Mutliple times I've had it say I've got updates for existing After Effects versions saying fixes. I'ts a shame you don't want to fix this bug in the existing verisons. I've already said why I need to use existing versions, as I have projects created in them  need to be able to open multiple projects simultaneously. Having to keep going for new verisons also means I have to keep re-adding all my add-ons onto them which takes time and I shouldn't need to expereiment with very new apps which might have their own other bugs in when I'm doing important projects. Adobe should fix their existing bugs in existing verions of the program really I think like they've done multiple times before. ... View more

Thanks. But isn't it going to also be fixed in After Effects CC2024, so it will work whenever I use that version and with my projects that are created in that version? And if it's wrong in earlier versions too (eg. CC2023) couldn't it be fixed in those too? Having it fixed in more than one vesion will also help if I need to have different projects open at the same time (so one using one version of AE and another using another version of AE). ... View more

The scale comp script is for upscaling/downscaling (keeping the same aspect ratio - eg. if you select "new width" instead of  a new scale factor it will scale the height too to keep the aspect ratio the same).   So it won't be able to convert a 1920x1080 video to 1080x1920. If you want to upscale/dowscale something with that script you'd need to make it the right aspect ratio first. You'd need to do the conversion manually as far as I know as it could need repositioning things in the way you want/making sure it doesn't crop the parts that you want to keep. You could reposition things manually be keyframing the layer to keep what you want to keep in the frame.   ... View more

Thanks. So I set a point light (radius 1000, intensity 100%) behind a precomp layer and set the precomp layer to "casts shadows only" and light transmision 100%. That then doesn't show the layer so I added the precomp layer normally in front of it. I set the light layer to white so then it seems to only light the floor with the white light.If there are multiple colorus in the precomp layer (for different coloured neon lights, created using stroke and glow effects) it doesn't create the multi-colored light effects reflected on the floor with this projection method. Ideally we'd see the different colours of the moving effects from the precomp being reflected on the floor layer. ... View more

Okay thanks a lot. I'll continue trying to fake it (eg. with rotating a copy of the layer so it's on the floor and blurring it, but that won't be as accurate as it would be if it could do it for real - and it will only be at the front, and maybe I'll add some more after effects lights).   There's stock clips (and a .ppt premiere pro template - though I don't have premiere pro) that have a "neon tunnel" effect where some seem to be reflecting the neon lights on the floor. Maybe they're mostly faked or made with proper 3d software. Though I don't want to use a stock clip for this project and want it more custom. So I'll try to fake it. Thanks. ... View more

I expect it would show the same behaviour on drive G or drive C but drive C is half the size of drive H and it has the operating system on so shouldn't be as good as a disc cache drive. Drive G is a physical hard disc (not an NVMe SSD) so should be quite a bit slower than drive H so that shouldn't be as good/quick if used for a disc cache drive. I got drive H (an NVMe drive) specifically for AE cache so it would be faster for it than a slower SSD or a hard drive.   I don't think it's to do with the media cache on drive E because 1) It says the free space isn't enough when it's < the max disc cache size on drive H. I've just tried setting the max disc cache size to 2000 GB like you suggested and it doesn't give that warning when AE loads. That shows it's not the media cache on drive E that's the cause of the warning (when the max disc cache size was 2500 GB).   In AE's disc cache preference section it says to "allocate as much space as possible" for the disc cache. But that's a bit misleading if it's going to warn you if you load AE when it's set to more than half the disc size and your current disc cache is > half the disc size.   I've installed and run the short self test of the H drive wtih SeaTools and that says it passed (see attachment). I could just leave the max cache size at about half the drive size so it won't give me the warning (or set it to more and just keep pressing okay on the annoying warning). But 1) I want After Effects to run as fast as possible while 2) Making sure the cache drive has a long enough lifetime. I think unnecessarily purging the disc cache could lead to a shorter lifetime for the disc. Whereas, assuming no frames are corrupted in the cache, leaving the max disc cache on maybe about 75% of the drive or maybe a bit more, should allow a lot to be cached so run faster while also having it only remove the oldest cached items to make new for new ones. In theory that might have the most benefit in terms of speed of After Effects usage+disc lifetime (if no disc cache purges required). Though I don't know if having a big disc cache will also make it slower to close AE. ... View more

Here's some screenshots:     Drive H which is the AE disc cache drive isn't partioned (it just says "basic partition") - ie. it's not partioned into multiple drives.     ... View more

