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

[正志吉93524251]

There seems to be miscommunication between Apple in the U.S and ones in other countries.

I have the exact same issue with my Mac Pro and talked the customer service in Japan. I even explained about this thread,

but the customer service said "This is the problem caused by ADOBE".

I talked to the other customer service in Japan the other day and they admitted the issue and now my Mac Pro is in repair.

Let's see the outcome.

My advice is to talk to the customer service in your country and let them know about this thread.

Good Luck.

[anton.ligaarden]

Thanks!

Yep, I've directed them to this thread. However, Apple doesn't have any shops in Norway, so we have an Apple authorized third-party company doing repairs. We'll see how it goes, however, it seems like they will swap the D700s and do something. My Mac Pro was bought within that window for the repair program, so I hope they will fix the whole thing.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Libsimpso,

I will touch base with Apple regarding this proposed GPU replacement for the time window they've specified.

Glad to see some sort of movement on the issue...

Please let us know if your issue is solved by the replaced GPUs. Continue in monitoring cooling and in preventing heat from impacting your system after they are replaced.

Thanks,
Kevin

[julien0047]

Très content de voir qu'Apple réagit enfin depuis tout ce temps passé.

je pense que se post à fait bouger les choses.

Merci à tous.

J'attends de voir les résultats.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Julien,

Very glad to see that Apple responds since all this time spent.

I think that post to made a difference.

Thank you all.

I'm waiting to see the results.

  Translations by Microsoft® Translator

Je suis d'accord avec toi. Je pense que ce poste a fait faire une différence. Merci à tous ceux qui ont contribué.

Cordialement,

Kevin

I agree with you. I think this post did make a difference. Thanks to all who contributed.

Regards,
Kevin

[libsimpso]

Status report.

My trash can spent a couple of weeks at an Apple authorized service provider while I was on vacation. I spoke to Apple over the phone a couple of different times, and was never able to confirm a legitimate recall program on the GPUs. I was simply encouraged to have the system inspected under the AppleCare extended warranty in effect on the machine.

I provided the service technician with examples of the render glitches and artifacting, as well as a link to this thread and other resources I have compiled during the course of this troubleshoot. No surprise that standard Apple diagnostic tests came back clean with no problems. Luckily I was very direct and clear with the technician indicating that I suspected the latter would be the case. I think my confidence in addition to the resources I provided spurred the technician to actually attempt to recreate the problem beyond running diagnostic tests. THANKFULLY, the problem was recreated by the service center.

As a result, the D700 GPUs were replaced along with the RAM in the trashcan, for the second time in the lifetime of this MacPro. The original hardware replacements also included the motherboard. This round of replacements did not.

Since I returned to the production desk this week, I have been putting the trash can through the ringer. All exports are using GPU-accelerated renders. I've also re-exported some troublesome long-format videos full of 4K and color/film effects which proved particularly troublesome in the past. I made an attempt to "overheat" the cards by exporting about a dozen long-form videos in a row, while still working on other edits. So far, every export has been clean and free of these undeliverable glitches!

It is so very refreshing, to have a 30-minute 4K program export in less than a 4 hours versus 12 hour plus renders without GPU-acceleration. Those long renders were become work-inhibiting and deadline killers!

I'm not holding my breath, but will continue to use GPU-accelerated renders for all work. If the issue arises again, this thread will be the first to know.

Perhaps there is hope?

[Transposition Films]

‌We also recently had our D700's replaced, and so far so good. Will post back here if the issue comes up again.

[R Neil Haugen]

The information you posted is VERY useful ... and glad to see that someone finally chased down some of the issues that have still plagued some of the users. However ... it takes many clicks to navigate through this thread as it is 20 pages long. It's a hard call, as getting this info directly to some of the others who've posted on the thread is good of course, and that will happen by re-using the thread. But posting this under a new thread with a headline on "horizontal render lines/AMD 700 GPU's" would have given a very succinct caption to the problem, easy to search for, and also meant that others wouldn't have to click for several minutes to get TO your very useful information.

Thanks for posting though ... there's been a lot of issues with those cards, and puzzlement ... for some they were great and for others they couldn't be made to work even though they tested perfect.

Neil

[craigbentley]

Neil, I too spent a few minutes navigation the many thread pages initially, but then realized I could just type the post # for the last page (e.g., 800) into the url and go right to that page.

libsimpso & Transposition, thanks for the updates, we replaced our D700s and it didn't help, so we're now going to try stepping down to D500s.  Will report back with results.  (If that doesn't work, maybe we'll try replacing our RAM, like libsimpso did.)

[libsimpso]

I failed to note that I am currently running the original release version of CC 2015 Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder on Yosemite 10.10.5. I may dive into an update after a few week so render free glitches, but don't want to mess with the stability I am now enjoying.

[R Neil Haugen]

Hey, hear you on that! When El Capitan and Win10 first came out, they were both DISASTERS for the Adobe digital video apps (DVA's) ... and they've both been 'fixed' in their newer iterations, most folks working on them just fine. Still, none of us are "most folks" ... what matters is what works on OUR machine NOW.

I'm still on Win7 Ultimate ... it works. Now. Why mess with it?

Neil

[craigbentley]

The plot thickens!

First, we switched out our D700s for D500s, and in outputting the same videos that artifacted before, they now output artifact-free.  (This obviously is not an ideal solution - none of us wants to dial down our machines, but if it was the only alternative at this point I'd take it.)

But here's the big news: Apple now tells us they've fixed the problem on the D700s, and are sending us a new model - the D700a!  We're supposed to receive a pair tomorrow.  (A few weeks ago we tried replacing our D700s with new D700s, which did nothing.)

