Premiere CC 7.1 - Red frames in playback and export

[Nick_HE]

Having some problems after the 7.1 update.

In a variety of projects, on a variety of footage, we're experiencing random fully red frames (#ff000). Sometimes there are 1-2 frames in a clip, and occaisionally it's 80%-90% of the frames in a clip (this is less frequent). It has never been all of the frames of a clip.

This happens:

- On an undrendered timeline (you'll be watching an edit and you'll see a red frame - if you scrub back to it it'll still be there)

- On a rendered timeline

- In exports

Red frames that are visible on a timeline, are sometimes carried through to the export and sometimes not. Sometimes an exported file will display red frames that were not present on the timeline.

Red frames seem to be based on clips, not sequence frames. For example, in one of my exports, I had video footage with a lower third graphic over it. In one frame of the export, a red box appeared over the graphic, but the main shot was not affected.

This has happened to the following types of footage:

- .MTS (from C100)

- .MXF (from C300)

- ProRes 422 MOV

- ProRes 4444 MOV with alpha channel

Fixes that seem to work:

- If an export has red frames, re-export. Watch the new one like a hawk. Repeat until you get lucky.

- If a clip on a timeline has red frames, force a re-render via a Crop filter or similar

- Quit Premiere and reopen it

System/environment details:

- OSX 10.8.5

- Premiere Pro CC 7.1

- Mercury Playback Engine Software Only

- Often (always?) I-Frame Only MPEG sequence settings

- Much (all?) of the footage we've been working with has been on AFP shares via GigE with MTU of 9000

I haven't been able to confirm yet:

- Whether this ever happens with locally stored footage

- Whether this ever happens when Queueing to media encoder (rather than Exporting from Premiere)

- Whether changing to a QuickTime Desktop based sequence setting resolves the issue

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? It's frutstratingly un-testable, since it seems to happen at random. We'll continue to gather data points though and see if we notice any other trends.

Edit: Added additional system context

[Darius Family]

Hi all, also experiencing this bug with PP 7.1. I'm exporting from a timeline with a single QT ProRes444 file, some PP titles & a .wav audio.

Has happened a few times but can't remember what the source footage was when it occured. Its also intermittent, usually i just do another export and then the file is ok.

I'll try the clearing cache

Hopefully a fix soon!

[AlexElkins]

I'm doing my best not to be impatient here but it really is frustrating that Adobe aren't communicating better with us about this. I'd really like to have some idea of when we could expect a fix as it's costing money daily. It says a lot that this wasn't spotted in Adobe's own testing before release, but that's really another issue entirely.

The red flash frame issue was first reported in this thread on 14th November, almost a month ago. So far Adobe have acknowledged the problem and offered a workaround. Fair enough, but after a month I'd expect a fix as well. Perhaps that's an unreasonable expectation. All I know is that every day for the best part of a month I haven't been able to trust my 'professional-level' software, have lost countless hours re-exporting and checking files and all the while Adobe are happily taking my money for the priveledge.

Please Adobe, just tell us where you are with this.

[needles27]

Just got burned by this - missed a broadcast deadline. 

Adobe Premiere is the least reliable software I have - has been like this since I switched from FCP 2 yrs ago.  When it works, it's great.  But it always feels instable.  Just when you think everything is OK, something like this random problem pops up with news of it buried in a forum.

Just griping here - nothing to be done by the forum members.

[Mark Mapes]

Our engineering team is aware of this issue and working to get a fix out ASAP. We'll let you know as soon as an update with a fix is available. Unfortunately I'm not at liberty to discuss when that will be.

While I understand that a month seems like a long time when you're contending with a bug like this, that's a rather short period when it comes to releasing an update. Even in the extreme case of a bug so serious as to warrant an urgent patch that fixed just that one bug, it would take at least a couple of weeks to make the fix, test it, sweep the app to make sure the fix or some change in the build process didn't break anything else, and finally certify and post the update. As a general rule, if a new release introduces a bug that is significantly impacting your productivity, I'd recommend rolling back to a prior version rather than living with the bug while waiting on a patch.

In your comment about the bug not being found before release, you are assuming facts not in evidence. Speaking generally, not about this bug in particular, in every development cycle some bugs that are found prior to release get deferred for a number of reasons. With more serious bugs, it's generally one of the following:

• the fix is too risky to check in (allowing for the time remaining to test and, if necessary, debug further)
• the bug was found too late to fix it without delaying the release schedule (this assumes that the scope of the bug was well understood and not deemed a "showstopper," which in this context means that it's not serious enough to slip the date)
• though the bug was found prior to release, it was not understood well enough to appreciate the scope and impact.

This in no way changes your experience as a paying customer. Whether a bug was missed by QE or found but deferred by management, you're still left with that bug in your path. But as a QE, I guess I'm sensitive to people jumping to the conclusion that every bug that makes it into the real world was missed by the testers.

[dudeclaudeapollon]

since the update is the reason for the red frame bug

is there a way to download an earlier version of premiere without the 7.1 update

do you think the cs6 version is dealing with that problem as well

[Tim Kurkoski]

The Premiere Pro and After Effects teams have fixed this problem. If all goes well, we expect to release an update later this week that will include this fix among many other improvements and bug fixes that we've been working on.