You could create a seperate thread if it's crashing/hanging for a different than mine was. You could check if it's saying anything that it's trying to do eg. towards the top right corner. That might give hints what the issue is. Sometimes AE can be slow in closing (maybe it it's updating lots of files). You could try setting the project to use "software only" rendering for preview/rendering or uncheck "render multiple frames simultanously" to see if that helps. You could also try installing an older version of AI (one that would still load your project) while making sure it wouldn't remove your current version. Maybe send crash reports to Adobe about it if it still crashes. ... View more

Can I just add that it's After Effects that at some point is corrupting that paticular .mp3 file and then that makes AE hang. eg. I redownloaded that voice over mp3 file again and made a copy of it (in case I needed to go back to it and to compare file sizes).   I checked the redownloaded mp3 (that I downloaded today) in Audacity and that loaded and viewed okay. I then replaced the problem one in AE and that worked okay for a while. I tried saving and closing the project again and reopening to see what happens.    Now it's crashed saying at the top right of the screen "Checking for changed footage" then the name of the new redownloaded VO file (.mp3).   Loading the new (as of today) re-downloaded mp3 file back into Audacity now says it's not a recognized type of file. The filename hasn't changed (still .mp3) but the file size has increased by 6 KB compared to the backup copy.   After Effects has somehow corrupted this .mp3 file (which loaded okay before) and seems to be the cause of the hangs in AE.   I'm going to remove that .mp3 file from the project as I was intending to use an alternate one due to the high peaks when I tried it earlier (that now seems like it was caused by AE corrupting the mp3). But if I need to use that mp3 that's going to be a serious issue when AE keeps corrupting it. I think I'd probably convert it to a .wav in Audacity as I assume AE would work better with a .wav but it's a serious bug if AE keeps corrupting source .mp3 files and then hanging the program. It really needs to be fixed I think. ... View more

Thanks. I've used that and deselected "remove old versions". They could make that section clearer though. The option is labelled "enable auto-update" - it would be better to be able to disable "remove old versions" without having to change the "enable auto-update" setting.   I assume pressing that "enable auto update" and "continue" with that "remove old versions" has enabled the auto-update but it now shows the option "check for updates" on the top right (I'm wondering why that's needed if auto-update is enabled).   Wouldn't it be better to have a checkbox for the "enable auto-update" and allow the "remove old versions" to be checked/unchecked irrespective of the "auto-update" setting?   Really you could have options for: 1) When/how often to check for updates to apps 2) If an update is available, when/whether to download it 3) An option to install it or to install it automatically 4) Whether, when installing it it should keep or remove the existing app (but maybe it should ask you for each app eg. just before it would install).   ... View more

Thanks a lot. Yes it was due to the conforming audio and the probably invalid .mp3 file.   The engineer said "The app was force-quit while opening a project" - it wasn't quite while opening a project - it was after trying to close it that it just hung for ages without closing. After opening the project it did allow me to click on different parts of the composition but wouldn't preview any of the timeline (it just flashed black in the preview area) (I assume because at least some part of the program was stuck in the process of trying to conform that probably invalid .mp3 file - based on the message at the top right). Then when trying to close the project/AE it hung for ages. So perhaps some part of it hadn't finished the initial start up things (eg. if it does the conforming in a different process (or thread?) to the bit that handles other things like previewing/selecting different options. ... View more

Could the issue be anything to do with folder+filename size? When I load an older version of the project (before a revision) that's in a folder above the one that doesn't always play that showed the timeline image, but then when I reload the one with a longer folder name (the one in a subfolder) it crashes again when trying to view the timeline.   edit: I tried copying it to the folder with the shorter name and it still crashes. When I load the project that crashes in the top right it says "conforming [one of the voice over file names]". I don't know that's something to do with it. Maybe it could be some issue with that .mp3 file since when I tried to play one in AE it sounded bad/the waveform looked bad (but at least it didn't crash like it does now) though the other .mp3 looked and played okay. I've trtied removing all temporary cached files in AE before loading the project. ... View more

I've still not got any replies from Adobe about the crash reports I've sent from After Effects. I've got a project I'm supposed to be working on for someone and I can't even preview the timeline. Any idea what I can do? I've got multi-frame rendering off. I get the same probelm with it not showing the timeline with it set to "mercury software only" in the project settings so I assume it can't be because of GPU settings if it's failing on software only rendering. ... View more

It's gone back to crashing again with the latest  After Effects 2022. Even though it had been working okay for a while in the middle of the day (after crashing a lot at the start of the day). So when I open an existing project, click on the timeline in a composition (nothing shows), close the project, it crashes. ... View more

