RENDER PROBLEM - AME and Premiere Pro CC causing random horizontal lines on H.264 Renders

[JesseSchluntz]

I just got the new mac pro with freshly installed, up to date software, so of course something isn't working right...

When exporting batches of H.264s from Premiere Pro CC using AME, I get random horizontal lines on screen for most videos. (see below image for a clear example of one of these random horizontal bugs. the line below the logo is the issue)

Tried restarting the app a few times, which gave me a clean render here and there, but mostly the issue persists and it's taking me forever to produce clean renders. I notice this problem less when exporting straight from the timeline in Premiere Pro, but alas it still happens.

This random issue is catastrophic for my workflow. Help?!

[Text formatting corrected.  Please type your posts directly into the forums, as copy/paste often leaves unwanted code throughout.]

Message was edited by: Jim Simon

[maddycampi]

good one!

[EditorPete]

Hi,

As I too am in the mix of this bug that plagues us all....I was wondering if anyone else has found that running "Software Only" is very, very slow and laggy. I'm using 4k Red files, 1920x1080, and 1280x720 quick times (not always at the same time), dynamic linking to AE for some comps, and also color correcting in PRP. Kind of everyday stuff I do... In my earlier comment, I mentioned that I feel like I'm back in PrP 6 and my Nvida card, 2008 Mac Pro and Adobe were trying to figure out why we were getting the "Premeier has encountered a serious problem" prompt and the fix was the same.....turn off your Mercury Playback and use Software Only. Mmmmm... Daja Vu, for me. I really need this fixed Adobe. I know its not your Software, but could you please help by laying into Apple and fighting the fight with us. I mean really have someone high up at Adobe call Apple and tell them that your Software is a very crucial part of people buying their new MacPros!!! I know it was for me!

PRP CC

MacPro late 2013

3G 8 Core

32GB Memory

AMD FirePro D700s

External - Sonnet 1TB SSD thunderbolt 2

Thanks,

Pete

[JesseSchluntz]

This issue is really hitting hime today as I am rendering 20 "how to" product videos for a client without the use of Adobe Media Encoder. Even with it set to software only rendering, AME is creating massive glitches and lines on my footage. Worse than ever actually. My only option is to render each video one by one from the timeline using software only, which is painfully slow with this many deliverables to finish. Thank God I have one method that gives me clean renders, but man does it suck to have all this speed and no ability to use it without destroying my work.

Adobe, Apple, AMD... can you throw us any bones yet?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Jesse,

JesseSchluntz wrote:

Adobe, Apple, AMD... can you throw us any bones yet?

Sorry, not yet. I will update you as soon as I hear of anything.

Thanks,

Kevin

[j_schwarz]

I think we should all get our money back since December and keep get the cloud for free while they are figuring this issue out because it is obvious that they are lying and saying they support the new mac Pro when they really don't. Software only mode isn't "support".

[Robin Leveille]

I'm pretty sure it's out of Adobe's hands at the moment since Resolve and many Open CL enabled software are having the same issues, I don't think it's fair to blame Adobe. Spending time to find a fix or a workaround for a buggy Os would be time wasted if Apple is already working on a fix.  Shouldn't be long, just disable GPU acceleration and wait it out.

[savetheplatypi]

I chatted with Apple yesterday after our three new mac pros arrived already updated to 10.9.3.  Of course they're still playing the pass the buck game and said that software patches would be needed from vendors like Adobe before it's fixed; and of course there's no ETA or really promise of if 10.9.4 will fix it. 

Luckily, I had a USB Mavericks installer thumb drive I created a few months ago that we were able to use to clean install 10.9.2 on the new mac pros and our issues seem to be resolved.  Pretty extreme scenario since it requires reinstalling all productions apps and has the added requisite of having already created an unofficially supported USB installer from the previous version, but at least it's got our new macs working... finally. 

Ultimately, I guess this is the new cloud software mindset.  You'll never know what these companies might break when they update and it's damn near impossible to get back to an older version that you know works without keeping your own backups.  Buyer beware.

[Jimcoulter]

Hi!

