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

[Derjis]

To break out another one of my amazing analogies, if you were having engine troubles with your brand new car, would you buy a different set of tires for it, or get the manufacturer to fix the actual problem?

As I've said before, we've decided to hop off of the Apple train; overpriced, and extremely disappointing quality control of late. I can't think of a single reason to keep buying Apple's pro gear, to be honest.

But, yes, to get back on-topic, ultimately, you're right, LMProductions‌, your options are pretty severely limited: keep returning your nMP to Apple until you win the video card lottery and get a pair of cards that work properly; dump the Creative Cloud suite (although there are reports of other 3rd party apps experiencing the same problem, so really your only safe choice would be to move to FCPX); sell the nMP, and pick up/build an equivalent Windows box; or, run your system as-is with hardware acceleration turned off (resulting in hilariously long, but problem-free exports).

[RandomEntity]

We just discovered this problem in the past month. What's really frustrating is that it's only in some of our renders. We got a nMP to handle 4K footage but we were still exporting at 1080 until we had everything in place to handle distributing 4K, it wasn't until we started exporting the 4K footage that the lines/errors started showing up. Mostly they are a single frame sporadically through the 30-50 minute episode. We tried exporting with turning the GPU off, but that gave us 36 hour long render times compared to 30 minutes to an hour! When you have deadlines to meet it just isn't acceptable. I really hope a reasonable fix is found, it's already been a year, they have to know something by now.

[AraTheCoach]

Not sure what's more frustrating; struggling for hours to fix this random artifacts/interference horizontal lines issue OR reading 15 pages of a forum to find no ultimate solution!!

I'm pretty sure this is the identical issue to majority on this thread; random lines throughout h264 exports out of PP on nMP (late 2013) with AMD FirePro D700 GPUs, running Adobe CC on OS 10.10.2.

I first had the problem on an mxf export (even though I had successfully exported the same sequence settings with similar content at least 20 times over previous 4 weeks). Haven't added any plugins and can't think of any changes made between exports. Had to reopen project on an old MacPro and it exported fine.

A few days later I installed the CUDA 5.0 driver for NVIDIA, because that warning kept coming up on launching PP and AE, and that seems to have fixed the problem with exporting mxf files.

A week later and I'm getting the same problem but this time on h264 exports from PP.

Kevin-Monahan‌ I appreciate this isn't solely an Adobe problem but it's very concerning that there isn't a firm response to this issue after over a year of it initially being highlighted.

Should I uninstall CUDA as instructed here: http://blogs.adobe.com/kevinmonahan/2014/03/19/avoid-installing-nvidia-cuda-drivers-on-computers-wit...

If so, why do Adobe apps keep asking for it to be installed?

I'm surprised no spokesperson from AMD or Apple have commented on this thread. Can we please have a pinned response at the top of this thread with key updates and links?  No one should have to go through reading 15 pages when they have an editing deadline pending.

[OMS_AK]

Just wanted to share my experience with this and what resolved the problem for me.

Setup

I have the Mac Pro with D700s (6-Core, 64GB RAM, 512GB Flash Memory) with 3 monitors hooked up to it.  My main monitor is a 4k Dell 24" connected via DisplayPort 1.2.  I have two other older monitors that I typically run (one on each side), one is a 1920x1200 Samsung SyncMaster 245BW hooked up to the HDMI port on the back of the Mac, it uses an HDMI to DVI cable with the DVI side running into the monitor.  The other monitor is an old LG Flatron Wide 1920 x 1200, it is hooked up to one of the Thunderbolt ports using a DisplayPort to DVI adapter with a DVI to HDMI cord and the HDMI cord connected to the monitor.  I had to use the HDMI to DVI with these because HDMI alone didn't work well on either of the 1920 x 1200 monitors.

Problem

Whenever I would try to render with Adobe Media Encoder, After Effects, or Premiere I would get lines and blocks in my render.  I tried a lot of the common suggestions (permissions, complete reinstall) and the only thing that would work is rendering in software only...which is a complete waste.

My Fix

What fixed my problem was disconnecting my two 1920 x 1200 monitors (non-DisplayPort), restarting my computer, and just using the 4K Dell w/ DisplayPort when I wanted to render.  I have no idea why this works, it could be a symptom of a bigger issue with the graphic cards or software, but for me this works nearly every time. 

If you do not have a DisplayPort monitor, I'd recommend picking one up or borrowing one and giving it a try. Hope this helps a few of you, good luck.

