(windows) Premier pro locking up, video playback will freeze but it keeps playing audio

[default54w22gptk8xk]

Ive been experiencing an issue with premier pro where video playback will freeze but it keeps playing audio, the playhead doesn't move with the audio, i can move it but it doesnt scrub back to the selected area and the pause button doesn't work. Ive found a couple things that will bring it back to life so to speak but these are only temp fixes as it comes back within 5 to 10 mins of editing.

I find it odd that its doing this as I'm not even editing a lot of footage or importing much other than one file to the project. I used to be able to use this setup fine so it seems weird that this is now happening as i havent changed much in my editing techniquies.

All footage is stored on its own dedicated SSD , transferring it to a different SSD/Drive in my system doesn't seem to help. Ive tried having premier pro installed on a different drive than my C: drive as well, but it didn't make any difference, also every update it just installs it back to my C: drive anyway for some odd reason.

Generally my videos are 1 to 4 hours long and i cut them down to 20 to 40 mins long, sometimes up to 6 hours of footage is imported but thats rare. Recordings are from OBS formatted in Fragmented MP4 at 1080p, sometimes I will import mp3 or mp4 clips and Jpeg / Png Images to overlay on the video which recently is aiding to bringing the system to a grinding halt especially if i dont put the file onto the same drive as the main video file.

I'm running windows 10 on a RTX3070 with a R9 5950X , x570 unify Motherboard with 32Gb of DDR4 3200Mhz Ram installed. I have 2 2TB SSD's , 500Gb Nvme M.2 boot Drive , a 2Tb 7200Rpm HDD for Extra storage and a 4tb 7200Rpm HDD for Bulk Video Storage. I do not edit videos off of the HDD's as they are too slow.

Things ive tried / done so far:

Updated to windows 11 (made problem even worse so I went back to 10)

Reset workspace layout (sometimes will bring project back to reality but only rarely works. only a temp fix)

Restart the program (Often doesn't help)

Use Proxies (helped for a while but now the problem is back even with them enabled)

Render preview at 1/4 (this was one of the first successful temp fixes i used)

Clear media cache (seems to do nothing)

Give more / less ram access (no noticeable changes)

Upgraded my CPU and GPU (this helped for a bit but I'm back at square one)

Reinstalled GPU drivers (also tried changing from Studio Drivers to the Game Ready Drivers, Did nothing)

Reinstalled Creative cloud and premier pro

Cleaned Boot Drive and editing drive By deleting redundant/useless files and programs

Moved Footage and project to a different drive (no change)

Turned off almost all startup apps in task manager

Close useless apps in task manager to ensure Premier is getting the most resources possible

Turned off feature in premier that scans footage so i can search for things in the video as I found i had no use for that

If anyone has any questions about my setup/ editing settings feel free to ask, id love to get this fixed as id like to be productive with my editing again, waiting for premier pro to get its brain together just to freeze again in 5 mins is killing my energy for editing.

Thanks for reading and take care! 

[default54w22gptk8xk]

CPU - Ryzen 9 5950x

GPU - EVGA Nvidia RTX 3070 8GB

GPU driver (PC) - Geforce Game Ready Driver Version: 581.57

RAM - 32gb DDR4 3200Mhz (x2 8gb + x1 16gb) 

Operating system - Windows 10 pro 

Program version - Premier pro 25.5

Hard Drive - 2tb Lexar SSD (internal sata) 

Video format - Fragmented MP4 (.mp4) and/or H264 mp4, Proxies are Prores Quicktime Proxy  

Workflow details: Project has 2 audio tracks, one for voice and one for game audio, recorded in OBS. this exact set up used to work and ive been using it for almost a year now. 

Steps to reproduce No clue at this time

Expected result  program should work as designed

Actual result Hitting play will cause playback to freeze, but audio will keep playing and you can not interact with the programs UI.

[Peru Bob]

Check the Audio Hardware Preferences. Default Audio Input should be set to No Input.

[Peru Bob]

Do a clean installation of the latest Studio Driver (NOT a Game Driver).

[Incredible_Wildflower8770]

im having the same issue cant seem to figure it out

[Incredible_Wildflower8770]

tried both of your suggestions but it diddnt seem to fix it unfortunately 

[Incredible_Wildflower8770]

Bump. Im having the same issue!

tried installing studio drivers and checked the Audio Hardware Preferences. Default Audio Input was already set to No Input. havent changed video setup in the last 5 months, projects that worked fine 2 months ago now are barely functonal, ive also tried reinstalling the program and it doesnt seem to change anything

Video of the issue has been attached

[Peru Bob]

@Incredible_Wildflower8770 

Try creating a new project and import the old one into it.

[Incredible_Wildflower8770]

@Peru Bob Importing to a new project unfortunately diddnt change anything. still does the same thing, freezes after about 10 seconds of playback

[MyerPj]

 @Incredible_Wildflower8770 Can you give us your hardware / OS info, PP version, etc.

