How do I get effects to show reliably in Premiere Pro?

I'm finding that the effects that I create in Premiere Pro do not render consistently when played back in the sequence that contains them.  For the most part, in fact, they do not render at all in playback mode.

Example 1:  I have text that is designed to fade from 100% opacity to 0% opacity in 2 seconds.  When I scroll over the image, I see the opacity numbers diminish to zero, however the text image itself remains unchanged, whether I'm scrubbing through the image or watching the sequence in which it is contained. 

Example 2: I have an image that uses key frames to reduce from 500% magnification to 90% magnification over five seconds.  When I scroll over the image, I see the magnification numbers diminish from 500 to 90 as desired, however when playing back the sequence, the image starts with its initial value and does not change.

What I've tried: 

1) An online video suggested that I render the image "in to out" to make the effects appear in playback.  This worked for example 2 above -- briefly -- but after I had done a little more editing of my sequence and watched it again, the magnification effect failed to show in playback.  Once again, I could see the playback values changing correctly as I scrubbed the image, but the changes did not appear in playback.

2) I tried clearing the cache, but that did not help.

3) Another video suggested that I change the image position slightly to get the effects to appear.  This seemed like a bad solution since I shouldn't have to change the position of an image to make, say, an opacity effect appear, but the tactic seemed to work the first time I tried it. However the image soon went back to remaining static when I played back the sequence that contained it. As usual, the edit console showed that the image values were changing correctly, but those changes were not showing up in playback mode.

Is this a known bug with Premiere Pro, or am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to fix this so that the effects that I create are shown consistently and reliably when I watch the sequences in which they are contained?