After Effects 2025 crashing when importing video

Not sure what happened to my previous message on this board but I am also having this issue. Importing any video file into ae25 causes it to freeze/crash shortly after. Currently having to use ae24 as a workaround and have tried multiple reinstalls of ae25 but still having the issue. @Kevin-Monahan @JohnColombo17100380 @Jessica McMillan  please acknowledge, hopefully something is happening behind the scenes???

This is basically latest macOS, on the latest release of AE, on every kind of Apple Silicon Mac.

I'm baffled this is still not acknowledged, and I'm sure everyone following and being affected by the issue is too.

Second that! @Kevin-Monahan Can you please specify what you'd need to issue the bug fix? Thanks

I work on a MacBookPro M2 Max. It´s impossible to work with video footage in AE 25 since December 24.
As I already started working on a complex project with this version and the usage of video footage came up later,  I had to find a solution:
All video footage has to be rendered in png- or jpg sequences. This is quite bothersome, but you can finish your work. 
Best, Sebastian.

Same issue on my Mac. It started with mp4 h.264 files (AE freezes while files were imported via dynamic link from the Premier Pro). I then pre-render h.264 to ProRes LT. It solved the problem for a while. Now ProRes LT/ProRes HQ freezes out AE. At first AE allows to import files but after a few seconds it freezes with the wheel of death. Sometimes it happens when you start RAM previewing it. So odd and anoying. I'm thinking to switch back to 2024 because it is impossible to work this way.

I've been experiencing the same issue especially with MP4 files, did a fresh install, installed no plugins and the same issue - the timeline just freezes after about 30 seconds when the project has any video and you try to scrub it. I have to force quit. I have now found something that is working for me and that's to turn on Mercury GPU accerlation in the project settings, when this is set to Mercury Software Only the crashing returns when you try to scrub a timeline that contains video

Having the same exact issue, fresh install of AE 25.1.0, no plugins, on latest macOS Sequoia 15.3.2. Created a new project and imported a clip, software freezes within 10 seconds of scrubbing on the timeline. Thought I was sent a corrupted clip, so tried re-encoding that to h.264 or ProRes, same thing happens. Tried any other clip, same thing happens.

Imagine not being able to import a video clip in a (paid) video editing software. You can't make this up.

I'm also having this issue. After Effects 2025 had actually been solid for me using EXRs, and non ProRes files, but now I'm getting crashes without using ANY 3rd-party plugins, and running in Safe Mode. This has been a huge problem for trying to get through my current project.

@Kevin-Monahan Have you had a chance to look through the sample projects we sent and are you able to replicate this issue? Would be great to get a fix pushed out asap, thanks

@Kevin-Monahan I've been having the same issues, whenever I import any sort of video file into ae25 it freezes after a few seconds. Ae25 works fine with other projects containing no footage but is unusable if video is required. I am currently having to use ae24 for these jobs and having no problems there!

Macbook Pro M3 Max 128gb Sonomo 14.3