Premiere flickering to black on pause

[JonesMillbank]

This has happened on a previous machine sporadically before fixing itself and is now occurring again. Specs are as follows:

i7-7700 @ 3.60GHz

GeForce GTX 1050

32GB DDR4

Working with 4K MXFs and various effects throughout including LUTs via Lumetri

Basically sometimes playback is ok, but 90% of the time the program monitor will flicker to black a few times at the start of playback, play fine for 5-30s and then go to black entirely. Pausing playback at any point just displays black. Reverting to software only "fixes" the issue but playback isn't functional/smooth.

Tried uninstalling everything, Adobe Cleaner, reinstalling CPU and GPU drivers, disabling/enabling onboard GPU etc, nothing works. Other machines with similar (if not identical) specs are absolutely fine and playback all of the above content at full.

Any ideas?

[tuckerwagner]

Does this change for you if you change your renderer in Premiere? You can do this by going to File>Project Settings>General and changing the renderer from GPU to Software or vice versa.

Also, do you have "Enable accelerated Intel h.264 decoding" unchecked in Edit>Preferences>Media. This could also help.

[JonesMillbank]

Yes, as said, reverting to software "fixes" the issue but playback isn't possible due to the media.

Unticking accelerated h264 decoding hasn't done anything.

[Jim_Simon]

Are you using Cineform proxies?  If not, do so.  Report back.

Work offline using proxy media |

[JonesMillbank]

No and we shouldn't need to use proxies. Other machines with identical specs and can playback this type of media (plus more intensive, like CinemaDNG), absolutely fine.

[Jim_Simon]

Believe it or not, CinemaDNG is actually easier to play than H.264.

Give those proxies a go.  Report back.

[JonesMillbank]

Using or not using proxies isn't the issue since there's a machine right next to the problematic one with the same specs that runs absolutely fine. Introducing proxies into the workflow is a temporary fix, not a solution.

[Jim_Simon]

I'm trying to get you back to work, man.  Take it or leave it.

[JonesMillbank]

After resetting everything to scratch, I've narrowed down the issue to be some sort of conflict with other software. Playback was absolutely fine for over 12 hours, leaving Premiere looped overnight, but as soon as another program, be that Chrome, Photoshop or other is opened playback flickers 3/4 times and then goes black. A restart of the machine is the only fix.

If Chrome (for example) is already open on Premiere launch then it's fine, but opening a new tab kills it. Premiere still runs high (50% CPU, 75% GPU, 13GB RAM) but shows nothing but black.

I've done a memtest, changed RAM and changed GPU (to a 960) and that hasn't changed anything.

[tuckerwagner]

I might have a better solution for you! This could be caused by some error with your web browser using hardware acceleration for graphics. Luckily you can turn this off:

Chrome:

How to Turn Hardware Acceleration On and Off in Chrome

Firefox:

Hardware acceleration and WindowBlinds causes Firefox to crash | Firefox Help

[engendroemprendedor]

This worked for me, thank you!

[calvin26]

Worked for me ! Preciate it

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

Hi Jones,

The product team fixed this issue in v.14.8. If you or anyone else still has the issue, be sure to create a new post. Locking. 

Thanks,
Kevin