Playback Delay After Installing 15.4

[Nic Crab]

I spent the entire day yesterday trying to fix this - really hoping someone can help!

After installing the new update, whenever I press play on the timeline, the play button shifts to the stop button as if it's playing - but nothing happens. After about 10 seconds it will start playing, but this is going to cumulatively waste so much time (and it's very frustrating, since it's always just played instantly until yesterday)

I even uninstalled 15.4 and reinstalled the previous version I had been using - but the problem somehow carried over!

I've tried updating my drivers, and deleting the media cache, resetting the preferences, and just about every type of troubleshooting I could think of.

My computer is about a year old, and every other program works fine.

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? It's driving me crazy and eating up so much time trying to fix it.

Thanks

[Nic Crab]

Also, here are my computer specs:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz 3.00 GHz

RAM: 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)

64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (with latest drivers)

[Ann Bens]

If this is an existing project, make new one and import old one.

[Nic Crab]

thanks for the reply - what do you mean by import old one? I've tried creating a new project and copying/pasting the main sequence into it, and the issue is still happening

[Ann Bens]

No not copy/paste but import as you would do for footage.

[Nic Crab]

Thanks - this seems to have improved it a bit, but it's still delayed some of the time. But I'm so behind on my project, I think I'm just going to work with this... but now I'm scared to touch the 15.4 update, I'm going to have to stick with this 2020 version (14.91) until this huge project is done, and then try to update at that point. 

Thanks for you help.

[Nic Crab]

If anyone sees this - that solution didn't actually work.. now that I'm working in the project, it's the same as before. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... this is like trying to run wearing iron boots.

[Boka2112]

Creating proxies may help or deleting media cache.  Good luck.

[Boka2112]

Are you using Hard Drives or SSDs?

[Nic Crab]

Thanks for the repl. I'm using an external SSD. I even moved everything to a different external SSD in case it was a drive issue, but nothing changed. The sequence had been working perfectly for months up until yesterday, so I don't think it's an issue with the computer, it only started when I upgraded to 15.4, and now that I've removed 15.4 and gone back to 14.9.1 it's somehow persisted.

I haven't tried proxies yet, but I've tried just about everything, so I'll give that a shot.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Nic,

Sorry for the poor performance when playing back your sequence. That sucks. Thanks for attaching the video. I'd want to know a bit more info on the media you are editing with and the Sequence Settings you are using for rendering your previews. Is it 4K? Long GOP? XDCAM? How many fps? Is it variable frame rate footage? Hard to tell.

From your video, it looks like a memory issue. First thing to do is simply reboot your computer. I know of editors that don't reboot for days on end and this is not optimal. Can you try that first?

The next thing I try is a clean delete of all media cache. You say you've done this, but did you do so with all projects closed? Choose File > Close All Projects. Then, with all projects closed, choose Preferences > Media Cache. Choose to delete all cache. Reboot and trash preferences when restarting Premiere Pro.

Still having trouble with performance?

16 GB of RAM is not enough in some cases with things like 4K footage, longer timelines, etc. You may want to add more RAM or at least alter the settings in your Preferences > Memory to see if you might have better performance.

Update your video drivers is another thing to check, but even though you've said you done that, make sure these are the studio drivers and not the game ready ones for your GPU.

Next, look at the video previews themselves. These are the files to be most concerned with. Inspect your Sequence Settings. Are you generating the stock MPEG files? If you move to Edit Mode > Custom, you can alter your video preview codec. I use ProRes LT for all my YouTube videos. Great performance with the side benefit of being a smart rendering codec, unlike the stock one.

Finally, where are your video preview files being saved? Is this drive a high speed one for video playback of that codec? You may want to place these files on a separate high speed disk, like a SSD.

Hope this advice helps in some way.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Nic Crab]

Hi Kevin, thanks for the detailed reply!

All of the footage is 1080p or less - it's a documentary using a lot of difference source footage, so it's all over the place in terms of frame rate, but nothing in 4k.

(btw - I've been working with this project for months, and it was working flawlessly until I did the update)

I've done multiple reboots, deleted the cache and trashed the preferences, none of those helped. 

The drivers are the latest version, and they're studio drivers.

The previews are being saved to a new, fast external Lacie SSD drive, which is where all of the source files are as well. 

The one thing I hadn't tried was changing the preview codec  (although the MPEG codec was working fine for me until yesterday) - so I just changed it to  Prores LT and rendered it, but I'm still getting the same issue.

It might be worth adding that the sequences is around 90 minutes long and although there aren't many layers or effects, there are many different source files being used - at least 100. I noticed that if I create a new project and drag a 5 minute chunk of the sequence into a new sequence, things run fine - so this problem is only happening with the 90 minute sequences that I need to work with. 

I tried doing the Project Manager Consolidate thing, which also basically make it run reasonably smooth, but consolidating seems to have reduced the quality of the video clips, so I feel like it's not a solution. 

I don't think it's even an issue with the codec or anything - even when I move the playhead somewhere, there's a huge lag, so it's not only affecting playback, it's affecting my ability to navigate around the sequence. 

Any other ideas?

[Boka2112]

You can test your hardware easily by starting a completely new project.  Import all the footage into the project.  Grab all the files and put them on to one timeline without any effects.  Does it play smoothly?

That is a good way to track down the problem.  My bet is a plugin is causing the issue.