Under the hood, this was not an easy problem to resolve. The simplest way to describe it is a timing mismatch between QuickTime on Mac OS 10.8 and After Effects 12.1 and Premiere Pro 7.1. A change in the timing of how the applications request video frame decodes resulted in QuickTime randomly not returning frames as fast as expected. Apple has told us, and our testing has confirmed, that this problem does not occur on Mac OS 10.9 because in that OS they improved QuickTime's responsiveness to frame decode requests.

We're sorry for any frustration you've experienced due to this bug. This type of bug, where the problem occurs randomly and does not reproduce consistently, is among the hardest to diagnose and repair. We're looking forward to putting the fix in your hands.

[daddyoktm]

Thanks guys for addressing this issue.

[jwffvm]

I'm adding my "Thanks" to you all and I'm sure it's going to make your and our Holiday a lot cheerier.  Thanks again and tell the "suits" not to rush you-all to release next time.

Happy Holidays...Jim Watt

[ivanengler]

*AWESOMENESS*

a big thanks to the hardworking adobe staff - this fix is highly appreciated.

[Darius Family]

Thanks Tim, its really good to know that its been worked on and probably most importantly the ETA.

Looking forward to the update!!

[AlexElkins]

Tim and Mark, thanks so much for the update. I look forward to the fix.

Mark, quick question regarding your suggestion of rolling back a version - how do we do this? I did look into it but couldn't find any archived versions on the Creative Cloud website. I assumed it wasn't possible given the way the apps are distributed now, but it would certainly be a welcome option for situations like this.

Thanks again.

[Darius Family]

+1 here too. Would be great to know how to downgrade.

[Tim Kurkoski]

[Removing my own post because Mark provided a better answer.]

[Nick_HE]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZEtVbJT5c&t=0m20s

Thanks guys. Echoing AlexElkins' question too about the best way to downgrade should we ever encounter another deadline destroyer like this.

[Brett_Kosmider]

I too finally hit this red-frame-of-death crap today as well, and under deadline.

I was modifying a keyframe in an AE comp that was dynamically linked to a sequence in PPro.  Last revision of the whole gig.  Then I get this red frame stuff.  So I turned off all filters, rendered out a mov file, still had red frames.  Turned off frame blending and still got red frames.  My solution?  I had to go BACK to FINAL CUT 7 and recreate the entire comp to fix this!  I knew the render engine in PPro/AE was suspect so nothing I did in Adobe would fix it.  This is like the good ole days in Avid where the next release would bring on a bunch of new features you were excited about using, but you were more afraid of the stuff they broke to get there.  I know this is one complicated machine to keep running but Pro means professional results and I nearly lost a client over this and other relinking issues I mentioned in another post.  I have choices, and Adobe is but one of them.

[Mark Mapes]

Post #18 in the following thread details steps to roll back: http://forums.adobe.com/message/5823746#5823746

[Steve_Hoeg · Accepted solution]

Today's Premiere Pro update (7.2) should resolve this issue with red frames in ProRes files. Please let us know if you have any further difficulties and our apologies for the disruption.

[tstormSierra]

Nope, just got a red frame on a project where I wasn't having that issue on 7.1...go figure

[Tim Kurkoski]

tstormSierra, please give us the following information:

- What version of Mac OS you are running.

- What version of Premiere Pro is currently installed; include the build number (or a screenshot) from the About Premiere Pro dialog. Ex., 7.2.0 x46 was released today.

- The format and codec of the source files in your project that are exhibiting the red frames.

- How and where the red frames appear. ie., On preview, or on export to what format and settings, etc.

[tstormSierra]

10.8.5

Premiere 7.2.0 (46)

Exported out of AE (12.1.0.168) ProRes422HQ (Trillions)

Red Frames show up in program and source monitor. Have yet to export. (I'll have to get back to you on that)

Although, the red frames seem to disappear after some time.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Did this file exist before you installed the 7.2 update? Had you possibly previewed it in Premiere before today? If so the bad frames may have been cached. Re-building the preview for the sequence should fix that.

[tstormSierra]

It happened on footage that did exsist before today, but it wasn't happening prior to today.

But like I said, the red frames go away after a few minutes.

[Tim Kurkoski]

It's mildly distrubing that the issue is happening at all in Premiere Pro 7.2. So please keep an eye on it, and let us know if it does return. If so, please try to isolate the issue by starting a new project and trying that file and others.

[tstormSierra]

I just exported 960x540 h264's for client review. No red frames, so I got that going for me.

I could see how it would be cached frames, because when I saw it happening it did (very briefly) show the older footage and not the updated footage.

[Mr. Positronic]

Tim, I've been playing "whak-a-mole" ever since upgrading to 7.2 two days ago.  Shame on me for upgrading in the middle of a project, but I've got 5 half hour programs to encode and I keep looking for better performance.

Since the upgrade I have experienced red frames and a audio errors at crossfades (crossfades produce a full volume notch wave which leaves my ears ringing!)  These are visible in Premiere.  They go away when you trash the cache, but eventually come back somehow.

The red frames occur in a Sony XDCAM HD422 1080 sequence.  They come and go.  I can no longer export to MXF OP1a - it fails at :10.  APR export works, but then I find new red frames that may or may not show up in the original sequence.

I have not had any issues prior to PP 7.2.  I'm running a MBP Retina with a local RAID.