Playback doesn't work after a while

Hi all

New user here. Not new to video editors, I'm a long-time user of Vegas Movie Studio, but giving Resolve (free version) a try now.

I have a pretty simple edit, only a few tracks, a DVE effect to make a circular "facecam" and the footage is all optimized and running off my nVME drive.

I can edit for a while, then all of a sudden, pressing space or the play button stops working. I can still move around the playhead, access menus, save the project and exit OK, just can't play back the timeline.

I have to exit the program, wait a few minutes before I can even start it up again, and then open the session and again, after several minutes, the issue reemerges.

Is this a known issue? Any help here?

Thanks!

Neel

My PC specs:

Summary
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 7700 @ 3.60GHz 49 °C
Kaby Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
32.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1230MHz (14-16-16-31)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. H270-HD3-CF (U3E1) 41 °C
Graphics
S34J55x (3440x1440@50Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER (Gigabyte) 49 °C
Storage
931GB Seagate BarraCuda 510 SSD ZP1000CM30001 (Unknown (SSD))
5589GB Seagate ST6000DM004-2EH11C (SATA ) 47 °C
2794GB Western Digital WDC WD30PURX-64P6ZY0 (SATA ) 42 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH12LS38
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

I am having the EXACT same issue. I came here hoping to find some answers. I'm fairly new to video editing, myself, but I'm just doing some pretty basic video editing anyway. With version 17.2 I was having MAJOR problems with the playback stopping frequently, and having to constantly restart the program to get it working again. Version 17.2.1 seemed to have fixed that problem, initially... But now it's coming back to haunt me. Maybe not as bad as it was before, but still bad enough I'm only able to make a couple edits in my project before it freezes up again, sometimes. I'm getting seriously frustrated with it.

One tip for NeelModi specifically... When you have to shut it down, bring up your Task Manager and look for DaVinci Resolve in your Background Processes. I've noticed when closing the program down, it will keep something running in the background, preventing me from being able to open it again immediately. Forcing that background process to close allows me to re-open the program faster.

My PC Specs:
OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core Processor 3.70 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
MB: MSI B550M Pro-VDH Wifi Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard
Primary Storage: Crucial P2 1 TB M.2 NVME SSD
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 270 with 2 GB RAM

DaVinci Resolve version 17.2.1

The program isn't outright crashing, but I did grab a Diagnostic Log and drop it in my DropBox. I'm not allowed to post a direct URL, but here the link with a couple extra spaces added: https://www .dropbox .com/s/6cakjm13wfnoytc/DaVinci-Resolve-logs-20210614-171108.zip?dl=0

I know my RAM is a bit low, but I've been able to edit my project with no issues at all, before. I don't have much at all running in the background. The last version of DR 16 also worked flawlessly for me. I hope someone can help sort this out, because it gets ridiculously frustrating having to constantly restart the program.

Hi,

I am experiencing the same issue with playback as well. This has become a real frustration recently to the point where even after a clean reboot playback will sometimes not work at all when DR is opened.

My machine is running Windows 10 on a Xeon(R) CPU E5-1660 v3 @ 3.00 GHz with 36GB RAM and two NVIDIA Quadro K2200 GPU's each with 4GB of memory. So it is definitely not underpowered and I've been editing with it for some time without issue.

To be clear DR is not crashing it is just the playback that is failing to work. The playback 'arrow' lights up but does nothing. It does change when I toggle stop/play so the signal is being picked up by DR but playback does not start.

Happy to provide more detail if needed, on the latest version of DR 17.2.1.

Thanks
Chris

Do you guys have any USB devices attached besides keyboard and mouse?

Do you guys have any USB devices attached besides keyboard and mouse?

Several devices: webcam, USB mic, audio interface, MIDI keyboard, dongle for a wireless remote transport device (Tranzport)

I have multiple things plugged into USB Ports, so yes. I have seen other posts talking about stuff being plugged into USB Ports causing issues with DaVinci Resolve. Besides my Keyboard & Mouse, I have my Webcam and a USB Hub plugged in. Into the USB Hub I have my Headset and Microphone plugged in. I use all of these at different times for recording and editing my videos.

I'm going to try moving the plug for my Webcam to the USB Hub, since I can power it off via the Hub. I'll see if that makes a difference. (Each socket on the Hub has it's own Power button.)

I do feel that DR needs to fix this issue with USB devices. It can be a huge inconvenience to have to unplug USB devices in order for us to effectively edit our projects.

My prior post is still waiting on approval, so I can't edit it to add an update. But I unplugged my Webcam and plugged it into my USB Hub instead, and it's still locking up the playback.

I'm going to try unplugging my USB Hub from the back, and use the USB socket on the front of my computer to plug/unplug the Hub, and see if that makes a difference.

