Frame substitution recursion attempt aborting after multiple attempts on file

[kbourg]

I'm a beginner at Premiere Pro, and I just updated it to v13.1.5. I've been working on this project for months, and now that I updated I keep getting these errors "Frame substitution recursion attempt aborting after multiple attempts on file" "Error retrieving frame" (see attached). It has affected about 90% of my footage making my file unusable. I was online with Adobe Support for 2 hours yesterday with no resolution. Does anyone have any ideas on if this can even be fixed? I tried replacing my footage with the orginal again and still no luck. I also attached my computer specs. Hopefully I'm explaining this correctly since I'm a beginner.

[Peru Bob]

See here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/whats-new/2019-1.html#frame-replacement

Some ideas here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/Premiere-Pro/Warning-error-frame-substitution/td-p/10425018

[Guest]

I have been asking for a preference to turn off this Frame Replacement bug/feature since it was released. 

What version of Blackmagic Raw are you running? 

[kbourg]

I just updated to Blackmagic RAW 1.5

[Guest]

Before or after the issue presented itself? Was there any difference?

[kbourg]

It happened after I updated Black Magic and after I updated Adobe Premiere Pro

[Guest]

Seems like a bug then. Welp. Downgrade to Premiere 12.1.2 and see if that fixes your issue. Never upgrade during a large project in process.

[kbourg]

Thanks for the advice!

[driven_films]

I'm encountering the exact identical error, any updates or solutions yet? I'm editing in the latest version of Premiere Pro CC, and the footage is blackmagic raw

[kbourg]

After 6 total hours of being online with support I gave up and just figured my file is corrupt. I deleted all the bad footage and re-imported it and then had to re-do the clipping of all the footage. Sorry wish I had a better answer =/

[driven_films]

Hmm, except that my footage isn't corrupt. I've checked the raw footage from which my project is built from, and the material plays back perfectly. There seems to be something happenning within Premiere that's causing this weird glitch. The only thing I can think of is the 3rd party BRAW plugin I purchased called Braw Studio from AutoKroma might be bugging out. Anyone else here using that plugin?

[kbourg]

It was weird b/c my original footage wasn't corrupt. It was just corrupt in the Premiere Pro file. I have the same plugin and updated it while I was in the middle of the project and I think that had something to do with it.

[driven_films]

So we're both cutting braw footage, both our footage is clean and uncorrupt, and both of us using the Autokroma plugin. I think we're getting warmer. Maybe uninstall/reinstall/ Autokroma ?

[kbourg]

That's what I ended up doing. I had updated to Braw 1.5, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled the previous version. So far I'm not having any issues after redoing my project.

[driven_films]

I've running braw 1.5, as well as updating to the latest version of Autokroma, which was released a day or two ago, although BM braw makes it obsolete now. But even with both these updates, the project seems to have been permanently corrupted by my old version of Autokroma. With the BM update, i'll just use that going forward.

[crabspanner]

The only solutiion is to use a version of Premiere that was released before this Frame Substitution 'feature' was introduced. We have rolled back our entire post facility to 2018 as we found no workable solutions to this problem. You can spend hours replacing clips, copying files etc, but ultimately the issue is quite random and likely not related to your media unless you're working with very low end compressed or damaged formats. It's a shame that this still hasnn't been fixed after several updates. 

[kbourg]

Thanks for the advice! It really is a shame. I'm just lucky mine was just a 2:30 minute video. Seems like Adobe support needs to get with it. They didn't even mention that.

[megan-at-RogueHeart]

You may have already found a solution by this time... I found a solution that fixed the frame substitution error on my system. I noticed on some footage that I had it was aquired in an .MOV container. Most didn't show a preview thumbnail in the windows explorer window. These were also the the same files that were giving me an error within Premiere Pro. The .MOV files would play fine in VLC but wouldn't play with quicktime or media player. I used VLC to convert the .MOV container into a .MP4-.h264 codec. I relinked the new files to the footage and the frame substitution error went away.

Hope this helps.

[florafreed]

Updated to PP 2020 at the end of 2019 and I just ran into this same issue. I first found a suggestion to switch video rendering and playback to "Mercury Playback Engine software only" and unfortunately that did not work. 

So, I found this suggestion, went over to cloudconvert, converted from .mov to .mp4 with the .264 codec, opened a new sequence, and dropped then converted file on and had no problems! 

Thank you for the suggestion

[Lupino78]

You saved me right there with the cloudconvert

Even Media Encoder or VLC could not open the file.  Thanks so much !

[dc_lee84]

Same message out of the blue for me. I updated to Premiere 14.0.2 and Media Encoder 14.0.2 on a base iMac Pro running Mojave 10.15.3

I'm not sure exactly what triggered it but I have a retainer client I work with every month so I keep the project with stock footage we collect over the years. I added new footage (Prores 4K DCI from my BMPCC 4K) along with some ProResHQ transcoded footage from a GH5 to my project and received the Frame substitution error...

I tried moving the clips to another drive, same issue so I tried exporting the previous sequence from last week which worked fine and received the same error...so just from trial and error I found that unchecking RENDER AT MAXIMUM DEPTH resolved the issue. 

Hope that helps someone else out =D

[Sprout]

I encountered this issue and read the previous input. I am a novice at best and so here is how I overcame the issue:

I did clean up the file by deleting 7-8 small .pngs that I did not need, but importantly (I think) when I re-created the image frame I wanted, rather than exporting as a .png, I changed it (to test) to a .jpg.  I inserted teh .jpg and all worked fine.  I reverted my saving style back to .png for future frame exports.  

So - I do not feel the deletion of the 7-8 small images corrected it...maybe it was a corruptness in the frame export?  Just glad it is fixed and I can move on.  

BTW - thanks to all of you that share experiences/guidance - sure is beneficial

[johnt23830019]

Bingo. Solved it. Many thanks.

[ALIASLABS]

How?

[oxendaleliam · Accepted solution]

Found a fix 🙂 In Premiere Pro, go to sequence and select delete render files. Then select all of the videos necessary in your timeline and go to sequence and select render selection. I had this same exact problem as you have. Hope this helps 🙂