Premiere 2015 - All video playback is now choppy. Why?

[Danielassault]

After installing the new update (2015), I can no longer preview and video (of any format) without it being extremely choppy and unusable.

Anyone else run into this problem?

[screenname_abc]

Problems I'm encountering;

- Render previews start to play the work area then jump back to the beginning of the timeline - even though I have preview work area selected in preferences.

- The play/stop button is laggy as hell.  Often the video plays on for a few seconds when I hit stop and wont start for a few seconds when I hit play.

- Trim tool is super laggy.

- Moving clips to different layers is really laggy and jumpy.

- Video playback from timeline stutters (even after render preview and dropping preview monitor resolution to half).

- Audio is constantly dropping out.

I switched off that home screen thing which was ridiculous.

Composite view wrench didn't do anything.

Clearing cache didn't do anything (apart from take a couple of hours of my time).

I think it's too easy to say anyone in their right mind shouldn't upgrade to version x.0.  This is Adobe.  Probably one of the largest most reputable software developers.  The year is 2015.  They've had nigh on two decades to get their releases right.  It's a monthly subscription service that makes them millions.  I wouldn't build a roof and find it leaks and just go silent whilst still taking someones money.  I wouldn't do an edit and if the client said it didn't work just go silent on them while still taking their money.  I don't go into a supermarket and buy a product that I soon find is broken and doesn't do what it says on the tin and just accept it doesn't work and let them just take my money either way.

On a slightly separate note - I had to update lightroom yesterday, which I did with Premiere 2015 open.  What a pain that was.  Took forever.  Had to build new libraries and all sorts and then when I tried to import that too was laggy as hell.  Nigh on impossible.  Took me about an hour to import maybe 100 raw images, select them and export them as JPEGS.  These are simple tasks that should not be a problem.  They weren't a problem in the past.  I could run After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere all at once pretty much no problem.  I could import images in seconds and export in a few minutes.  I could hit play on my Premiere timeline and it worked.  To not be able to play is ya know... somewhat of a deal breaker when you're making videos.

[Jim Curtis]

screenname_abc wrote:

I think it's too easy to say anyone in their right mind shouldn't upgrade to version x.0. 

That's not quite what I wrote.  I said it wouldn't be sane, given the history of buggy x.0 NLE releases (by all vendors) to bet your business on an x.0 release; and to go ahead and upgrade and play around with it; just keep your old version around for paying work.

"Should" x.0 software be rock solid?  You can make a case for what should be as a paying customer.  But, I'm going with history and reality here.  Adobe (and Avid and Apple, and probably every other compositing and NLE and OS vendor) have histories of releasing bug-riddled x.0 products, for the reasons I stated.  The path of least resistance here is to do what I suggested and not give yourself an embolism because of unrealistic expectations.  If Adobe don't get this fixed in a reasonable amount of time, you have competing options with Avid, Autodesk, and so on.  But, don't expect things will be any different.  Bop on down to the Avid forums after they release an x.0, and see if it's all Kumbaya and roses.

But, by all means, keep reporting the problems you're having, file bug reports, and continue to exercise your rights of free speech.

[screenname_abc]

Yeah I'm not having a go at you or anything...  I just think that an NLE should be able to play what's on the timeline.  I just think that an NLE should be able to be used to edit in a non linear way.  At present that's debatable.

I can still play back the timeline and I can still edit but I would say the speed at which I can work has decreased by 20% - 30% since this upgrade and I am now definitely suggesting clients don't come and sit in on edits, at the moment, because the choppiness is cringe worthy.  I make music videos.  It doesn't bode well when the artist is sat in with me and their audio is trashed and I'm getting messages saying audio is out of synch with video (which I have now turned off via preferences).

I'd understand if new features were buggy.  It's the fact that the bulk standard features are now messed up (playing video and audio in an NLE is kinda key) that pains me most.

