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Community Manager
jenkmeister17177426Community Manager
Jenkmeister
October 7, 2023

After Effects 23.6 and 24.0 Not Starting on MacOS 14/Sonoma

  • October 7, 2023
  • 75 replies
  • 48828 views

Issue

Users upgrading to MacOS Sonoma (version 14) may find that After Effects will not startup and will report errors such as:

 

  • After Effects can't continue: internal structure inconsistency (g) ( 25 :: 2 )
  • After Effects error: globals unborn. ( 21 :: 3 )
  • After Effects can't continue: unexpected failure during application startup
  • After Effects can't continue: ... check for permissions or other error messages

 

Users may also find installed plugins are failing to load or exports from the Render Queue are failing in ways they did not before upgrading to Sonoma.

 

Resolution

The cause of the issue appears to be Sonoma adjusting the permissions and access to folders that After Effects requires to run. These include:

  • /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore
  • /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/[Version]
  • /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/[com.Adobe.After Effects.23x-24.plist(s)]

 

To check for the appropriate permissions:

 

  1. Navigate to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0
  • Right-click on the MediaCore folder and choose Get Info from the context menu.
  • Open the Sharing & Permissions section and make sure “everyone” has at least Read Only Privilege set.
  • If the account you are launching After Effects with is listed in the Name column, make sure it has at least the Read Privilege set as well.

 

  1. Navigate to /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/
    • Right-click on the appropriate [Version] folder and choose Get Info from the context menu.
    • Ensure Locked is not checked. Uncheck it if necessary.
    • Open the Sharing & Permissions section and ensure the account you using to launch After Effects has both the Read & Write Privilege.

 

If after completing steps 1 & 2 After Effects will still not load, please make a backup of the above folders, then delete the folders at the paths above. Then uninstall and re-install After Effects.

 

Additional Step, thanks to @Mike Wills Makes 

 

3. Navigate to /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/

  • Find the com.Adobe.After Effects.23*.plist files 
  • Backup a copy of them to a safe location
  • Delete the files. 
  • Repeat these steps for any com.Adobe.After Effects.24*.plist files 

 

    75 replies

    Show previous replies
    V
    valeriop34063594
    Participant
    October 16, 2023

    I have the same issue. Can you help me as well?

      J
      Community Manager
      jenkmeister17177426Community ManagerAuthor
      Jenkmeister
      October 11, 2023

      @victoria27459592leoa Yes, let's see if we can get something organized. It'd be helpful to us to be able to see a machine with the issue directly. We'll reach out to the email associated with this forums profile to set something up.

      V
      victoria27459592leoa
      Participant
      October 11, 2023

      @jenkmeister17177426 is someone from adobe able to contact me / take over my device remotely and fix this issue? i've gone through the steps multiple times to no avail and I need after effects for work. thanks! 

      J
      Community Manager
      jenkmeister17177426Community ManagerAuthor
      Jenkmeister
      October 11, 2023

      It is unlikely any versions before 24.0 will be updated to officially support Sonoma. The only officially supported versions in general is 24.0 and 23.6, and 23.6 is updated only for security issues. 

       

      The current issue with Sonoma however appears to be the OS making changes to permissions on folders unexpectedly. We are going to try to improve that situation with 24.1 however we can. 

      F
      f7tality
      Participant
      October 10, 2023

      Just to confirm— adobe IS trying to put out some sort of update to where ALL versions and softwares is compatible for sonoma, correct?

        J
        Community Manager
        jenkmeister17177426Community ManagerAuthor
        Jenkmeister
        October 10, 2023
        The only truly supported AE version for Sonoma is 24.0. Any other AE version was released before Sonoma was released and as such there is no guarantee it will work.
        D
        dan32818533vh5h
        Participant
        October 10, 2023

        i tried to open up after effects a couple hours ago today, and it said "After Effects can't continue: unexpected failure during application startup". I use the 2020 version of after effects. Is the 2020 version not supported for the new mac sonoma 14.0 update?