I won't believe it until I see it, but hopefully in the next few days I'll be reporting back with good news!

[R Neil Haugen]

There was a thread around here where someone else sat on an Apple repair tech about their D700, until the guy did a more extensive testing ... at which point ... the card didn't pass. And replaced it with a D700 that worked in PrPro ... so nice to hear they've made progress on this issue which is hammering a LOT of the Mac userbase.

I also think it would be GREAT info if you posted a new thread with a title something like "Apple replacing D700 with D700a that works" or something like that. Get the news out in a direct major way ...

Neil

[cliffp3]

I've had this problem surface from time to time since I bought my trash can last year. Finally last night, when the issue started happening again, I got on Apple chat to find out what the deal was. I described the horizontal line problem, uploaded a couple still frames from an exported video, and they quickly told me they would replace the two AMD Firepro D700 gcards.

So I went to Apple store today, they ran diagnostics, and all checked out with the machine -- however they said they will replace the gcards anyway. I asked them what the specific problem was and the manager said it was an AMD issue and that Apple does not have AMD internal info to know why the problem was happening. Just that it had to do with cards made during a certain time frame. He went on to say that there have been enough complaints by Apple customers that they are now replacing these cards.

So, despite any official announcement, it seems Apple is softening up on this issue. Thumbs up to all the folks raising this issue with Apple -- your efforts seem to have worked.

I will update after I get the machine back. Hope this solves the issue. Fingers crossed.

-cp

[R Neil Haugen]

Wishing the best!

Neil

[jamesb4861177]

Interesting, I called AMD directly and they told me(about an on the phone BTW) Apple buys the cards, adds a little something to them and they couldn't help me...classic...blaming each other...

[R Neil Haugen]

Figures. Ha.

Neil

[Transposition Films]

Ha, sounds about right.

I was at NAB last year and swung by the AMD booth - they told me they had had people asking but it was well out of their hands. Haha

[R Neil Haugen]

At NAB'15 one of the more fascinating discussions I heard a lot ... vendors from several of the hardware/software suppliers, when together OUTSIDE their respective booths ... lamenting the changes within Apple. Comparatively, they apparently used to get a lot more time and data during beta-workup on a new OS version to test their gear/software, and when they found an issue, were immediately taken seriously and a fix sought between Apple and themselves.

Apparently, the attitude of the current Apple CEO, who can't understand why anyone would buy a desktop these days ... is more than window-dressing. Shorter timelines between getting the OS beta to test their gear/software out on, and often ... when there is a fix ... a reply basically of we'll call if we think it's worth pursuing.

Of course, no vendor wants to dump on that company publicly ...

Not that they're the only company that seems to have similar ideas ... sigh.

Neil

[libsimpso]

Has anyone experienced anything like this screen shot below?

My GPUs were replaced about a month ago, and have been running smoothly. I woke my system from sleep this morning and all was normal. Ten minutes later both my monitors are experiencing this ghosting effect (1 Apple Retina/ 1 BenQ UHD).

Going to try restarting my system now, and see if anything changes. But seems GPU related to me.

[Warren Heaton]

Yikes!

There's image persistence that IPS displays are prone to (it should just be a faint image remnant that fades over time), but your issue does not appear to be that.

The closest thing I've seen to your screen shot is a display issue with my late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina computer (model identifier MacBook Pro 10,1); however, that was the display itself.  The LG panel would ghost while the Samsung panel would not.  The Apple Store ran a quick diagnostic, confirmed the issue, and had my MacBook Pro back to me within few days.   The hardest part was deciding when to do without my MacBook Pro.

Your issue seems very likely to be directly related to the display cards rather than a secondary issue with both of your displays that happened to present itself.

Have you tried a different Thunderbolt bus?  I'd suspect the problem would persist and it certainly isn't an ideal solution.  But if using bus 1, you could try bus 2 or bus 0.

On a side note, how do you like your Ben-Q?

-Warren

[libsimpso]

Thanks for the reply Warren!

Luckily after a system restart this image "ghosting" has yet to return. And this topic is likely deserving of a thread of its own should it recur. I wanted to post here just in case other MacPro users experiencing the GPU issues might have experienced this side effect too. As I just had the GPUs replaced in my MacPro for a second time, I did not want to delay any necessary documentation or troubleshooting as a result.

I love my BenQ monitor! Though its thunderbolt cable can NOT be plugged in directly adjacent to the thunderbolt cable for the Apple retina display. The BenQ monitor will not recognize any signal in the latter arrangement.

[R Neil Haugen]

Which BenQ do you have?

Neil

[libsimpso]

Neil,

It is a BH3201PH BenQ monitor.

Lindsay

[craigbentley]

Okay, folks, happy to report that for us, anyway, I think our long local nightmare is over!

When I said in my last post that I thought there was a new model D700a just released, I think I've actually figured out that of the two graphics cards in each Mac Pro, one is referred to as the A card and one is the B card (each with different functions).

Apple has determined it is the A card causing the horizontal lines, and has come out with a revised A card that fixes the problem.  (Still just called a D700 I think, not specifically a D700a.)  We have replaced the A card in two machines so far (doing the third machine as we speak), and both of those machines now seem to be horizontal line-free!

If you tried replacing your graphics card or cards recently to no avail, you might try again.  We had replaced a pair the first week in March, and it didn't help at all.  So some time in the last month, Apple has changed the A card to fix the problem.  (Either that, or we were given outdated cards the first time we replaced them.)

In any case, fingers crossed that I'm done with this thread, and if you pressure Apple to replace your A card, hopefully you all will be as well!