I looked at the link about downloading a different version and in the Creative Cloud Desktop I don't see an advanced tab to be able to disable the "remove old versions" option. when I select to install an old version it says "this will remove the version that is currently installed" with just a cancel/continue.   Maybe the advanced tab/option to disable the "remove old versions" isn't in the current Creative Cloud Desktop? ... View more

Yes thanks I did share my adobe id in that box when submitting the crash reports earlier today. So I assume you can now access those After Effects crash logs I sent today. I' put my id then and selected the "adobe may contact me for fixes and workarounds" option. If that's not sent properly I can pm the log though. ... View more

Thanks. I'll try using the link to download the earlier version to have >1 version installed. While the latest is currently working ok just now that was the version that kept crashing tons of times today and generally not previewing anything.   Shouldn't they automatically be checking the crash reports I sent them? Also can't you get my Adobe ID/other info from my forum profile? Or should I pm you a crash report from today? ... View more

Mine's been crashing too a lot today. If yours is crashing on certain effects you could try using "software only" previews or turning off multi-frame rendering in the preferences and see if that helps. I've had it crash on videos with Red Gian'ts glow effect when using the GPU and multi-frame rendering turned on (I'm not sure if it also did it with AE's glow), and turning off multi-frame rendering then worked okay with that glow effect. I've also updated to the latest studio GPU drivers - I don't know if that could help with your issue.   edit: I meant it crashed when it had multi-frame rendering turned on with that effect and turning MF rendering to off stopped it crashing with that effect. ... View more

Thanks. Turning off lights just by ways of some magical AI entails a ton of extra functionality... Far from trivial and any algorithm would have to account for that and calculate normal maps or re-create the scene with actual 3D geometry and then re-project the cleaned up textures.   Though if it was all done with AI it shouldn't really need the normal maps/3D geometry. In theory it should be able to learn without that. In theory I think you could pass it many eg. evening images and their corresponding midday images and the neural network through the different neural net layers should be able to learn what weights/settings best convert the evening image to midday.   eg. this is the demo of an AI converting between seasons in a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VC0c3pndbI&t=5s This is a demo of day to night by AI on a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmj3iRIQw1k&t=3s So maybe a similar thing could be used for converting sunset (with lights) to midday (without lights).  Even if 100% realism isn't required you can work your fingers off with masking and relying on CAF. It might in fact be simpler to just chew through this image by image in Photoshop and using CAF and other Neural filters there. I really can't think of much else as apparently any other workflow would have required to plan for it beforehand while shooting the footage.   Thanks. I have Photoshop Elements on my old PC which has a heal brush like content aware fill - I don't have it on my newer PC. I have Affinity Photo on it but I don't think it has a good content aware fill equivalent. So I'll probably buy the latest photoshop elements if it has that (the healing brush - I don't think elements has the normal content aware fill) since it seems not too high price (I thought it was subscription - the Photoshop one is subscription / higher priced). So I could try that. Doing it the mask way in AE helps if I need to later edit things though (and might help make things more precise than painting with the healing brush). The changed areas need to be masked in some way to be able to be placed throughout the video too (though I could use a more basic simple mask of the whole area and make that part of the scene not change much throughout the video). ... View more

Thanks. Well, let's get the obvious out of the way: In such a scenario content aware fill likely wouldn't even work because your extensive masking would have removed so much content it couldn't make sense of what's left....Except for the most atrocious auto-trace I couldn't even imagine what one would do with 400 masks.   What the shot is is a timelapse shot with water and boats and a close land and buildings in the foreground and mountain/hill-type areas of land on the far sides of the water. It's the areas past the water, in the distance that I'm using these masks on. So the timelapse video was originally a shorter video (and has been lengthed a lot) and it had started in the evenining/sunset when there were lots of lights on all over the mountain type area. The person I'm doing it for wants it to seem like the shot lasts for a whole 24 hours and in the day time wants all the lights off. So the masks were to mask out most of the lights on the opposite side of the water where there's >400 lights.   I've added a screenshot of a section at 200% zoom from the 4K comp showing some of the lights I'm trying to remove to give an example.   I did try using adjustment layers in the main composition to remove them but that started slowing down things a lot. For the close parts of the shot I recreated things more precisely (like building walls) and added things like trees over areas (I don't know for sure if those are going to be okay) and for some lights in the distance I added cut out buildings over and I think a tree.   In theory keying might have worked to help remove the lights (help define where they are) but I couldn't make that work for this.   I don't think it needs to be 100% accurate. The content aware removal seemed to be doing an okayish job with subtract masks with 2 pixel feathering. I'm working with the 4K footage but the delivery will be at 1080p so that should make slight errors less visible. So if the content aware makes it look like whatever the background was roughly it could be okay (though when they're near buildings it probably needs to be more accurate than when they're just over a mountain side area with no buildings).   Thanks for your help. I'll try doing the things you suggsted. I wish Adobe would put proper error/warning type messages into the software and not have it just stop working properly when it runs past their limits though.   It's a bit of a really difficult thing to be asked to do though - turning off all lights in a whole scene/town type area. I mean it's a lot easier to add lights to a scene than it is to remove them. And it's a stationary camera shot.   In theory an AI software could be made to do something like this (turn an evening/sunset shot into normal daytime without any lights on). There's a demo of something Nvidia has done (edit: for changing seasons and day to night not night/evening/sunset to day) but it wasn't error-free and I don't think there's AI stuff available to the public that's built for that yet but maybe it could be in future.   ... View more