[screenname_abc]

And sorry to harp on but I guess it's time to vent.

I migrated from Avid about 2-3 years ago now.  I had been with Avid for about 10 years.  I was totally for the capabilities that premiere offered.  Integration with AE/Photoshop.  Not having to transcode footage on import etc.  Finally Premiere was rivaling FCP where I felt Avid had fallen behind.  It wasn't long into my CC subscription that I encountered an Error Compiling Movie message in Premiere.  Projects were being trashed left right and center.  As I posted above I lost an entire project through this one error and still to this day, through CS6 and 2014, it hasn't been properly fixed.  People are still posting about that error some two years later.  (see here "Error compiling movie. Unknown Error." OR program crash when rendering)  It started showing up after an upgrade and it never went away for some people.  Sure it doesn't come up as much as it used to.  In fact I hardly ever see it now on new projects but the old projects that had it happen with it never went away, for me at least, hence it worries me greatly when I do an update, I see playback and audio are now totally messed up and again I see Adobe going quiet like this.

The difference between the Avid forums and the Adobe forums is that on the Avid forums an Avid representative would most definitely communicate with you.  I remember many late night calls to Avid where they talked me through step by step how to fix problems or establish short term workarounds.  A few times I was given free upgrades just as a good will gesture.  I didn't pay for any of that support.  I paid for my software and I knew that for the next two or three years I would be looked after.  I would be treated like a customer should be treated.  With a little respect!  That's why they kept me there so long.  They were great at customer support and you felt as if your posts were being read by them.  As if you had a voice in some way.  Adobe don't have that communication skill and I think it really reflects bad on them and as a result it trashes my confidence in their service and products.

I feel as if Adobe treat us as "subscribe and sleep consumers" (TM). They take our money through our subscription and hope we fall asleep waiting for their software to fix itself.

At least in my sleep I have some happy dreams.  When I am awake and working with Adobe it's all about the nightmares!

End xx

PS - "Subscribe and Sleep consumers" is mine please don't steal it unless you're nice to me or can fix the choppy playback

[TeeKayCC]

It's your fault as much as their's if you take that leap.

You're not wrong, but I really wish you were.

[glaustin]

Hi Jim

Many thanks for your well argued response. I know I was just venting a little frustration, but maybe I have just been fortunate or the bugs in all the many other products I use have not been so important or so many as with CC 2015.

I think I've a healthy level of expectation. OK, so some of the new twiddly bits in any makers' upgrade might have issues, but I expect an upgrade to at least do the basics of what it was doing before. In this case smoothly edit video. Yet it seems there are different levels of issues across all the new CC 2015 products; more than I've personally noticed to date (but I might be wrong). Fortunately, for Pr, I was on the lookout as I'd already lost a tender due to Acrobat DC uninstalling the previous version and the related problems with that ill conceived upgrade. So I didn't fall into that trap. But, speaking generally [for any Adobe staff looking in], uninstalling all previous versions is a major change of update practice and there should have been a big, "in yer face" warning because I suspect many just hit the "Update All" Button...

Overall, the big thing for me is Adobe's apparent lack of real concern shown to professionals here, or embarrassed apology or any sort of announcement they are working flat out on a version 2 to launch ASAP. Don't forget one of Adobe's arguments in favour of their monthly leasing deal was regular updates; not much cop if they publish releases that don't work or cost you time or, even worse, business. I know other software producers have issued updates with problems. But we're talking Adobe here and Adobe position themselves as designers of tools for professional people. So I expect a professional approach. Would you expect self-employed truckers or transport companies to keep their two previous vehicles in the garage just in case the new truck they're buying from Ford or GM won't drive off the forecourt or stall over 15mph on the highway or has a an issue somewhere in the gear box so you can't shift out of first gear? No, but if they did have any of these problems you'd expect some pretty quick recalls and red faced grovelling apologies and even refunds... And the official response from Adobe???

