe Prem CC 7.1 and 7.2 on a PC or MAC. Nvidia 650M.

Creative cloud says all apps up to date when theyre not. Creative Cloud software also has issues when trying to install its own updates - crashes then wont start up.

I also have issues with Photoshop CC 64 bit - it wont even open??

Just give us a stable version of your software. We dont need updates every few months... just get it sorted before you release.

[crispacket]

has anyone tried this http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5-2.htm

Its worth looking at and updates your GPU to the adobe supported cards list.

[Cadillacula]

Well well well... what's this? 2 count 'em 2 adobe updates... one to Creative Cloud... and one to Premiere Pro... well well well.

Squeaky wheel? Or coincidenece?

Updating now (fingers corssed so hard they hurt).

UPDATE: Aaaaand "error installing the creative cloud desktop" message. Great start. Uninstalling manually per the norm... here we go again....

[chadandreo]

Any updates?

I am having the same issue.

2011 MacBook Pro

i7 2.2

16GB Ram

256 SSD + 750GB HD

AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1GB

[Michael_J_Titera]

Hi,

I had the same problem. This is what I did to resolve it:

1) Edit -> Preferences -> Media

2) Moved "Media Cache Files" and "Media Cache Database" to my C: Drive

3) Saved and closed Premiere.

4) Restarted Premiere

Now, playback is perfect. Note: My separate video drive (my V: Drive) now only contains my source files and previews (no longer the cache data).

Cheers,

Michael

[u_felski]

Hi all,

had the same problem.. after trying tons of things i found a simple solution... almost embarressing.

My external Audio Hardware (RME Madi) had its sample rate set to 44.1khz (my clips where 48 khz). after matching the audio sample rate everything is perfect.

Cheers,

Uwe

[vrvince]

I am original poster here, upgraded to 7.2.2 today. No better for my AMD Radeon 6770m. OsX 10.8.5. See first post for other settings.

ProjectSettings, Rendering: GPU a bit slower than CPU. Neither useable.

Cleared cache and cleaned cache database; moved cache to internal drive; checked audio hardware configurations.

[Justin Kavoussi]

Hi vrvince,

Any chance you're using merged clips in your project? I've had similar issues myself with large projects when using merged clips and the only workaround I've found yet is to recreate & replace all merged clips with single-angle multicams. You can test this out by deleting all merged clips from any open sequences - if you have the same issue as me you'll notice a significant performance improvement. Not sure if this is your problem, but figured I'd chime in just in case.

Justin

[irvinjoelbanta]

seriously Adobe...! now with my 7.2.2 im getting EXACT sluggish playback problem that everyone else here is getting!  & if anyone shouldnt be sluggish on this post... its my laptop which is Entirely SSD & RAID SSD...

makes me re-think any Updates you guys send down, if it's not broke dont fix it...

MSI G70

Windows 8

Premiere CC 7.2.2

I'm just edting some H.264 5d Mark III footage... easy right?

I've already clear my cache that was located on my C drive (which is in a RAID SSD setup) & move it to my scratch disk another SSD internal drive.  Been back & forth on changing my GPU to Software only... with deleting preview files, (just like everyone has mentioned to do...)... no luck

irvin Joel banta iv

@irvnjoelbanta

bilbyfilms.com

[speedtheplough]

I finally figured this problem out for me - i started getting this problem on all clips, regardless of codec and whether they were graded, as soon as the timeline became rendered (giving a green bar above the timeline)

happened after upgrading to mavericks.

in the sequence settings, "Composite in Linear Colour" was ticked - so unless you have GPU acceleration, its not going to play black properly.

Unticked and it started working again and life improved dramatically.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi speedtheplough,

Thanks for finding a workaround.

Kevin

[adamd11]

"in the sequence settings, "Composite in Linear Colour" was ticked - so unless you have GPU acceleration, its not going to play black properly."

-this worked for me, thanks.

[Kevin-Monahan]

"in the sequence settings, "Composite in Linear Colour" was ticked - so unless you have GPU acceleration, its not going to play black properly."

-this worked for me, thanks.

Thanks for reporting Adam. That is helpful! BTW, were you on Mac or PC?

Kevin

[freddiemac1982]

I'm having these same issues and was wondering what was going on? I have to render each selection if I just want to play it back and check it out while editing. I never had to do this before. Any suggestions? I'm not the most computer literate guy on here but I will list what I'm working with.

Mac Pro (2009)

SSD -128 GB

9 GB 667 DDRs FB-DIMM

5.5 GB Hard Drive Space

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB

Any suggestions would be very helpful.

[Jas69]

Premiere pro cc is jumping chunks of frames at a time during play back making it impossible to judge the timing I've set up. I've put up with it for months but can't work with it any more.

6 core i7 @ 3.5 Ghz

32 gig ram

SSD c-drive

AMD Firepro 5900

Latest drivers all round

Premiere 8.1 - virtually useless 

[Small Town Gal]

Hi, All,

Same problem here -- really choppy playback, slow, stop -- even at 1/4 size.  It starts out o.k., but as I add to the project, the performance completely disintegrates and it's becoming very frustrating.  I thought it was because I was working on an older Mac with 10.7.5, but it appears that many of you are having the same problems.  I have worked with FCP in the past and am switching over to Premiere Pro (running CC2014), so that's why I thought it must be a problem with my older computer.  I'm getting a new Mac in a week or two, so I hope that corrects the problem.

Small Town Gal

[dummergold]

no machine will run properly if media sequence files are imported through the Project panel

latest immediate fix for me was to make my media offline and using the Media Browser, import your media

night and day differences

imports through the media browser instantly - no hours of importing, no hours of generating peak files

I am able to work, you should also