Stuttering Audio in Timeline Playback

[AtomicFez]

When running a preview of my video, I get really jittery audio playing. It gets stuck in a loop of less than a second and runs a bunch of times then jumps forward to the next second or sometimes two seconds and keeps going until a few seconds later and then repeats the behaviour.

In the timeline, when previewing a video of still JPGs a little after the one hour mark (I started at that point), the images cross-fade, and somewhere in the middle of that transition this super-short loop happens. I can get it to happen consistently.

This shouldn't happen, and hasn't until today.

I've now created a GitHub account, tried to upload .log files at least four times through the Bug Report page on the OpenShot website, cleared all of the files in the /Users/MyName/.openshot_qt/recovery folder (and the openshot_qt folder, by the way, is no longer in the Home root folder in Apple's OS, so that needs to be updated in the documentation about where the folder hides), started the programme several times trying to get the error to reproduce and not flood the log file with information so as to get the size of the libopenshot.log down to a manageable size (it started at well over 500MB) but had to ZIP the damned things anyway (and if you can upload the files in a compressed form through the Bug Report page on the OpenShot website, that would be great but I doubt that's possible to do), and I've probably lost about 1/3 of my hair as I yank most of it out in frustration.

Needless to say, I sincerely hope that some of this is useful in the fixing of this problem. For all of this to be for nought would be... saddening.

System Details

• OpenShot Version: 3.2.1 (yes, with the latest daily build)
• Platform: Apple OSX
• Processor: Apple M3
• Machine: Apple 24" iMac 2023
• Python version: haven't a clue
• Qt5 version: ...what's that, exactly?
• PyQt5 version: ibid.
• Qt Detected Languages: ibid.
• LANG Environment Variable: I use English on my machine and have specified same
• LOCALE Environment Variable: most of the people within my locale also use English, but some of them also speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish (which I'm also learning), and the country's second official language of French (which I can stumble through a simple conversation using).

LOGS_openshot.zip

[AtomicFez]

UPDATE:

Have installed daily version OpenShot-v3.2.1-dev-daily-12703-044bb224-23713d3a-x86_64.dmg and am still experiencing the same issue at the same point in the project.

Something that may point to the solution is that I'm not seeing a little blue area ahead of the playhead denoting the amount of data being buffered. As always, this may be by design, and not an error.

I have run this both with a clean set of log files and without verbose selected, so as to make everything as easy on the system as possible, and have duplicated the issue. Again, during the transition between images, the audio becomes stuck in an ultra-short loop causing the-the-the-the-the-the audio to sound like that (and if anyone is old enough to remember MAX HEADROOM, it's very much like that in its effect). If I pause the project, then re-start playback. things settle, especially if I'm out of the transition by that point. I do not know if this also takes place if the project is exported, as I haven't tried that.

I have attached a fresh set of logs, in the hope that this helps further diagnosis of the issue.

LOGS-2nd_openshot_qt.zip

[Colorjet3]

hello @AtomicFez Thank you for update.

1. It would be good to know if the Exported project experiences the issue or if it is just an issue while editing/previewing.
2. Please try changing these settings in Edit | Preferences | Cache tab:

Cache Pre-roll:: Min Frames = 24 <--Change this to 48
Cache Pre-roll:: Max Frames = 48 <--Change this to 96
Cache Ahead (Percent) = .70 <--Don't change this
Cache Max Frames = 600 <-- Change this to 1024 (this is the max)
Cache Limit (MB) = 512 <-- Change this 2048.

These are experimental at this time. Just because you have lots of RAM doesn't mean to up the "Cache Limit (MB)" value. Making this very large but not having a very high end gaming/video editing computer will really slow things down.

Note: I have a 32gb RAM system. For the Cache Limit I set it to 2048 when editing even with larger/complex projects. When I am previewing I change the Cache Limit to 4096 (or a bit more). The nice part is that you can make this change and not have to restart OpenShot.

Would like to hear back from you on both points.

[AtomicFez]

Thank you for the suggestions!

1. the stuttering does not export
2. the changes to the Cache settings make things both hunky and dory!

Hooray for both!

Now I wonder two things: will those changes to the preferences remain in place when I apply a new 'Daily' or other update, and are those settings recommended going forward as regular ones, or only to be changed to when I'm getting a problem, and then switch back after reviewing the problematic passage?