OK, I know these things will be solved to some extent and one day soon(ish) all will work with just the usual daily niggling problems. What worries me is how they will solve some of these problems...

Regards,

Graham

[rdavid1020]

Well said Graham!  I too wish they would at least post something to let us know that it is being worked on rather than No comment at all!

Richard

[screenname_abc]

What Graham said!

I also feel there have been too many updates.  At first the idea excited me but now I just want good old fashioned stability.  I actually miss being happy with my old version of Photoshop or After Effects CS3 where I knew what my tools were capable of doing and I knew that when I opened them they worked.

[Jim Curtis]

Graham, I agree with much of what you have to say about your expectations as a consumer.  We do have a right to fully functioning products, whether they're trucks or software, especially if the product is a tool of our trade.  I've already made my major points on why software is different from buying a truck, and why NLE software in particular is prone to incompatibilities.

I haven't talked about this yet, in this thread, about Adobe's response.  The fact is that Adobe has employees with a steady presence here on the forums.  They (and Avid) realized (probably way too late in the game) that it's in their (and our) interests to maintain open communication with their customers.  You can spot the Adobe employees by the icon on their posts here.  I think there's evidence they do take an interest in getting things right.  Not doing so is bad strategic planning.

There's a reason why companies don't come out and say "we screwed up."  Liability lawsuits.  They have to be careful about admitting errors, and how they do it.  Bear in mind that people like me only come to the forums when we're having problems, and seeking a solution.  I don't know what percentage of users who aren't having any problems, but I'm guessing it's pretty high.  Most of the problems that most tech support people find are operator error issues.  That's why the first ten questions the support people ask are insulting to professionals.  "Is the computer plugged in?"  Yes, people are that dumb.  I solved my choppy playback problem days ago, posted how I did it, and am only back here now because I get notifications, like your congenial reply to my post.  Thank you for the civilized dialog.

I feel confident Adobe is working on the problem, if there is a problem, or working on the reason why some customers are having this problem, so that they can get the information out.  I'm on an external list for After Effects, and rarely a weekday goes by there aren't posts from an Adobe employee keeping the lines of communication open, admitting weaknesses, and assuring us that his team is working on shortcomings.

I may be grading on a curve here.  Shortly before I abandoned Media Composer, it was typical advice on the Avid forum from an Avid employee to suggest, when you were having problems, to erase your boot disk, and start with a clean install of your OS, and then do a clean install of ALL your software.  The last time I did that, it took eight hours.  It was painful.  And whether we like it or not, that might be what we, or some of us need to do to get Pr working right.  And my guess is that a lot of forum members would forgo that suggestion (but claim they didn't) and still expect to get their problems solved.  When I search my drive, I'm amazed at what's been left over from apps I've abandoned years ago.  I remember the solutions to many vexing problems have been things I wouldn't have thought of in a million years.  Things like "trash the DVCProHD encoder from the QT Components folder."  Or, "remove the Wacom tablet driver."  One fix for Pr years ago was to open the Premiere Pro Console (Most of us don't even know there is one - for good reasons.), and change a few inscrutable variables from "true" to "false" (or vice versa).

A lot of people who come to forums don't try everything they can before posting.  I have a routine that fixes 99% of Premiere issues, and I'll paste it here.  I work on Macs, so some of this won't apply to you or other Windows users:

"

Delete prefs

Delete Previews

Delete Media Caches

If that doesn’t help, uninstall and reinstall the app.

If still having problems, the issue is likely either corrupt media or a corrupt project.  Corrupt media can be discovered by the process of elimination (removing media until the problem goes away, which implicates the last media removed), or by using Corrupt Clip Finder by Digital Rebellion.  Bad media can usually be fixed by transcoding to another codec, or the same codec under a different file name, that you can then relink in Pr.

