Solution Included: Adobe Premiere Pro (2025, 2024) Playhead Freezes in Timeline During Playback.

[sketchy.dog]

Issue:

During playback of projects, Adobe Premiere frequently stops updating the playhead (line that follows playback) in the Timeline Panel until the user stops playback. Once the playback is stopped, the playhead will jump to the correct location.

Verions Affected: Multiple versions of Adobe Premiere

I've seen a bunch of other forum posts about this and some mention "fixes" that include doing things like resetting your Workspace Layout, Resetting view settings, and even completely resetting your configurations - DON'T DO ANY OF THESE, SOME ARE DESTRUCTIVE TO YOUR LAYOUTS! AT LEAST GIVE MY FIX A TRY FIRST, AS IT'S ONE CHECKBOX!

Work-Around Fix:

Go to EDIT > PREFERENCE > GENERAL and uncheck the bottom box that says "GPU accelerated UI rendering (restart required)" and then restart Adobe Premiere:

Re-open the project you were working on and you will notice immediately that the project will play with any Workspace Window setup selected, and any settings enabled.

Downsides:

The only downside to this fix is that the CPU is slightly more taxed, but the impact is very small. The rendering of any photos or video asset thumbnails becomes stobe-like during playback. Both of these problems (the playhead issue, and the CPU UI stobing) need to be fixed by the Adobe team. This is a really crazy issue for this product to be having.

Alternative Work-Around:

If you absolutely MUST have the GPU rendering your UI, you can also detach the primary Timeline by clicking the Hamburger (3 lines) menu and then selecting "Undock Panel". You will notice that upon resuming playback, the playhead will smoothly follow your content without having any strobing or issues that come with using the CPU to render the UI. I personally don't like having the extra window, so I go with the non-GPU UI until a competent fix is released.

I hope this solves the issue(s) for you. Something tells me there's more than just the playhead not working properly, tbh, so if you're having strange glitchy things happen and they're part of the UI (basically everything) then might as well try turning GPU UI rendering off and restart to see if it helps before taking more drastic measures. 

ADOBE:

Please fix this ASAP. The description and fix info contained in this and other posts should be plenty for you to fix in the next minor rev.

Please let me know if this fix doesn't work for you, or if you have any issues.

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

For 2024 I had to unselect clips during playback or make sure the Effect Controls was not highlighted.

For 25.0. I had the GPU rendering off.  But for the beta (25.2) which i regular use, I needed to turn it back on to prevent the UI/timeline flashing.

[Matt25904648dhe2 · Accepted solution]

Thank you for figuring this out and posting. Detaching the timeline worked for me. None of the other solutions you mentioned seeing on forums were working.

[DanGent]

This is a great. Thank you!

Both your methods worked. I went with unchecking the GPU acceleration as I don't like my timeline being undocked. The UI strobes but as long as my Program monitor works and the playheads keep up then it's an evil I'm OK to live with until they fix it.

Thanks again!

[Miss Caroline5E22]

i don't have the > GPU accelerated UI rendering option on my preferences screen?

[Ssilver Editor]

You helped me a lot with your post, and your solution of turning off the config of GPU Acceleration UI Render has given me an idea that i've tested and it worked, but ir a very strange solution. If you have one video running on your pc, the problem of the playhead stuck will not happen while the video is playing, it can be on your browser or on your own pc, but the video MUST not be minimezed, otherwise this "fix" will not work. You can download one long video on youtube and click to play it in your pc and then open your Premiere Pro window above the video window, it will still work! The only thing that you MUST NOT DO is minimize the video or pause it. I hope that with this post i can help someone that have this same problem that i'm having like you helped me, thank you! (Sorry for my poor english, I'm Brazillian and I'm not used to speak english this much haha)

Just to resume the things, play one video in your PC when you use premiere pro and the problem with the playhead is solved while the video is running

[Amritesh37548832bdwi]

This actually worked, LOL!