7 Replies Latest reply: Oct 29, 2011 8:41 AM by Jonz (sound images) RSS

    Timeline frequently stops playing back

    Webshark2000 Community Member

      Hey guys,

       

         This has happend a few times in the past, but I've been experiencing it a lot lately, where I hit the spacebar or play button for the timeline and the cursor jumps a little ways away but it doesn't play anything back.  I've looked around the forums and apparently others have experienced this as well, but I haven't been able to find a permanent solution.

       

         One person suggested defragging your hard drive, which I did, but it didn't help.  Someone else said that what they would do is open up an audio clip in the preview window and scrub through it whenever the timeline stopped playing and then after doing that for a couple of seconds the timeline would be playable again.  This does work, but it's really annoying to have to do it over and over and over again.

       

         Any suggestions for permanently fixing this issue would be greatly appreciated.

       

      Thanks.

       

       

      Running:

       

      Premiere Pro CS4 v4.2.1

      Win7 64-bit Business

      ASRock x86 Extreme Mobo

      Core i7 920

      6GB RAM

      Radeon 4870

        • 1. Re: Timeline frequently stops playing back
          Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

          I have had similar in PrPro 2.0, where playback will start fine, and then just stop. It can be restarted (Spacebar), and might, or might not stop again. I have observed this with large, and small Projects. I have not found anything common with the places that it stalls, like Effects or Transitions. Playback seldom stops at the same spot.

           

          All of my Projects are NTSC SD DV w/ DV-AVI Type II files. All of my HDD's get defragmented on a daily basis. All are 7200RPM SATA II units, and none is ever more than about 1/3 filled.

           

          I have observed this in complex Timelines with multiple Audio Tracks, and or multiple Video Track Projects. I have observed it with and without Effects.

           

          Sometimes, after a few of these stalls, the Timeline will play perfectly, and often several times.

           

          The closest thing to a common element would be that I have had a few more of these stalls, when working with Audio Mixer, where it becomes a PITA, but then maybe the next time, with Audio Mixer doing the same Track Keyframing, things work perfectly. I have also observed this when Audio Mixer was not used at all, and there were no Track Keyframes.

           

          Closest that I have ever come up with (since I cannot find a real common factor), is the Phases of the Moon!

           

          Wish that I had some sort of help, but will follow along, in case that others do, as when it starts happening, I'd love to be able to apply a fix myself.

           

          Good luck,

           

          Hunt

          • 2. Re: Timeline frequently stops playing back
            Webshark2000 Community Member

            I wish I could at least find a consistency with this problem, but sometimes I can open up a project, work for hours without it happening and other times it'll lock up after every time I stop the playback.

             

            If anyone comes up with a solution, please let me know.

             

            Bill, do you use Matrox or any other add-in hardware?  I thought maybe that was the problem, but if you're experiencing the same thing without any add-in hardware, that must not be it.

            • 3. Re: Timeline frequently stops playing back
              Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

              I am with you on finding some consistency, but have yet to identify it. Gotta's be something, but it has eluded me for a long time.

               

              I use no add-on hardware - no Matrox, no Black Magic, nothing.

               

              Good luck, and hope that someone else can offer, "Oh, if you only do THIS, or you don't do THAT, then all will be good."

               

              Hunt

               

              PS - I've had the system up around the clock with a very large Project that played back smoothly on the third day (no re-boots), only to have that same Project exhibit the issues on a fairly fresh boot. In my cases here, I have nothing else running, and have cleaned my Processes very well.

               

              I've had times where PS, WordPerfect and Encore were all running, though minimized, and not had any issues with playback.

              • 4. Re: Timeline frequently stops playing back
                Gammelman Community Member

                I'm an infrequent user of CS4, but I recently (May 2010) noticed that playback function no longer worked, neither in PP nor in Encore.I could press the playback-stop toggle in the monitor window, but nothing would happen.

                 

                I did 2 things; dowloaded the latest updates (Help -> Updates) and I changed the audio playback device (I had selected one that was not correctly setup).

                 

                I don't know which of these 2 actions did the trick, but as of now the playback-stop toggle works again and is correctly playing back the video in the monitor window.

                • 5. Re: Timeline frequently stops playing back
                  Jonz (sound images) Community Member

                  I am wondering if any of you managed to fix this problem. I just installed my CS 5.5 production preminum and I have the same problem with Ppro.

                   

                  If you have something, I would request you to share though the issue posted over a year ago.

                   

                  John

                  • 6. Re: Timeline frequently stops playing back
                    Webshark2000 Community Member

                    No, never did find a solution.  We just upgraded to CS5 and downloaded all the updates (which made it CS5.0.3) and it's been working much, much better.

                    • 7. Re: Timeline frequently stops playing back
                      Jonz (sound images) Community Member

                      Thanks for the update. It means the problem persists with 5.5 also.

                      However, on an other thread I am trying to rectify with Eric's help. It looks like premiere (and audition sometimes) does not like my Mackie audio interface.

                       

                      Rgds.. John