If you’re lucky, a corrupt project can be worked around by starting a new project, and importing the bad one.  I’ve had only one project that was unfixable out of hundreds.  I had to revert to an earlier save, and do a lot of work over (which was all audio mix at the time.  Could have been much worse.  Turns out that it was too much / corrupted audio keyframing and/or image stabilization that caused project corruption.).

Another corrupt Project workaround is to export the project as XML and import that into a new project.  That will save your edits, but you will lose all your plug-in and mix info.

I’m on Mac, and occasionally running Disk Warrior has helped, too.

It’s also possible to have problems caused by a corrupted driver or preferences for third party io hardware, GPU, or OS core audio.  Uninstall and reinstall drivers.

"

And I'll repeat what I posted earlier.  I solved the choppy playback issue by the fourth item on this list: uninstall & reinstall the app.  YMMV.  I read some Windows users did that, and it didn't work for them.

[screenname_abc]

Another corrupt Project workaround is to export the project as XML and import that into a new project.  That will save your edits, but you will lose all your plug-in and mix info.

I like that idea... may try it on my old trashed project.  It's a 75 minute doc... I got through the edit, lots of overlay effects.... beautiful grade in Speed Grade and Premeire.  All was going so well and then boom.  Error compiling movie.  Never ever found a workaround.

Trying not to step too far away from the thread topic.  My video is still choppy and my audio is dropping out every few seconds.

Thanks

[glaustin]

Hi Jim

Many thanks. I always think these forums act like an opinion poll; if you get a lot of similar problems here, you can make a broader projection on what's happening out there. I just hope someone from Adobe might take heed of the fact there are a number of similar issues and give a clear overview of their position and what they are doing (and they don't have to admit they screwed-up!)

Thanks also for sharing your problem solving map. That's very helpful and appreciated. TBH, I've been thinking of reloading Win7 on my Laptop as I want to pare my programmes right back to the "must haves" for my editing and media work only in the field. The only thing I am edgy about is my laptop's NVIDIA graphics card was originally listed under supported hardware (it was built by Dell as a compliant machine). When I first loaded Pr,CC it would hang on opening and the helpdesk found and corrected a conflict between my NVIDIA card and Intel. All was fine but when CC 2014 was launched a year or two after there was a problem opening the Mercury Playback because Pr didn't always recognise the card was able to handle it. The helpdesk couldn't solve that issue and a few weeks later my card mysteriously vanished from the list of supported products. I gather others have found this as well. So I'm worried that if I reload and I face the original NVIDIA/ Intel conflict again, Adobe won't help and I'll be left with no Pr version.

Regards,

Graham

[SpareWheel]

Yes Graham, it's much better as the NLE software becomes much more sophisticated and performance dependent to have a machine dedicated to the task. I fear many have all sorts of codec cr*p and orphaned registry's on their machine these days. For PC users try CCleaner. My workstation is exactly that... I do emails on another machine and browse the web on this Workstation II - my backup if my primary Workstation fails. Yes, I have two trucks like a professional haulier - my work depends upon it.

[glaustin]

Thanks D. I have a stand alone for the majority of my editing/ media work (but I'm upgrading soon), but the laptop goes with me in the field and when I'm travelling.

[SpareWheel]

Screenname,

Quite a while back I use to get the "Error Compliing..." issue on CS5. It turned out to be corrupted media combined with a video transition. I found the issue on an hour-long timeline by saving the project as say version one, then deleting a whole chunk of the edit. Attempted to media export again until I finally got to the point where it would export out without error. I then went back to the previous version and started adding back the timline until I found the section at fault - have you tried this?

As to your point about the forum, yes it has gone quiet, but Adobe will state this is a user support forum. I bought the Sony FS7 in February and get the same thing on the Sony FS7 forum - no help from Sony just fellow users. You would think Sony and Adobe would put on their PR hats and have a more "hands-on" presence particularly in this thread, but I fear they believe for most the suggested fixes and workarounds have sorted it, but unfortunately for some it hasn't.