[LMProductions]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I also have multiple monitors. Two of them are mDP to VGA, one is mDP to DVI and the fourth is my 4k TV which is connected via the HDMI port (straight HDMI connection to Tv). I also believe this is indicative of a larger issue. My first 2013 nMP I had to return to Apple because of this problem. Now, 10 months later, the second nMP is exhibiting the same symptoms of horizontal colored lines (even in renders). If this were just a monitor connectivity issue, it would not be showing up in the renders. This is a GPU issue with new MacPros imho. The flaw in the GPUs are agitated and show symptoms when the GPUs are pushed -- such as in the case of a multiple high-res monitor display or GPU rendering. The first 10 months I had this second nMP I had no issues. When the issues began, is at the same time I started leaving the MacPro on 24/7 for days at a time doing heavy 3D rendering in Blender. Then the horizontal lines started showing up again in Premiere etc. My own hypothesis is that there is a hardware flaw in the GPUs brought on by increased heat (hence showing up with lots of rendering).

As with most problems, Adobe says its an Apple problem and Apple says its an Adobe problem and nobody takes responsibility or even attempts to make a moderate effort to isolate or resolve the issue.

OMS_AK, I know you said you resolved the issue by disconnecting your other displays. Can you or anyone confirm that replacing the monitors with display port monitors would actually fix the issue? If all of your 3 displays (or mine) were replaced with display port connections, it would be interesting to see if that resolves the issue. However, if my hypothesis is correct, it will still not resolve the issue due to the strain on the GPUs.

[OMS_AK]

LMProductions, Yes this could definitely have something to do with GPU strain.  On my 2013 Macbook Pro (512GB, 16GB RAM, 750M, 2.3GHz i7) I also ran into Premiere performance issues when rendering 4k projects.  The laptop would often overheat and shut down right in the middle of editing or rendering.  Recently I started to see random artifacts on my screen, which is possibly a sign that the graphics card was damaged.  As a test I would try to run other intensive apps (non-adobe) to see if the computer would overheat (and shutdown) or just slow down performance during intensive tasks, and the only application that would cause it to overheat was Premiere.

My hunch is that Adobe/Premiere is having problems monitoring real-time system conditions on OSX, and it's pushing the GPU(s) beyond what they are capable of and slowly damaging them over time. 

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi OMS_AK,

The laptop would often overheat and shut down right in the middle of editing or rendering. 

Recently I started to see random artifacts on my screen, which is possibly a sign that the graphics card was damaged. 

This thread is about the Mac Pro and dual AMD GPUs. Your issue is more related to NVIDIA drivers that aren't functioning correctly right now. My suggestion to you is to change the renderer to Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (OpenCL).

BTW, do you have the 8 core or the 12 core? Have you checked out the internal temperature of your box with utilities?

Thanks,
Kevin

[TiberiusJonez]

SOLVED FOR ME ON PC!!

I'm doing Let's Play videos on YouTube at 1080P 60fps on a PC with an AMD FX-8350 @ 4.4ghz, dual R9 280X 3gb GPUs in Crossfire and 16 GB ram - having same issues as everyone else. Either the horizontal lines in video or "not enough room on hard disk" error. Clearly my system is not the issue. So....

After deleting files to clear space (which clearly wasn't the problem) and then cache clearing. I started trying different encoder formats. I'm on PC, not Mac, and the default is MPEG2, which of course leaves the horizontal lines, so I first tried MPEG4 and it gave me the "not enough room on hard disk" error, so then I switched to AVI and got more horizontal lines. AVI uncompressed - HDD error, Quicktime - same.

Finally I tried H.264 and walked away. Came back 45 minutes later and no errors. Opened up the video and it was perfect! I don't know why, I don't know how. I still used Mercury engine and GPUs and all those default settings - I didn't change any of those settings. Honestly, I've been kind of stubborn about trying to make this work without changing that because it pisses me off that I would have to disable my $700 worth of GPUs because these companies can't get their shit together!

Here are the full EXPORT settings I used:

Format: H.264

Preset: Custom

Basic Video Settings:

1920x1080

Frame Rate: 60

Field Order: Progressive

Aspect: Square Pixel (1.0)

TV: NTSC

Profile: Main

Level: 5.2

Render at Max Depth - unchecked

Bitrate Encoding = VBR, 1 Pass

Target Bitrate = 300

Use Max Render, Use Previews, Use Frame Blending, Import into project = ALL UNCHECKED

You can see the finished video at Splinter Cell Blacklist: Hawkins Seafort - YouTube

Hope this helps some of you.

