Blank/Black First Frame Appears in Some Video Recordings
I found a bug where some videos recorded with Moment Pro Camera II contain a blank/black frame at the very beginning of the video.
The issue becomes noticeable when I:
Send the video through WhatsApp
Upload it to Instagram
Upload it to Google Photos
Simply play it back in the phone’s gallery
The blank frame briefly flashes at the beginning of the video. More importantly, some apps use the first frame of a video as its thumbnail. Since the first frame is blank/black, the video can end up showing a black thumbnail in the gallery or other apps.
What’s interesting is that this doesn’t happen with every recording. It only happens with certain footage, but in my case, it occurs fairly frequently. I haven’t been able to identify what triggers it yet.
I’m not sure whether the issue is related to the video encoding, the first-frame generation, or something else in the recording pipeline, but it seems like the actual video file may sometimes start with an unintended blank frame.
Expected behavior:
The first frame of the recorded video should contain the actual first frame of the footage, so that playback and generated thumbnails display correctly.
Actual behavior:
Some recordings start with a blank/black frame that flashes briefly during playback and can cause other apps to generate a black thumbnail.
If needed, I can provide sample footage and additional details to help reproduce the issue.
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Comments5
BoHyun Kim
Oct 20
I’m also running into the same issue with the Moment Pro II camera app. I’ve used this app on my iPhone 14 Pro and I recently upgraded to iPhone 18 Pro. The issue still occurs with the new phone, and it’s a little annoying because I have to go in and cut the black frame individually.
Jamm Hostetler
Oct 22
Please share your iOS version, app version, stabilization, exposure, and format settings. This should be fixed in recent updates.
Jamm Hostetler
Aug 23
Is this with stabilization greater than “LO” and in a log format?
Eric Putra Bastian
Aug 24
Apple Log2, LUT baked-in, stabilization ON-LO
Jamm Hostetler
Aug 25
This will be fixed in the next update! Thanks for catching.