Premiere Pro 14.02 Unusable Due to Glitches on my 2013 iMac

[James Bow]

I reported on this problem before with 14.01, but haven't heard of a fix. I backtracked to the most recent version of 13 in order to do my work, and tried out 14.02 when it was released, but the problem is still present. As Adobe Premiere is unusable with this issue, I thought that Adobe might like to know about this and find a way to fix it. Here's what happens.

I open Premiere 14.02 and get the default screen. I open a new project, and the workspace loads up okay. I import a single .mov file to my media browser, and it adds the item without trouble. However, when I try to move the video from my media browser to the editing panel, the program freaks out. I get video glitches all over my screen. The Apple menu vanishes and though it will respond to the cursor, I can't see any of the options. The system becomes impossible to work with as the glitches continue even if I tab out of the program. I tried quitting by the keyboard, but the program seemed to freeze on me. Finally finding a way to force-quit it ended the video glitch issue.

As I said, this glitch renders Adobe Premiere Pro 2020 unusable, and while I can get work done on the most recent version of 2019, that's not what I paid for. Can anybody point me to a solution to this issue, or show me a way to bring this to the attention of people who can fix this?

For reference, I have a late 2013 iMac running on a 500 Gb SSD with 32 Gb of memory.

[James Bow]

Ah, after I posted this, I saw that some of the fine people in this user community found a workaround. It's this:

1. Open new project.

2. Select File -> Project Settings -> General

3. Under Video Rendering and Playback, select "Mercury Playback Engine GPJU Acceleration (OpenCL) - Depreciated" and hit okay.

I'm now able to move my video onto the editing panel without the program freaking out. So the problem appears to be in Adobe's interaction with Metal, which was introduced with version 14.0. So what's a more permanent fix?

[James Bow]

So, I've just created a new project and worked it through to completion using the workaround above, and I'm pleased with the result. An annoying feature, however, is that projects created in the latest version of 2019 has to be converted to work with 2020, and Adobe doesn't give you the option of switching the Playback Engine to OpenCL. It explicitly "upgrades" the project to Metal, which causes the problems to happen again, making it hard, if not impossible, to adjust the Rendering and Playback option.

I did get the problem to disappear by closing the Timeline window, but I seem to have cleared all of the work that was done on the project. Guess I'll be staying on version 2019 for a while as I finish up these old projects.

[James Bow]

Note, I was able to finally convince 14.0 to set my old project back to OpenGL, but only by moving quickly and going by memory where the menu option was.

[MyerPj]

You can also try creating a new project in the new version, you can set the renderer as you like, then IMPORT in the work project.

[R Neil Haugen]

As MeyerPJ suggested, don't open an older version file in a newer version.

I'd say ... ever.

Create a new project file in the new version, then from the MediaBrowser, navigate to the earlier project file, select it, and import the assets of that project.

This is far more reliable and stable than updating on older project file. Plus ... if anything doesn't like the new version, you can just go back to using the older project file in the older version.

Apple has been rather insistent that OpenCL be "deprecated". So the Adobe team has been complying with their wishes. Not that it's a good thing for a lot of users, but ... Apple hath ruled.

Neil

[dhelmly]

(posted on the FB group  - Moving to Premiere Pro) 

As with any new version of Premiere Pro that comes out and opening previous projects - I highly recommend clearing your media cache before you open projects.

There are specific steps to follow to do this correctly -

1. Launch Premiere (DO NOT open any projects)
2. Open Preferences >Media Cache
3. Click Remove Media Cache Files (Delete)
4. You will now see Delete all Media Cache from system as an available option

Why do I suggest this?

As we improve performance with various codecs (ProsRes & H264/65 are much faster than 13.x) the "math" can change on how we decode these codecs which can cause issues when cache files are based on older decode "math" . Issues might be bad playback or glitchy files . Taking this proactive step can save you time in the long run.

Hope this helps ..

[James Bow]

Thanks, everyone. I'll try out this advice.