I read your post regarding the clean install on the new Mac Pro. If all your issues have resolved then it must absolutely point to the OS as the problem. I was curious if you also experienced choppy playback when you were running OS 10.9.3? I had glitchy palyback with both video and audio as well as the rendering issues.

Along with the choppy playback I too am experiencing the lines and glitches when I playback the timeline. Also I cannot render my timeline- it just hangs up, and when I export in a queue to AME it hangs up.

But I don't see many posts on the choppy playback issues I'm having. Can you please tell me if you had them as well?

I have a 12 core fully loaded Mac Pro running the latest Apple OS. I'm using a Thunderbolt 2 Pegasus Promise RAID.

Thanks!

Jim Coulter
Moving image Productions
www.movingimageinc.com
Cell: 832-563-4895

[chfilm]

My nMP 8core D700 is producing the same problems, horizontal lines, flashing pink frames etc...

It's really frustrating because the GPU accelerated rendering can be way faster than software only at certain tasks (just had to convert a 30 minute video vom HD to PAL and it took three times as long in software only than with the gpu, but the gpu result was unusable.) By the way this problem occured since 10.9.2. not just after 10.9.3.

I really hope it gets fixed soon.

The whole situation with Open CL and GPU utilization on the nMP is frustrating. Offtopic: I just purchased a new neat video license and it is actually slower with the gpu than if it just uses the cpu)...

[chfilm]

Update: After reading that 10.9.4 would fix the problem, I "organized" myself a version of it. Installed and voi-la: Fixed!

GPU accelerated rendering works now for the first time on my nMP and it's sooo fast! Amazing!!!

[Jimcoulter]

What do you mean you 'Organized' a version?

[jasonvp]

Jimcoulter wrote:

What do you mean you 'Organized' a version?

The only legal and legit way to get access to 10.9.4 right now is to be part of Apple's developer program.  There may or may not be a fee involved with that, I'm not sure.

[Jimcoulter]

HI Jason,

Yeah- after I read your post I did some Googling and found the site. It's incredibly hard to believe that Apple has not made that update immediately available to every new Mac Pro owner! If your having success with it then it's obviously working. I will look into signing up to see if I can get a copy. Question- once you signed up were you given immediate download access to the 10.9.4 OS?

[jasonvp]

Jimcoulter wrote:

Question- once you signed up were you given immediate download access to the 10.9.4 OS?

I'm sorry that I can't answer your question as I'm not part of Apple's dev program.  I'm waiting like everyone else (is supposed to be doing) for the OS update.

[Jimcoulter]

Sorry Jason, That question was intended for CHFILM. I also confirmed that the fee is $99 to download the update. You must have done some developing for Apple such as APP developer, iBooks etc to qualify as a Developer.

[wbelkin]

Looks like the developer fee is $99 for a year and i wonder, too CHFILM

what do you mean "organized"?

[savetheplatypi]

Hi Jim,

Sorry, I should have outlined our issues more thoroughly; yes we were experiencing choppy playback in addition to the video playback glitches, program freezing, and export issues that have been reported here.  We did eventually disable openCL playback which seemed to solve everything but the choppy playback.

I've got some more edits lined up today to test the system but from what I was working with on Friday these issues seem resolved now that we've dona a clean install of 10.9.2 and are able to use the Open CL engine.

Our specs:

MacPro 2013

Processor  3 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon E5

Memory  64 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 ECC

Graphics  AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB

Sonnet Thunderbolt enclosure with AJA Kona LHI and Apple Fibre card

[Jimcoulter]

savetheplatypi- Thanks so much for the information! Whew! It's a relief to know that my situation is not unique and that others are also experiencing the choppy playback issues as well! Your situation sounds exactly like mine in terms of what you are or were experiencing. I too tried disabling the open CL playback and continued to have the choppy playback also.

I'm glad you were able to resolve the issue by rolling back your OS. Unfortunately I cannot as I don't have access to the earlier version.

Hopefully Apple will release an OS very soon that will fix these issues so we can get some enjoyment out of these expensive new Macs!

[jonokino]

I was relieved to discover this thread (at the very least, in the spirit of solidarity).

