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G
Ginger Studio
Participant
September 20, 2025

After Effects 2025 – Constant crash when creating a new project (white screen + “Sorry, an error occ

  • September 20, 2025
  • 7 replies
  • 852 views

Hello everyone,

I’m facing a critical issue with After Effects 2025 since I opened and converted a downloaded file. From that moment on, the application crashes systematically every time I try to create a new project.

Symptoms and progression:

  • At first, I was getting error messages such as:

    • After Effects error: Crash in progress. Last logged message was: <Scripting> Executing startup/shutdown script at: commandLineRenderer.jsx

    • After Effects error: Crash in progress. Last logged message was: <ae.blitpipe> <2> HardwareBlitpipe Engaged

  • Then, the “Error Report” window appeared systematically to send a crash log.

  • After running Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool, these startup error messages no longer appear.

  • However, AE still detects that my last session has crashed (so it must be storing this information in a hidden log somewhere).

  • Now, the crash only happens when I try to create a new project:

    • the Windows blue loading circle appears,

    • the AE window turns white,

    • then I get the following popup:

 

Sorry, an error occurred AfterFX.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. An error report has been generated. Click "Send report" to help us analyze the cause.

Troubleshooting steps already tried (unsuccessfully):

  • Complete uninstall via Creative Cloud + reinstallation.

  • Full cleanup using Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool.

  • Verification with Revo Uninstaller (no leftover found).

  • Manual deletion of AE folders:

    • C:\Program Files\Adobe\After Effects 2025\

    • C:\Users\<Name>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects\

    • C:\Users\<Name>\AppData\Local\Adobe\After Effects\

  • Removed/moved all plugins and startup scripts.

  • Reset preferences (Ctrl+Alt+Shift on launch).

  • Created the DisableGPU.txt file to force Software Only mode.

  • Tried all Safe Mode options suggested by AE.

  • Manually cleaned some Windows registry keys related to Adobe.

  • Updated all GPU and graphics drivers.

  • Running a Bitdefender antivirus scan to rule out malware.

Current observation:

Despite all this, AE still seems to keep a hidden log or crash record that I cannot access.
I’m unable to start from a truly clean state.

At the moment, After Effects is completely uninstalled from my system, and I’m waiting for a reliable solution before reinstalling it.

System specs:

  • OS: Windows 11 

  • CPU: Intel i7-12650H (12th gen)

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

  • Drivers: all up to date

Current situation:

I’m fully blocked on an important project.
I’ve already submitted several crash reports via the built-in reporter, but I would like to know if:

  • anyone else has faced this issue with AE 2025,

  • there’s a known fix or workaround,

  • or if I should revert to an older version while waiting for a patch.

Thanks a lot in advance for your help !!

Alex

    7 replies

    J
    Jack_Cactus5948
    Participant
    September 30, 2025

    Edit: NVIDIA just released a new driver fixing this bug. So Smooth Motion was the problem. 

    J
    Jack_Cactus5948
    Participant
    September 30, 2025

    I had the same issue. What fixed it for me was deactivating "Smooth Motion" in the NVIDIA App. When enabled, Smooth Motion forces frame interpolation/presentation changes at the driver level. After Effects doesn’t expect this, so it ends up dereferencing a null pointer in the Vulkan/Present chain

    J
    Community Manager
    jenkmeister17177426Community Manager
    Jenkmeister
    September 20, 2025

    Thanks. That log points to the NVidia drivers failing. 

     

      Value: INVALID_POINTER_READ_c0000005_NvPresent64.dll!Unknown

     

        Key  : Failure.Exception.Code

        Value: 0xc0000005

     

        Key  : Failure.Exception.IP.Address

        Value: 0x7ff947e02467

     

        Key  : Failure.Exception.IP.Module

        Value: NvPresent64

     

    I know you've updated your drivers, but double check. And then perhaps check that the GPU is getting enough power to it. 

     

     Might also be worth updating to After Effects 25.4 if you aren't on that version. 

    G
    Ginger StudioAuthor
    Participant
    September 20, 2025

    I was able to retrieve a more detailed report, which you can find here : 

    LogAE 

    J
    Community Manager
    jenkmeister17177426Community Manager
    Jenkmeister
    September 20, 2025

    Strange, that log file does not contain the crash you reported seeing. If you have both the Log and Log (Last).txt files, please post those. 

    G
    Ginger StudioAuthor
    Participant
    September 20, 2025

    Hello Jenkmeister,

    Thank you for your reply and guidance. I’ve followed the two steps you suggested:

    1. Effects -> Manage Effects:
    I checked, and I currently have no third-party effects installed.
    However, when I relaunched After Effects, I received two new error messages : 

    After Effects can't continue: sorry, After Effects has crashed. For After
    Effects Help and Support, go to
    http://www.adobe.com/go/leam_ae_support. If you still can't resolve
    the issue, please contact Adobe Technical Support (2).

    After Effects

    (0 :: 42)


    After Effects

    After Effects error: Crash in progress. Last logged message was:
    <35264> <Scripting> <5>Executing startup/shutdown script at:
    C:\Program Files\Adobe \Adobe After Effects 2025\Support
    Files\Scripts\Startup\commandLineRendererjsx

     


    2. Logging:
    I was able to generate the log file as you suggested. I’m attaching the “After Effects Log (last).txt” here for your review.

    AE Log file 

    Please let me know if there’s any further information you need from my side, or if there are additional steps I should try.

    Thank you again for your support. 

    Best regards,

    Alex

    J
    Community Manager
    jenkmeister17177426Community Manager
    Jenkmeister
    September 20, 2025

    If you're able to open After Effects without a project, let's do a couple of things.

     

    1. Go to Effects -> Manage Effects... that should list any third-party effects AE is still finding to load. If I'm looking at the correct crash report, AE is crashing via Sapphire. If you see that plugin listed, you can try to disable it in AE, or uninstall it.

     

    2. If that doesn't solve the issue, let's get a log file. From the Help menu, choose Enable Logging. Restart AE and the reproduce the crash. Restart AE and then go to Help -> Reveal Logging Files and find the "After Effects Log (last).txt" file and post the contents of it back to this thread. 

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