It's 9:40 on a Sunday morning, the band is on stage, and the lyric video you tested on Thursday is showing a black screen. Every church media volunteer has been there. The good news: almost every ProPresenter playback failure comes down to one of a handful of causes, and most take under two minutes to fix.
1. The File Moved After You Imported It
ProPresenter doesn't copy your video into its own library by default — it links to wherever the file lives on disk. If you imported from your Downloads folder and later tidied it into another folder, the link breaks and the slide shows black or a missing-media icon.
Fix: Keep a permanent folder for worship media (something like Documents/Worship Media/Lyric Videos) and import from there. If it's already broken, right-click the media item, choose Relink and point it at the file's new location. To avoid this for good, turn on Copy media to library in ProPresenter's preferences.
2. The Codec Isn't Supported
ProPresenter plays H.264 MP4 files reliably. It struggles with some MOV variants, HEVC/H.265 on older machines, and anything exported with an unusual codec. If the video plays audio but no picture, or plays in QuickTime but not ProPresenter, this is usually the reason.
Fix: Re-export or convert the file to H.264 MP4 (HandBrake is free and does this well). All Talesoft Digital lyric videos are delivered as H.264 MP4 specifically so this never comes up.
3. Your GPU Drivers Are Out of Date
ProPresenter leans heavily on the graphics card for video decoding. On Windows in particular, outdated NVIDIA or AMD drivers cause stuttering, black frames and crashes on playback.
Fix: Update your graphics drivers directly from the manufacturer's site, not through Windows Update. On Mac, keep macOS itself current.
4. The Output Screen Isn't Assigned
If everything looks fine in the ProPresenter window but nothing appears on the projector, the video is probably playing — it's just not being sent anywhere. This happens after a display is unplugged and reconnected, or when a new screen is added to the setup.
Fix: Go to Screens and confirm your audience output is assigned to the correct physical display and is turned on. Check that the display hasn't been mirrored by the operating system.
5. The File Is Still Downloading or Was Corrupted
A partially downloaded MP4 will often open and show the first few seconds, then freeze. Interrupted downloads are the most common cause of a video that "worked in the preview but froze mid-song".
Fix: Compare the file size with what the download page says it should be. If it's short, re-download. Talesoft Digital downloads are available again from your order confirmation email at no extra cost.
6. The Slide Has a Layer Covering the Video
A background video will be hidden if there's a solid-colour fill, an opaque image, or a full-screen text box with a background colour sitting above it on the slide.
Fix: Open the slide in the editor and check the layer order. Delete any leftover fills from the template you started with, or set them to transparent.
7. Playback Behaviour Is Set to Stop or Freeze
Each media cue in ProPresenter has a playback setting: Loop, Stop or Freeze. If a lyric video appears to "stick" on the last frame, or a loop stops after one pass, this is the setting to check.
Fix: Right-click the media cue, open Properties, and set the behaviour you want. Lyric videos should normally be Stop (so they clear when the song ends); ambient backgrounds should be Loop.
Do This Before Every Sunday
Two habits eliminate almost all of the above: keep media in one permanent folder and import from there, and run through every video cue in your playlist on the actual output screen at least once before the service starts. Thursday testing is good — but test on the same machine and screen you'll use on Sunday.
Need lyric videos that are tested for ProPresenter before delivery? Browse the full Talesoft Digital catalogue →