DaVinci Resolve — troubleshoot the 5 most common breakage modes

Overview

A diagnostic protocol for the five problems that account for ~90% of DaVinci Resolve support questions: dropped-frame playback, missing media, audio sync drift, render crashes, and render queue stalls. The principle: diagnose before you fix. Treat the red indicator as data, not a verdict.

When to use

Symptoms:

• Red GPU/playback indicator during playback
• Clips show a red diagonal slash (offline media)
• Audio drifts out of sync over time
• Resolve crashes mid-render or after a few minutes of rendering
• Render queue says "complete" but the output file is missing or 0 bytes
• "Why is X broken in Resolve" — any of these.