[LMProductions]

TiberiusJones,

Thanks for sharing.. However, I believe what you did is a work around, not a solution. In other words, you found a way to avoid the problem, not to solve it. If h.264 indeed does work 100% as you have reported, that would be great if the only codec we ever needed was h.264, however, h.264 has limitations that won't work for everybody all the time. For example, h.264 does not allow for alpha channels or 4k resolution. Also bear in mind that these horizontal lines show up on the monitor even when no video is playing (at least for me). And they are not always isolated to the video playback area. Sometimes they appear over windows and bins etc. So the problem, whatever it is, is not merely a codec issue. Perhaps using a specific codec might mitigate the problem, but the problem nevertheless remains and in all instances points to something related to the GPUs.

[TiberiusJonez]

I agree, perhaps it is a workaround and not an ideal solution as the H.264 encoder results in very LARGE file sizes, but at least I can complete my work and upload my videos. This entire situation is wholly unacceptable and trust me, if there were an acceptable alternative, I would move on from Adobe Premiere today. Unfortunately, no one else has created a software suite with the same combination of functionality and features in a relatively easy to use package, at least not that I've found. (and therein lies the REAL problem!) If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

[Derjis]

Look, not to keep harping on this, if everyone seems to be generally agreed that this is a HW issue, what use is it to make angry posts in a software support forum? Wouldn't it be more effective to take this directly to Apple/AMD? I've read reports of similar issues with the nMP and other software packages, as well, so unless you want to move to FCPX, you might find yourself SOL.

I'm not trying to downplay the severity of this issue, and I'm certainly not trying to pretend like Adobe doesn't have a long track record of releasing buggy, half-baked products, I just think that if you want an actual solution to this problem, there are smarter, more effective courses of action than complaining on the Adobe forums.

[OMS_AK]

We don't know if it's just hardware, it could have something to do with how the software and hardware are working together (see my previous comment).  Tons of other programs are running just fine on this hardware (aside from TiberiusJonez chiming in, most of this board is about the Mac Pro...which is what I'm referring to), so it can't just be an issue with the hardware or everything else would be extremely buggy as well.  Like a few others have stated before, this is probably one of those situations where Adobe, Apple, and AMD need to get their engineers and programmers together in the same room (at least virtually) to troubleshoot this.  I'd recommend keeping the pressure up with all 3 companies.

[whitediamondvid]

Add me to the long list of unsatisfied Mac Pro / Premiere CC users.

3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5, 64GB Memory, D700 cards, Yosemite up to date. CC up to date.

Brutal.

[whitediamondvid]

Has anyone experienced this issue going away by switching graphics cards (D700 or D500 series) with Apple?

Also, has anyone tried partitioning their drives and only install premiere (no plugins, no other browsers or programs) and try to replicate the problem?

My Apple technician is saying that this could be a software issue and talk to Adobe. But it seems it's hardware related?

I'd like to know from the Mac Pro users, their experience when switching graphics cards whether this worked or not.

The above post EditorPete says "I also talked to my Apple retailer and 99 percent of their issues, with about 15 Mac Pro returns, have been the D700 cards....not seated properly or soldered correctly."

I would like to know if anyone else had this problem solved by switching cards.

[Kevin-Monahan]

HI WD Vid,

I would like to know if anyone else had this problem solved by switching cards.

Yes, a user that swapped D700s for D500s no longer has the issue.

My Apple technician is saying that this could be a software issue and talk to Adobe. But it seems it's hardware related?

Well, we can't be 100% certain about anything quite yet. I believe we have faulty D700s in the lab that we're are testing right now.

One thing you may want to try is to check the internal temperature of your Mac Pro. We found some issues at our NAB booth with some of the 12 cores pumping out way too much heat, causing anomalies with our applications. We installed the six core Mac Pros and had much better results.

I suspect that cooling your Mac Pro might alleviate issues if your GPUs have not already been damaged by overheating. There are utilities which allow you to both monitor the temperature and another which will turn on your fans more often. I would definitely look into that.

I would also bring your Mac Pro into an Apple certified service center for an evaluation of your hardware.