This is seriously becoming frustrating. It's taking me forever to edit my project, because the playback keeps locking up and preventing me from being able to continue editing my file. I will keep restarting DaVinci, but frankly my patience only goes so far before I have to stop for awhile.

OH!!! And something else odd I've noticed, that might shed some light on this issue, maybe? A few times I'll give up on editing my project and close down DaVinci, then go try and watch something online. But when I do that, the show I'm trying to watch will load, but it won't actually start to play. I have to open my Task Manager and find the background process for DaVinci Resolve, and force it to shut down, before I can play anything on my browser. (Using Google Chrome, and the shows I've seen this happen with are on Discovery+.)

[Peter Chamberlain]

Please review the FAQs re details to report and generating and posting links to diagnostic logs

Purely speculation on my part, but the only time I've experienced this kind of apparent playback locking up behaviour is when (it seems) my NLE has overloaded my GPU ... that tends to be when I'm doing something with 4K footage that gets a bit too much for the lowly 6GB VRAM that my card has to offer. Happens on Resolve or Premiere. Quite possibly a completely different situation to the one reported here tho, but just offering it up in case it feels familiar.

Purely speculation on my part, but the only time I've experienced this kind of apparent playback locking up behaviour is when (it seems) my NLE has overloaded my GPU ... that tends to be when I'm doing something with 4K footage that gets a bit too much for the lowly 6GB VRAM that my card has to offer. Happens on Resolve or Premiere. Quite possibly a completely different situation to the one reported here tho, but just offering it up in case it feels familiar.

Here's what I don't get about editing in 4K. Sure, my GPU (4GB) and CPU (i7-7700) completely chokes if I try to edit 4K. I get that. So I create proxy files, so essentially I'm working with HD files. I used to edit HD files on an i5 machine with 8 GB of RAM and on-chip video with no issues. Nowadays, I can edit better with proxy files until I start adding more effects and transitions and speed changes, etc, then things start going to crap.

What's the point to using proxy files then?

I have an update on my playback issue. I have tried quite a number of things from cleaning up the registry and other data using CCleaner. I also tried an earlier version of DR (17.1.1) but this made no difference. I also ran various disk checks for errors and repaired these. None of these actions made much if any difference.

Now I had already created proxy media (DNxHR LB) from my H.264 files and had reduced Playback quality down to 1/4 (note; I rarely need to take this step as the proxy files do the trick, but for some timelines with lots of fancy fusion clips etc. it is needed). But, for some reason, I discovered my files seemed to have unlinked from the proxy files I'd initially created. Once I relinked these playback became much smoother and snappy even when scrubbing over clips with my mouse. So in my particular situation, it was unlinked proxy files that led to the playback grinding to a holt.

**NB: I also edit with the resolution set to 1080p and only raise this to 4k when I finally come to render my timeline out.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Chris

Please review the FAQs re details to report and generating and posting links to diagnostic logs

I did exactly that in my post, including posting a link to my diagnostic logs. Except that if I post a direct link, I get told that I'm not allowed to post URL links. So I added 2 spaces to the link. Just have to copy the full link and remove those 2 spaces to see my diagnostic logs.

The program isn't outright crashing. The playback stops responding, but we can still click on different sections and stuff. We can save our project and exit out as normal. We just can't continue playing our file until we reload the program completely. (Including opening Task Manager and closing any Background Processes still left running.)

Purely speculation on my part, but the only time I've experienced this kind of apparent playback locking up behaviour is when (it seems) my NLE has overloaded my GPU ... that tends to be when I'm doing something with 4K footage that gets a bit too much for the lowly 6GB VRAM that my card has to offer. Happens on Resolve or Premiere. Quite possibly a completely different situation to the one reported here tho, but just offering it up in case it feels familiar.

I'm not sure the actual quality of my videos, but I don't think they're 4K... I'll have to look into that. There's still a lot of technical details that I'm learning to understand about videos and editing. (My main videos are recorded via OBS, just recording myself playing a video game on my computer.)

My project only has 2 tracks on it. One for the main video, and one that is for background music. I'm just making simple cuts to edit the video. The background music is only playing for parts of the video, and has an audio transition at the end of each section. Considering how much you can do with DaVinci, as near as I can tell what I'm doing is pretty simple. But it still locks up on me constantly.

It's not even after making changes. I'll stop playback for a moment, without doing anything to the file, and then try to start it up again, and it won't playback for me anymore.

I have multiple things plugged into USB Ports

OK.

One of the ideas I use to achieve success in this field is that an editing system should be used only for editing. There should be no games, email, office, development, security or other software installed on an edit system.

The other idea I use to achieve success is that traditional analog/digital audio connections are better quality/more reliable than USB devices.

So if you guys want to work with those ideas, I think you'll get better results.

I'm not sure the actual quality of my videos, but I don't think they're 4K... I'll have to look into that. There's still a lot of technical details that I'm learning to understand about videos and editing. (My main videos are recorded via OBS, just recording myself playing a video game on my computer.)