You could set your disc cache to a bit less than 2000 GB - however much you've got free in the location/volume where it can store it. eg. if you've got other files on there besides the disc cache then it can't give the max of 2000 GB for the cache (if the drive is about 2000 GB).   Mine's saying something similar though (which is a nuisance). For me the caches are the only thing stored on the drive (and it's not split). And when I restart AE when it's stored slightly over it's 2100 GB max it gives that message about there not being enough room to safely store it. But it's a 3.63 TB disc with only the caches on. All it needs to do is delete/overwrite the old caches when it wants to write new caches, but it doesn't seem to be doing that.   The only way to temporarily stop the warning message seems to be to select the "purge all memory & disc cache" option. But that will make it unnecessarily need to recreate newer caches of things you've done recently instead of using the already cached ones. Or maybe making the max cache size no more than half the free space on the disc might stop it giving the message, but that would be a bit of a waste of the half the disc that could have been used. And also purging all the disc cache when it shouldn't really need to could decrease the life of the SSD if it is one.   I think Adobe should change the way it works so it recognises how much cache space it has used before it gives that message and knows (and does) overwrite the oldest caches when it needs new cache written to. This should make things work better and also should increase the life of SSD by not having to delete and recreate caches unnecessarily. ... View more

Why would you want to limit the number of layers? By @Mylenium   Because that's one of the main things I think is slowing it down. One buyer keeps asking for more and more glowing objects in a scene/video even though there are probably already hundreds of them. And this is a very low priced order. I'd already mentioned the render time and he asked for even more glowing objects in it (these are nearly all 3d layers) and it's slowing the system down for another project I'm trying to do for someone else on a different version of AE while it's rendering the intermediate for that many layered one. And that buyer who's asked for changes to the many layer one is also asking for changes to a different project too but the many layered one is slowing the system down with the intermediate render.   Yes I'll try and see what causes different slow downs (I rarely use much expressions though). But I thought setting a limit for the number of layers for different prices (maybe the limit by number of layers with glows could be done too since they seem to slow things down) could be an easier way for the buyer to see at a glance the limits or what prices would be for higher limits or the number of moving layers (eg. puppet tool). There must be a way to give a reasonable limit on complexity for different prices (that could be based on approx render and manual work time) that a customer could understand.   edit: Though I'm not sure if mentioning limits (eg. 100 or 150 layers etc) could make some customers ask for the max in that limit when they otherwise wouldn't have. So it might sometimes lead to more work (eg. they might ask for 100 or 150 objects in scenes because of the stated limit when before seeing that specified limit they might have just asked for no more than 20).   I'll try that dependencies option though. I'm not sure it will list the number of times a layer is used though (eg. to give a count of the number of objects on the screen - eg. a lot of the objects on the screen are the same images (comps) used many times in different locations but I think the dependencies will just count those duplicate images as 1 image as those all point to 1 source image/video).   edit: Also one reason I think the render time is so long is that both of the comps that have 10 objects in them that are layers in the ~4K comp are 10,000x1000 pixels in size. I think I should have made those much smaller (I don't think there's much need for them to be over 4K in width - though I might have created them that size so they wouldn't get cut off as much when placed futher into the distance). ... View more

Thanks Roland. In future for that kind of project I'll pre-render certain comps. Though the buyer kept changing his mind about the colour of the objects so I'd have kept having to re-render the precomps again, but the final render should still be faster. Ideally Adobe should cache those things somewhere (eg. disc cache) without needing the pre-render (eg. fi the same precomp was used many times in the same comp you'd think they should be able to cache a render of that precomp as the main comp is rendering (not the way it's currently done) to doing it again for every place it's used in the comp.   Yes I'll test different things to see how they affect render time and try to use that info for any limits on orders. eg. I could limit the number of glowing layers for buyers. ... View more