AE 26.0.0 Memory bug wipes out the entire UI, eventually crashes the app
- Issue - filling up ram, with a preview render, never releases that ram, causes the application to generally not work.
- Steps to reproduce - I use a plugin, element 3d, and preview render a long comp, that fills the ram cache, then change the comp and try to work with it. AE refuses to render anything.
- Expected result - AE clears up ram, prioritizes what it is supposed to be doing.
- Actual result - preview is BLACK. AE does not render anything. eventually it will crash, as the app uses more and more ram.
- Screen recording – this is impossible, as AE sucks down all system resources
- Adobe After Effects version - Version 26.0.0 (build 67)
- Operating system - Mac os X Tahoe 26.2
- GPU driver version (Windows only) - NA
- Video format -
- Comparative information helps us understand more about when the issue occurs:
- It seems to affect projects that use large amounts of ram, and possibly plugins.
- yes
- AE 2025, I discovered it in December of 2025.
- Optional but useful:
other observations: Element3d may have memory leaks. which makes this issue worse. But this is a problem with AE. How do we know that? AE 2024 does not have this problem. if I load the exact same file into AE 2024 (and I had to back save it to get it there) AE not only renders to ram cache, and then happily moves on to the next thing, it also renders the entire first comp using the same amount of memory. So AE 2024 renders everything. AE 2025 + AE 2026 stop rendering having used up all available ram in the middle of the comp. and because AE ignores ram usage limits, it always puts the entire system in a situation where all of the system’s resources are being used, and any hiccup can crash the whole thing. I cannot use AE 2025 or AE 2026, because of whatever this behavior is. a bug? an oversight? unintended consequences?
in any case, once AE Starts doing this, the problem gets worse and worse, until it locks itself up.
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