problems with video in lr6

[macks15]

Hello

I have just bought lr6 and am importing pictures and some videos (short snippets taken with stills cameras that have video capability) on a MacBook pro 2011.

I imported some recent mp4 files that worked in lr no problem. I then imported some old mpg files, and then tried to import some old avi files. The avi files would not import. I searched the forums and found there may be some problem with the video cache so tried to purge it. The box came up saying it was being purged but was still there 5 mins later as if it was stuck. I pressed cancel and again it was stuck on the box saying 'cancelling'. The only way out was to force quit lightroom.

I cannot now watch the original mp4 videos that are imported as lr says there is an error working with the videos. All the files work fine when watched outside lightroom by clicking on them in my hard drive.

I have searched the forums but can't find what to do. Any help really appreciated.

Thanks very much.

[Mohit Goyal]

Hi macks,

Please make sure that Lightroom is updated to 6.9/2015.9 version also, refer the below troubleshooting article related to video issues in Lightroom.

Error "Sequencer defunct" when using video file related functions

Regards,

Mohit

[macks15]

Hello Mohit

Thank you for suggestion. I am on version 6.9. I also looked at the link you gave but it relates to errors giving the message 'sequencer defunct' which I was not getting. And surely that would now be fixed on the latest version?

So you know I force quit lr several times. Each time I opened lr again and tried purging the video cache the box came up saying it was purging and remained there with nothing happening. I found that the only way to solve the problem was shut down the MacBook and restart the machine. I could then purge the video cache (I don't know if that was necessary). I could also then import the files I was having problems with before.

So all looked fixed (I guess I should have tried shutting down the machine but thought quitting lr would be enough). However, when I spend a bit of time watching the videos the problem comes back. This time videos won't play properly, I can't purge the cache (same problem) and the only way to fix is to force quit lr, shut down the machine and restart.

I guess I should stick to photos.

Chris

[Mohit Goyal]

Thanks for the update, please try these few steps to optimize the Lightroom performance.

10 Tips to Improve Lightroom's Speed and Performance Without Additional Hardware

Thanks,

Mohit

[Jao vdL · Accepted solution]

What kind of codec are your old avi files using? Remember that avi is not a format but a container. The support for avi is very limited and only includes a few codecs that are part of the official avi spec. Many avi files used codecs that were not part of that spec and will not work. The format basically died away. Best thing to do is to transcode to mpeg4. A good tool to use for this is handbrake https://handbrake.fr/ or if you have a full CC subscription, Adobe's media encoder.

[macks15]

Thanks very much Mohit and Jao vdl. I am not sure what codec is. I will go away and look into it.

Thanks again for your help.