As in this post: Info needed for a bug / tech support

[Incredible_Wildflower8770]

@MyerPj 

• Issue – When editing in adobe premier pro, Playback will freeze, but audio still plays and i lose control of the program, hitting pause does nothing and the proram will often go into (not responding) and/or crash, this happens after hitting play, hitting play then pause, making a cut and/or adding media. even when its a new project.
• Steps to reproduce – 1 Open Program. 2. Open or create new project (2.1. Import media and move to timeline if new project, 2.2. Create proxies if they dont already exist) 3. press play and let the media play for a few seconds resulting in frozen playback while audio still plays 
• Expected result – Media plays normally , allowing the user to cut and use the program as designed
• Actual result – after a few seconds of playback, media stops playing video but continues to play audio, not allowing edits or pausing.
• Screen recording –   
• Adobe Premiere Pro version – 25.5
• Operating system – Windows 10 22H2
• GPU driver version (Windows only) – Nvidia Studio Driver Version 581.57
• Video format –  Fragmented Mp4 recorded From OBS 1920x1080 at 60fps (also im not sure why this would be the issue as ive recorded with these settings for almost 2 years and only recently had issues with it but im not putting it out of the question. programs change and can cause all sorts of weird issues) 
• Comparative information helps us understand more about when the issue occurs: 
  • Q, Does it affect all projects or only some projects?  All projects
  • Q, Does it affect new projects? Yes new projects are affected, ive tried importing the same media and newly created media into a new project and got the same result.
  • Q, When did the problem begin? the beginning of october 

[Incredible_Wildflower8770]

[MyerPj]

@Incredible_Wildflower8770 is this your original post, ie: are you @default54w22gptk8xk 

The two things I suspect the most is Windows 10 and more expectedly "Fragmented mp4" which I believe is a bunch of video chunks combining to be a clip. Are all those cut lines in the timeline from you or are the the chunks of video.

You mentioned proxies. In what format are the created? Have you created the proxies then dropped the file onto the timeline.

I really wanted to see the CPU page on Task Manager, I almost never ever look at my drives via TM, 

I suspect W10 becuase it's probably gone thru so many iteration over the years. I rarely go more than 2 years without a clean install. I just did one replacing my original Win11 with a clean install of Win11-24H2. And it is as expected, quite quick again.

[Incredible_Wildflower8770]

@MyerPj in the clip my cpu is at 7% and my gpu is at 26%, which for a R9 5950x and a 3070 isnt that high, sometimes when it does this they both just sit at around 2% like the computer is having some kind of brain malfunction and just not processing the info. All the cuts are from me, my projects are usually one clip or (or video i guess) cut down, sometimes with some clips or photos added for illustration, and a small simple intro for each video made with keyframes. so i take say a 2hr video and cut it into 40 ish mins. 

My windows install has been on my pc for a while , i wouldn't say 2 years but even then im hesitant to reinstall it as i would have to reconfigure everything and reinstall many recording software plugins, I understand doing a fresh install clears out settings and useless files, but im not sure if i can backup settings for certain programs like obs or other programs. Or what all if need to back up, setting it all up again seems kinda intimidating ngl.

I understand where your coming from though. And im not saying windows Isnt the issue.

I would just upgrade to windows 11 too but everything ive heard kinda makes me hesitate as ive had many friends have their boot drive brick itself during the update , so doesnt show the boot drive leading to them having to buy a new one or another thing ive seen my friends have issues with is the windows recovery screen breaks barring them from fixing their current install which inadvertently deletes all their files as the only way to fix it is to reformat the drive if it still shows up. 

Im also unsure why fragmented mp4 files would be an issue, ive edited projects in premier using this file format for almost 3 years now and havent had an issue with the program doing this until recently. I did give converting them to hybrid mp4 and hybrid mov and even recording in these formats a shot as recommended in another forum couple weeks ago but it just degraded the quality or made the file sizes unreasonably huge (like 100/200gb) and diddnt seem to fix the issue. Ill give it another shot, but i have about 320gb of fragmented mp4 files already recorded so id like to work with them like i usually do if possible

ill also look into the windows install or drivers again and see what comes of it. I have a feeling its either something with the program itself or windows cause the file format to me anyway doesnt seem to explain why i was able to edit in this format fine for years. 

Will update with any results

If you have any input on any of these things feel free to shoot a message. At this point im willing to try a lot to try and get this working again as its really killing my motivation to not be able to efficiently edit what ive been recording. 

[MyerPj]

Yes, these kind of things do sap enthusiasm.

This problem is typically seen when the software and media finally overwhelm the hardware. So, that's what I'm looking at. Either new hardware, of lean out the software. The fragmented file, I'm wondering about. Is it physically a bunch of pieces the make up the actual 'file' or does it become an actual continuous file when done and parked on your harddrive. Do you have a smallish one you can share to Google drive, etc.?

Otherwise, I wanted to see your cpu page to see how many processes you have running. Each process takes a sliver of your cpu constantly, so keeping those down is excellent for PC health, and exactly the type of thing that accumulates when windows has been installed for a long time.

Here's mine. This with Win11 24H2. It creeps up with every major Windows build. With 23H2, I was seeing 99 as a low, currently I'm at about 109 at a low point with 24H2. How many processes on your machine. (Without chrome running)

[Foto Canhas38296611gnaq]

Same here....