My project only has 2 tracks on it. One for the main video, and one that is for background music. I'm just making simple cuts to edit the video. The background music is only playing for parts of the video, and has an audio transition at the end of each section. Considering how much you can do with DaVinci, as near as I can tell what I'm doing is pretty simple. But it still locks up on me constantly.

It's not even after making changes. I'll stop playback for a moment, without doing anything to the file, and then try to start it up again, and it won't playback for me anymore.

Yep, it doesn't sound like you're overtaxing the software Crystal, but I'm guessing if your primary source footage is from OBS recordings then that's probably going to be something pretty edit unfriendly ... probably heavily compressed x264 mkv files? which means your computer might be having to work a lot harder than it actually needs to. Even if that's not actually the issue at the root of your current playback problem, if you're not already doing so then you might lighten the load if you transcode / optimise your footage first using a much more edit-friendly codec, like Cineform or ProRes ... those files will take up more space on your storage but your system wouldn't have to work quite as hard to handle them.

This is turning into a thread about CPU usage and optimizing files, etc, but it's still not clear to me if CPU usage is the problem with playback getting stuck and not even starting.

Because everything else in Resolve continues to work (menus, moving the playhead, zooming, etc) there's no crash and hence no crash log made.

Can anyone say that this problem actually has to do with hardware usage? I can report that when this happens, my CPU or GPU isn't spiking.

As for USB devices, yeah, USB is older than Davinci software, I'm willing to guess. It's not weird that youTubers would have USB mics and webcams plugged in all the time. Actually, I unplug my USB mic when I'm not recording. Interruptions with PCI cards, I'm old enough to remember having to change settings to get around those; that was in the mid-90s

I'm getting the same issue and it does not seem to be related to hardware usage.

This is the hardware I'm using, and it's never at even remotely high usage when the error occurs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Eight-Core Processor 3.77 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080ti
OS: Windows 10 Pro Version Version 20H2 Build 19042.1052
Resolve: Version 17.2.1 Build 12

When It happens, I've noticed I've gotten errors with decoders and decoding audio.

For example:
[0x0000508c] | IO| ERROR | 2021-06-16 14:59:30,164 | Failed to create decoder for D:/[filepath redacted]\C0061.mov
[0x0000508c] | IO.Audio | WARN | 2021-06-16 14:59:30,164 | Unable to initialize audio decoder - filePath: D:\[filepath redacted]\C0061.mov, clipFormat: QuickTime, err: Can't open file for reading.
[0x0000508c] | IO.Audio | ERROR | 2021-06-16 14:59:30,164 | IOAudioDecoderFacade can not extract audio track infoD:\[filepath redacted]\C0061.mov.

I removed the filepaths to save space, but these errors repeat over and over suddenly in the log, or in another project, the following error repeats over and over suddenly:
[0x00005204] | IO.Audio | ERROR | 2021-06-15 11:21:33,088 | Failed to decode clip <Y:\[filepath redacted]\SL-AR_03.WAV>, track: 0, position: 35472671 - Failed to decode the audio samples.

Any idea what's causing decoders to suddenly fail and freeze the timeline playback? I've tried disabling hardware decoding with no luck, I've updated my GPU drivers with no luck, and it seems to be happening at least once a day, some days up to 5 times.

It's seriously slowing down my edits to have to periodically close Resolve via the task manager and reopen my project when it freezes.

Yep, it doesn't sound like you're overtaxing the software Crystal, but I'm guessing if your primary source footage is from OBS recordings then that's probably going to be something pretty edit unfriendly ... probably heavily compressed x264 mkv files? which means your computer might be having to work a lot harder than it actually needs to. Even if that's not actually the issue at the root of your current playback problem, if you're not already doing so then you might lighten the load if you transcode / optimise your footage first using a much more edit-friendly codec, like Cineform or ProRes ... those files will take up more space on your storage but your system wouldn't have to work quite as hard to handle them.

I'll look into that. I've used HandBrake to convert my files before (when I was using version 16 of DR, which didn't accept MKV), but I don't see those options listed. Checking with a friend of mine who has also been helping me, to see if he can explain it to me. ...Actually, come to think of it, I can do what I was doing with version 16 anyway, converting them to MP4s? I'll give that a try.

I wanted to share an update, in case it helps anyone else. After converting my raw footage from MKV files to MP4/M4V files, I am no longer having issues with Playback. I've nearly finished fully editing a 3 track project that is over an hour long, without Playback stopping at all.

Thanks for the help!

Okay so we can't have anything plugged into USB (like external SSD that everyone says to use?) to be able to playback video now?

You do realize that this thread is from three years ago. Where does it say that you cannot have anything plugged into a USB port?

I work from SSDs per USB-C or ThunderBolt all the time.