useCurrentFrame is negative

[gajraj-gan]

When using useCurrentFrame in one of the "children" prop, it is coming as negative. How do i debug this?

import React from 'react';
import { Freeze, Series } from 'remotion';

import { ComponentContextProvider } from './ComponentContext';

interface Props {
  videoDurationInFrames: number;
  entryTransitionDurationInFrames: number;
  exitTransitionDurationInFrames: number;
  source: string;
}

function FreezeComponent({
  entryTransitionDurationInFrames,
  exitTransitionDurationInFrames,
  videoDurationInFrames,
  children,
  source
}: React.PropsWithChildren<Props>) {
  if (videoDurationInFrames <= 0) {
    return null;
  }

  return (
    <Series>
      {entryTransitionDurationInFrames > 0 && (
        <Series.Sequence name="freeze-entry" durationInFrames={entryTransitionDurationInFrames}>
          <ComponentContextProvider
            source={`freeze-entry-${source}-${JSON.stringify({ entryTransitionDurationInFrames })}`}
          >
            <Freeze frame={0}>{children}</Freeze>
          </ComponentContextProvider>
        </Series.Sequence>
      )}

      <Series.Sequence
        name="freeze-exit"
        durationInFrames={videoDurationInFrames + (exitTransitionDurationInFrames ?? 0)}
      >
        <ComponentContextProvider
          source={`freeze-exit-${source}-${JSON.stringify({
            exitTransitionDurationInFrames,
            videoDurationInFrames
          })}`}
        >
          <Freeze active={(f) => f >= videoDurationInFrames} frame={videoDurationInFrames}>
            {children}
          </Freeze>
        </ComponentContextProvider>
      </Series.Sequence>
    </Series>
  );
}

export default FreezeComponent;

[Akkikens]

useCurrentFrame() is relative to the enclosing <Sequence>, not the timeline — so before the sequence's from frame it returns negative values. That's expected behavior, not a bug.

Options:

• Clamp it: const frame = Math.max(0, useCurrentFrame())
• Gate rendering: if (frame < 0) return null (though normally the Sequence won't mount children before from unless you've set premountFor/layout props that keep them mounted)
• If you need the timeline-absolute frame inside a Sequence, read useCurrentFrame() in a parent component outside the Sequence and pass it down as a prop.

If you're seeing negatives with premounting, that's exactly the intended signal that you're in the premount window — clamping is the right move there (e.g. for interpolate() inputs).