Just quickly wanted to add my specs to the fray. I'm experiencing all of the same issues: pink/green glitches during playback, inconsistent glitches baked into the render upon export with AME, occasional system crashes when exporting to AME (I would attempt to launch activity monitor to see what the issue was, but even that would stop responding and I would have to reboot the whole system from the machine itself). I am not working with third party plug-ins or effects, either.

The workaround (disabling OpenCL during export with AME) is currently reliably working, but like many of you I am frustrated to not get the full potential of my new system. I am on the more modest end of specs, but still have D700s.

Late 2013 Mac Pro

3.7 GHz Quad-Core Inter Xeon E5

AMD FirePro D700

12 GB Memory

I know that some folks with D500s are experiencing similar issues, but I'd like to hear from someone with the stock D300 card. It seems pretty conclusive that this is a software, not hardware issue, but I'd be curious to see if even the D300s are experiencing it.

I'm glad to know, at least, I'm not alone. Thanks for reporting on this issue!

[Mystical_experience16B6]

D300 user. Having various issues with PP and AME. It started out as an export issue, h.264 renders. System would completely lock up. Sometimes, just the pinwheel. Now, if my machine goes to sleep and I've been running PP the system locks up. Trying the cleaner tool on my old imac and getting rid of all things Adobe. But, at first I was using filmimpact transitions and the problems changed after deleting those 3rd party plug-ins. Have been able to export   low res QC episodes, have yet to try a full res export.  This is frustrating to say the least.

[chfilm]

After my initial Happyness about the gone render artifacts in the 10.9.4 beta, I now ran into a new problem.

Was trying to export a FLV from a ProRes using media encoder and wanted to use OPEN CL because scaling was involved. Caused the entire system to crash for three times in a row now. Frustrating! Wtf is going on with these gpus?

[chfilm]

Ok, I called Adobe directly, and before I could even start to properly explain the issue, the guy was like "are you gonna tell me about the GPU acceleration issues with the new mac pro?" He claimed that it's now a widely known issue and that they are working on it.

[Jimcoulter]

Don't get too excited. I spoke directly to higher ups at both Adobe and Apple. That was almost 4 weeks ago. Nothing has happened since.

[chfilm]

Haha, yea no I didn't expect an immediate hotfix....

When I ordered my nMP I learned how uncapable those guys over there are....I wanted to pay with paypal, but paypal cancels orders after 4 weeks if the shop doesnt book the money until then. Apple only charges you when they ship something though.

Due to the delivery timeframe of 6 weeks, they didnt charge my accout in time so my order got canceled and I had to give up a new one... with another 6 week timeframe.

I called apple like 20 days in a row beginning the day I saw this disaster coming several times, just to see myself being put off by them time after time, until FINALLY I got to some higher ranking sales person who suddenly UNDERSTOOD the issue for the first time really. After that it took 3 days and I had my machine here in Germany!
They can work very quickly if they are focussed on something, but until then they will just think that we're a bunch of stupid customers they can ignore as long as possible.

I would suggest EVERYONE here in this thread calls Adobe and Apple and annoys them until someting happens! This needs to get up their priority list.

Maybe if adobe deals with the nMP they begin to even think about optimizing after effects for our machine.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Chfilm,

chfilm wrote:

I would suggest EVERYONE here in this thread calls Adobe and Apple and annoys them until someting happens!

This needs to get up their priority list.

Maybe if adobe deals with the nMP they begin to even think about optimizing after effects for our machine.

I don't think that's necessary as it already is a top priority. OS X 10.9.3 came out on May 15th, a little over a month ago. That is when we started seeing issues with the new Mac Pro and Premiere Pro.

Not sure what you're saying about After Effects. It runs great on the new Mac Pro.

chfilm wrote:

Does Adobe even have ONE new mac pro standing around for test purposes? If so they wouldve seen the issue earlier!

Of course we do. It's difficult to catch every problem, though. However, as soon as we discovered this specific issue, we began working with our partners at Apple and AMD on a fix. Keep in mind that non-Adobe applications, such as BlackMagic DaVinci Resolve, are also affected.

Honestly, we're doing our best. In the mean time, I am recommending to export without OpenCL acceleration or downgrade to OS X 10.9.2. We know these workarounds are not ideal, but it's all we have to offer right now.

Thanks,
Kevin