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

[Mr. Positronic]

It looks like my problems occur during clips that were previously exported edits - not camera original.  I am re-enoding the source material.  I noticed the log showed "mxf read error" at the guilty culprits.

[POP Productions SRL]

Hello,

I have the same problem but with MXF files in XDCAM HD 422 1080i50.

Mac Pro 2009

OSX 10.8.5

Premiere Pro 7.2.0(46) & After Effect CC up to date.

I get red frames from both Premiere Pro & After Effect. And it's kinda sporadic, I don't see the pattern myself.

Since you're all talking about Quicktime file, I just wanted to let you know that it happens with MXF container as well.

Thanks for your efforts,

Lotfi B.

[POP Productions SRL]

Just wanted also to point out that as a matter of fact, the red frame issue is way worst in this update (7.2).

At each new export, new red frames are being generated.

I just got back to the prior version and now everything looks fine. But only the future will tell...

Thanks for keeping us informed because I love this soft but that kind of bug could be a dealbreaker.

Regards,

Lotfi B.

[Nick_HE]

Have you cleared cache since doing the update? 7.2 has solved our red frame

issues, and we were having them very frequently.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Lofti,

Clear the cache as Nick_HE suggests. If the problem doesn't go away, please start a new thread rather than continuing this older one.

Please also be specific about the format of the source clips that are having problems. The bug fix in the Premiere Pro CC (7.2) update that this thread references was specifically for QuickTime clips (typically ProRes) that were showing red frames. If a different format is giving you problems, that deserves its own thread.

[Wil Renczes]

To add to that, if you are having red frames from MXF source files, chances are that it's because of malformed index entries in the source media.  Not all vendors create MXF files correctly.  This is a continual painpoint for us.

if you have a file like this, usually the decode errors are always in the same spot.  If it's due to an error in dependencies, sometimes decoding the GOP before the error location masks the issue.  In any case, if you can upload somewhere a sample file, I can take a look.

[POP Productions SRL]

Hello,

Thanks for your answer.

Here's the workflow where I had this problem.

I had a timeline with multiple file format (AVCHD, H264, Jpeg).

I exported my entire timeline with the latest update of Premiere to MXF XDCAM HD1080i50 -> no red frame in the export.

I've put this export in a new timeline, add the mix & basic corrections (like adding lowerthirds and some curves adjustments) then export it -> multiple red frames in the export.

So the source file is from Premiere.

I have no idea what the pattern is, since I made several exports to correct this and I got several red frame at random points in the export, never in the same place. I've trashed the cache and tryed to export it from media encoder and I stil got red frames.

I'll send a file for you to check later but I need to cut it since it weights 5Gb.

When I downgraded Premiere to a prior version, I was able to do a clean export.

Hope this will help,

Lotfi B.

[AlexElkins]

Lofti, just a thought - are your preview files set to ProRes by any chance?

[Mr. Positronic]

I am trying to isolate my red frame issues. I have a 30 minute program with about 10 problem areas -- they come and go.  I appreciate the info about the GOP / MXF error, since that seems to make a lot of sense. 

WHAT WOULD HELP ALL OF USERS would be if Adobe could upgrade the error log reporting.  Currently, the log tells me the source material and the frame number that it is having a problem reading.  If the error log could give me a frame number or time reference of the OUTPUT FILE, I could much more easily locate the error.

New MacPro, PPCC 7.2.1, canon xf to XDCAM HD

[Dudofski]

Same here. Red Frames are still there when exporting from the PP Timeline through ME. Timeline has a Prores HQ 422 and a MXF OP1a should be exported. But randomly, there are red frames in the output file.

I think its fine, when exporting a Prores again. For us, the red frames only appear in MXF files after exporting...

we are using PP 7.2.1 (4). When can a fix be expected? Has anyone a work around for this? We tried the empty the cache and did a lot of different things - without success

[Stocker]

The only work around I found to this problem was to render the timeline (I forced an effect on my tracks so I could render even though I didn't want one) then when exporting I selected 'Use Previews' seemed to work on a test export. Leaving 4 fat 2 hour sequences going over night so fingers crossed.

Total pain and a very common problem with a very common codec. Not cool from a professional high end editing software.

[TheSaltyFox]

I updated to 7.2 and I'm still experiencing the red screen/flicker problem.

- just a show of hands here

- I also cleared the cache and restart PC, and restart project, still the red problem.

-

[Paulo_Paulino]

I update today to adobe premier 2017 because the consecutive alerts from adobe to update.