Thanks,
Kevin

[whitediamondvid]

Hi Kevin,

My 6 core machine was not running "hot" when I experienced the green lines. It was turned off overnight and was only on for a short while when I exported the 1 hour video with DSLR (Canon 5diii) and Canon C100 footage. The timeline had little to no effects applied to it. I was not using red footage or any third party plugins.

Once I watched the export (with frustration!!) I restarted the machine, exported again and the green lines were not there. This also happened with a short 4 minute highlight reel but instead of green lines I had white lines at the top of the screen.

I did bring my machine to the Apple store but they are giving me a hard time about replacing both cards. It's still there (4/22).

I notice nobody is having this problem (from what I can find online) with Final Cut Pro, I'm about ready to switch. Too much time lost without any answers.

-Frustrated in NY

[whitediamondvid]

Update: I have received my Mac Pro back from Apple, they replaced one card and said card B did not need replacing (although I was told they were replacing both) -- made a stink at the Apple store but was brick walled by the "lead" tech.

I exported a clip but have not watched it thoroughly for the green lines. I should note that the green lines on my exports were random and did not always occur. I am skeptical to say they would be gone even after a month of testing.

There is a new problem with the computer: in the little time I have worked with it (approx 9 hours) since getting it back, the screen has dipped black for 1/2 second in the middle of editing and writing an email on three occasions. The computer has never done this before. I spoke with apple care and sent diagnostics to their engineers who say it could be my thunderbolt drive however the drive does not affect my iMac which I've been using while the computer was in for repair. Also, why did this problem never happen before and now that I have it back it's been 3 times in 2 days. Sigh. Has anyone else experienced this?

On a side note, I downloaded the trial to Final Cut Pro X -- I've realized this program is horrible (edits like iMovie). No solution there.

So forced to use Adobe software and a Mac that may not work well with it. Double Sigh.

I haven't seen users complaining about this issue with the new iMac, do they have this graphics issue?

[Derjis]

Our nMP has the same problem with dropping the monitor connection for a second or two; we're running 2 x Dell u2413 over miniDP > DP. I had thought that it was just a janky cable, or a bad connection on the monitor, but I wonder if it's possibly related to a bad video card...? Sorry, guys, I know this is OT; not related to the original issue, definitely not an Adobe problem. I'm just thinking out loud haha

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello White Diamond Video,

Once I watched the export (with frustration!!) I restarted the machine, exported again and the green lines were not there. This also happened with a short 4 minute highlight reel but instead of green lines I had white lines at the top of the screen.

Although your issue sounds similar, I don't think they are quite the same issue as the OP is having. I have seen one or two other cases where the customer complained of green lines. It sounds like that you have not experienced them lately, though. If you like, feel free to start a new thread about the green lines in your exports.

Thanks,

Kevin

[JesseSchluntz]

Just chiming in... if you read the history of this thread (should only take 4 or 5 hours) you'll see that I posted screenshots of both green lines and white lines over the past year+. One time they were even huge green splotches across the screen and... Wait a second, are we really still talking about this? Kevin, no word from AMD or Apple? I don't follow every post but there's clearly no point in attempted fixes here.

This is something the people manufacturing the hardware & software (Adobe/AMD/Apple) need to put their heads together on. Otherwise I suggest you change this forum's title to "typing practice".

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello Jesse,

jesse schluntz wrote:

Just chiming in... if you read the history of this thread (should only take 4 or 5 hours) you'll see that I posted screenshots of both green lines and white lines over the past year+. One time they were even huge green splotches across the screen and...

Yes, but we haven't seen them much as of late. I don't think you've seen them since you got your hardware changed, have you?

Wait a second, are we really still talking about this? Kevin, no word from AMD or Apple? I don't follow every post but there's clearly no point in attempted fixes here.

Again, it's in my top five issues. We're working on it. I am not sure exactly where we are as I just got back into the office after being out sick all week (and at NAB before that). I'll see what I can find out.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Transposition Films]

Kevin, any update on this issue?

[Derjis]

I've heard rumours that Apple is working closely with Adobe on Metal for OSX; given Apple's laughable OpenCL support, maybe moving towards Metal will help sidestep some of the issues Adobe users have been experiencing...? Maybe Metal support will be included in CC2015...?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi TF,

Kevin, any update on this issue?

No luck on reproducing the issue, though we have been testing non-stop. Sorry that we have no news.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Transposition Films]

Want to swap Mac Pro's? I'll take yours that is working, and I can guarantee you'll be able to reproduce the issue on ours