Personally, when I finish the project I am currently working on, I will try CC 2015 again but will first do a clean sweep of my system and OS and dump all cache and previews like I do when I start all new projects.

Hope this helps as I feel your pain.

[APS_Chris]

bump

[chrisbrearley]

Choppy playback for me too. HD upper-field MP4s from an EX3. Brand new project. Windows 8, 5820k, 2xnVifia 980Ti, 64Gb RAM. 

[Robin_Labadie]

That 2015 Premiere Pro CC is complete ****. I'm so bored since i updated... Everything is broken. Interface randomly freezes... How the hell are you supposed to work with that **** ?

[mikekazin]

So far what I have found (and please try this at home to see if the same is happening) by keeping my Resource Monitor open as I work, as I play the timeline, my memory used goes up and up and up.  If I stop playing the timeline, the memory stays used.  It won't dump.  So back to playing, as I go, the memory now hits 99% used.  I go over to see whats happening on the disk and the disk I/O is running like 300megs/sec.  So in my eyes, Premiere is filling my memory as I play video and once the memory is all gone, it starts using my page file and filling that up as quick as possible.  That's when all hell breaks loose and I start getting all kinds of playback errors.  So I wonder why is the memory not dumping?  As it does not matter what I set the memory use to be.  I have 32 gigs of memory.  Even if I set in the Pref that it can only use 16, it uses as much (Meaning ALL) as it wants. 

[creative_edge]

‌i think its audio related, i had the problem so I decided to plug in an external usb audio card  (tascam) and the playback has stopped stuttering after I set it to be the audio hardware device

[chrisbrearley]

Not for me it's not. Like I said, had an Adobe support guy rifle through my system for two hours changing audio settings, updating drivers, reinstalling this and that. Nothing helped but as soon as I unplugged one of my two GPUs playback was fine.

It would be nice if Adobe would fix this for the next update as right now I have a £500 GPU sat in machine not doing anything as I have unplugged the power from it.

[MitchellShortFilm]

I had this problem and managed to fix it by setting my audio output to an ASIO audio driver and I finally have smooth playback again!

This says to me the issue lies with the way that ppcc2015 handles USB audio hardware as mine was

[solutions_and_global_me]

For me Too. Same Problem:

- Since Premiere 2015 playback starts freezing; no cpu/gpu works though, and after a quite a while it works again.

- The playback in general runs unstable, choppy.

- I can't open any closed Projects. Seriously - when I create a project, work on it, close it, then the next time I can't open the project anymore. Importing the old project into a new one works though until I close again...

I deinstalled Premiere,

used cleaner tool,

tried software & cuda rendering,

restarting the machine,

everything.

I have the same Problem with another machine, the third one doesn't seem to have the problem. Everyone works with windows 7 64 bit.

Specs:

i7 2600k 3,4 ghz

16Gb ram

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series

The Update Premiere 2015 is the worst in Adobes history for me personally yet. I'll probably stop using it, because you never know with all these new, "awsome" fast updates of Creative Cloud products.

[orkunisitmak]

Hello there ,

Having kinda same issue here. It started after the update , when i try to playback "any" video file via reference monitor or source monitor , it plays laggy back and forward both video and audio. I tried to delete priews , re-install , re-plug audio hardware , clean cache and everything. Still having the same trouble. I wasn't having any trouble before the update. I'd glad if anyone helps. I have 4790k and 2x 780Ti

Regards,

[orkunisitmak · Accepted solution]

After few hours of connection with Adobe Live Chat , operator "Abhinav" figured out the solution. He deleted all the prefences and settings of my Premiere via renaming the Adobe file in the documents like "Adobe.old". After the removal , he opened the Premiere CC and the magic! It's working great now. Thanks Adobe!

[foxetown]

This worked for me too, but I couldn't rename the "adobe" folder under /users/../roaming  I had to rename the 9.0 folder and that seemed to fix it.