[3 Critical Regressions] Object Matte v4 chatter, Scene Edit Pre-comp offset, and Broken Auto-Save

Issue:

Multiple critical regressions and long-standing workflow bugs in recent After Effects builds are severely disrupting professional VFX/post-production pipelines. Key native features—including Object Matte, Scene Edit Detection, and Auto-Save—are suffering from severe bugs that make them unusable or dangerous for client-facing work.

As professional artists paying an ongoing Creative Cloud subscription, having to rely on external tools or spend double the time manually fixing broken automated features (or losing progress due to Auto-Save failures) is completely unacceptable.

Issue 1: Object Matte (Model v4) — Severe Performance & Edge Chatter

• Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Import 4K ProRes 4444 footage into a composition.

  2. Apply the Object Matte tool using default Version 4.0.

  3. Select a basic, clear subject in a shot.

  4. Propagate the matte across the timeline.

• Expected Result: Clean, stable, full-resolution matte edges with fast propagation leveraging workstation hardware (Threadripper / Dual GPUs).

• Actual Result: High degree of edge jitter/chatter and visible aliasing (appears downscaled internally). Propagation is extremely slow with heavy UI lag. Toggling back to Model v3 inside Effect Controls does not restore legacy Roto Brush 3.0 propagation speeds.

• Comparative Info: Affects all 4K projects. Forces us to use third-party AI tools or manual Pen Tool masking, adding hours to production time.

Issue 2: Scene Edit Detection — Pre-composing Created Shots Results in Empty/Shifted Timelines

• Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Right-click a footage layer and select Scene Edit Detection.

  2. Enable options to split the layer and automatically Create Pre-compositions for each cut.

  3. Open any of the newly created pre-compositions to begin compositing.

• Expected Result: The footage inside the pre-comp should align correctly with the cut segment's In/Out points, ready for immediate work (as it functioned seamlessly in previous AE versions).

• Actual Result: The pre-composition timeline appears "empty" or visually blank because the contained footage layer's time offset is completely misplaced. Users are forced to manually slide/re-align the footage layer back into the active work area inside every single pre-comp—doing double the work.

• Comparative Info: Occurs in both new and existing projects. Legacy AE versions performed this cut and pre-comp step accurately without timeline offset bugs.

Issue 3: Auto-Save Engine — Frozen Save Interval & Broken Path Recognition Across Workstations

• Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Set Auto-Save preferences to save every 10 minutes.

  2. Work continuously on a project file.

  3. Move the project file to another workstation (or network drive) and continue working.

• Expected Result: Auto-Save should execute reliably every 10 minutes, updating the destination directory as configured.

• Actual Result:

  1. The Auto-Save timer frequently "freezes" at a specific timestamp and stops auto-saving altogether without warning.

  2. When opening/moving project files across different computers, Auto-Save completely breaks. Re-selecting or re-assigning the target directory in Preferences fails to re-trigger Auto-Save. Restarting AE does not resolve it.

  3. The only workaround is performing a full Save As... to create a completely new file so AE remembers the destination path.

• Comparative Info: Long-standing bug that poses a severe risk of work loss in team/multi-station production environments.

System & Hardware Specifications:

• Adobe After Effects Version: After Effects v25.x / 2026 (Latest Release)

• Operating System: Windows 11 Pro (64-bit)

• CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9970X

• RAM: 128 GB

• GPU & Driver: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 x2 (Dual GPU) / Latest NVIDIA Studio Driver

• Video Format: Apple ProRes 4444 4K (Native MOV container)

Urgent Request to After Effects Development Team:

1. Fix Object Matte (v4) & Retain Roto Brush 3.0: Fix internal resolution downscaling/aliasing and optimize multi-GPU scaling. Please retain/restore access to the legacy stroke-based Roto Brush 3.0 engine.

2. Fix Scene Edit Detection Pre-comp Offsets: Ensure pre-compositions accurately preserve the correct frame range without offsetting footage timelines.

3. Overhaul the Auto-Save Engine: Re-architect the Auto-Save background worker so it stays active consistently and handles changing file paths smoothly across network drives and workstations.

When core tools and fundamental system stability fail in a subscription model, it severely undermines the value of Creative Cloud for professional studios. Please prioritize these critical bug fixes in the upcoming patch.