With adobe 2015 and before I never had this problem. Now I cannot edit a single sequence timeline because my screen is always getting red and is completely random, preview window and timeline. Its impossible to work like this in a production company.

I am very disappointed with ADOBE, this is unacceptable. No its not fixed unfortunately for me.

Laptop: ASUS ROG G750JZ

Windows 10 64 bits

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M

RAM: 32G

Sata 1T

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) :   932.816 MB/s

Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) :   669.193 MB/s

I considering today cancel my adobe subscription after seen a lot of people having the same problem and still there is no fix for this but after install again adobe premier 2015 looks I can work again. Still this is no fix, I cannot use the last update 2017.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Paulo Paulino, 
Sorry to hear that. Can you start a chat with support? Ask for the video queue.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Paulo_Paulino]

Thanks Kevin.

I the mean time I think I found a solution, I remove the default option "Enable accelarated intel h.264 decoding" and looks the red frames are gone.

I have also confirmed with support and they say this is a know problem and this is was one of the possible solutions.

I am happy again and back to work.

Have a nice day.

Thanks for your attention.

[bluejay556]

>I remove the default option "Enable accelarated intel h.264 decoding" and looks the red frames are gone.

This seems to work for me too. HOWEVER, Premiere seems to run a lot slower after disabling this option. Fix one problem, cause another. Any ideas?

[Paulo_Paulino]

I don´t have this problem anymore.

To me now is fixed.

[flw2001]

We are also experiencing this problem (4 new 27 inch iMacs) and a workaround suggested was to untick "Enable native Premiere Pro sequence import" in Media Encoder

We have tried this and have had no flashes so far but of course it's intermittent.

Anybody else want to try this and see what happens?

[stevefal]

I am getting red frames that sound typical of the Prores 4444 cases I read earlier in the thread. I'm rendering to Prores in AE CS6, with the footage replacing clips already on my PProCC timeline. Scrubbing through the new clip, I see 1-4 red frames. Closing/reopening PPro clears up the red frames. I have not tried rendering from PPro with the red frames present.

PPro CC 7.2.2

AE CS6 11.0.4.2OSX Mavericks 10.9.3

[AVEditor]

The workaround that works for my team is to open the original footage (in our case they are MXF files) in Media Encoder and export it as a MPEG2 with the same settings as the original footage. Once done, in Premiere, replace the "corrupted video clip" with the newly rendered MPEG2 and once it conforms, the issue should be resolved.

This is just a workaround we have discovered recently, so it has not been given extended testing, but it has really worked for us so far.

[RisingPhoenixAU]

This workaround solved an issue I've been having for weeks with red frames and C300 footage (MXF) in a number of different projects so thanks for sharing!

I'd followed all of adobe's other advice - purge media cache and delete renders - but this was the only solution that worked.

In my case I'd even migrated to a new mac pro with a fresh install to see if that fixed the problem. Adobe clearly needs to take a closer look at how it's latest versions of Premiere CC are dealing with C300 MXF footage.

[EselJaye]

@AVEditor

What I (with the able assistance of Mr. Positronic) found was that the original footage was not corrupted, it is the file that links the footage to the various programs -got me as to exactly where/what that is- but what worked perfectly for me was: re-imported the footage into Pr and was able to scrub/play -relief footage ok!- then opened (right click on the Ae in the timeline, "edit original") the Ae project, saw the footage was working saved as new project, import (back into PR), replace from bin. All is good!

Also as this has only happened on one project, I'm not certain but strongly suspect it was the last one open prior to update/grade, I'm convinced that it has nothing to do with the footage, at least in my case.

[Mr. Positronic]

@AVEditor

That sounds like a good workaround for "red frames on export."  For whatever reason, I don't seem to have this problem anymore.  Same camera, same file format, same workflow. 

EselJaye,

I believe you are experiencing a different issue -- "red video in timeline and source monitor."  That's a busted link.

Thanks all ...

[gumos_1]

Hello, We work with a lot of C300 Footage (MXF) and the "Red Frame Bug" Seems to happen only with those kinds of files. R3D, H264, mp4, are all good but MXF

We Work mainly on computers with:

osx 10.8.5 i5 16G of Ram

and we work off an editshare server. Editing from a thunderbolt harddrive seems to help the issue but it does not fix it completetly. thanks!

[Mr. Positronic]

Not to jinx things, but I have been free of red frames after several months of "whack-a-mole" trying to solve the problem.  It did not magically disappear with any particular software update or change of workflow or hardware.  I'm still using my late 2013 MacPro with a Pegasus2 R4.  Still using media shot exclusively on a C300.

I am running all of the newest versions of Adobe software and Mac OS.