          V
          victoria27459592leoa
          Participant
          October 10, 2023

          thank you - yes, I tried that but I'll do it again

          J
          Community Manager
          jenkmeister17177426Community ManagerAuthor
          Jenkmeister
          October 10, 2023

          Thanks @victoria27459592leoa - the log file indicates the failure likely occurred trying to get access to the Preferences which is this folder: 

          • /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/[Version]

           

          I know you mentioned you'd tried the permissions and locked state. Did you try backing up and deleting  /Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/[Version] from your machine. AE for some reason cannot read/write to the preferences folder which is why it is failing to startup. 

           

          V
          victoria27459592leoa
          Participant
          October 9, 2023

          Log file created: Mon Oct 9 23:35:04 2023
          -------------------------------------------
          Ticks = 1 <25084> <AppVers> <5> App Version = 24.0x55 release
          Ticks = 1 <25084> <AppDirs> <5> App Dir = /Applications/Adobe After Effects 2024/Adobe After Effects 2024.app/Contents
          Ticks = 1 <25084> <AppDirs> <5> Executable Dir = /Applications/Adobe After Effects 2024/Adobe After Effects 2024.app/Contents/MacOS
          Ticks = 1 <25084> <AppDirs> <5> Resources Dir = /Applications/Adobe After Effects 2024/Adobe After Effects 2024.app/Contents/Resources
          Ticks = 1 <25084> <AppDirs> <5> Package Dir = /Applications/Adobe After Effects 2024
          Ticks = 1 <25084> <AppDirs> <5> Plugin Dir = /Applications/Adobe After Effects 2024/Plug-Ins
          Ticks = 1 <25084> <AppDirs> <5> Required Dir = /Applications/Adobe After Effects 2024/Adobe After Effects 2024.app/Contents/Required
          Ticks = 59 <25084> <ALOG> <5> Egg Mac Startup
          Ticks = 83 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U Birth U Birth
          Ticks = 83 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U CPU Data LogicalCores:0, PhysicalCores:0, MMX:1, SSE:1 SSE2:1, SSE3:0, SSSE(MNI):0, SSE4_1:0, SSE4_2:0
          Ticks = 83 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U Birth U Hog Birth
          Ticks = 160 <25084> <ALOG> <5> FILE Birth FILE Birth
          Ticks = 160 <25084> <ALOG> <5> M Birth M Birth
          Ticks = 160 <25084> <ALOG> <5> RND Birth RND Birth
          Ticks = 681 <25084> <ALOG> <5> EGG Startup Caught exception, report as Err_Generic and aborting launch
          Ticks = 681 <25084> <ALOG> <5> EGG IEggApp Done.
          Ticks = 684 <25084> <ALOG> <5> EGG Constructor IEggApp failed, about to go away
          Ticks = 684 <25084> <ALOG> <5> MC MC_StopAllAsyncWork MC_StopAllAsyncWork
          Ticks = 684 <25084> <ALOG> <5> FLT Death FLT Death
          Ticks = 684 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U U_Sev_FATAL After Effects can’t continue: internal structure inconsistency (g) ( 25 :: 2 )
          Ticks = 707 <25084> <ALOG> <5> ReportError StackCrawl Up_ReportError
          FLTp_InsaneMagicChecker(short, short, FLT_Globals*, FLT_FCSeqSpec const*, FLTp_FrSpec*, FLT_FCAudSpec**, short, boost::shared_ptr<FLT_FCSpec>*)
          FLT_Death()
          CEggApp::Cleanup()
          CEggApp::FastExit()
          CEggApp::CEggApp(aelib::InitIterator&, bool, bool, boost::shared_ptr<StartupTimeTelemetry>)
          MainMain(bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, unsigned short const*, bool, void**, int, unsigned short const*)
          EggMain(bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, unsigned short const*, bool, unsigned short const*)
          main
          start
          ??? <0>

          Ticks = 4176 <25084> <ALOG> <5> PREF Death PREF Death
          Ticks = 4176 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U U_Sev_PROBLEM After Effects error: globals unborn. ( 21 :: 3 )
          Ticks = 4179 <25084> <ALOG> <5> ReportError StackCrawl Up_ReportError
          PREF_Death(unsigned char)
          CEggApp::Cleanup()
          CEggApp::FastExit()
          CEggApp::CEggApp(aelib::InitIterator&, bool, bool, boost::shared_ptr<StartupTimeTelemetry>)
          MainMain(bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, unsigned short const*, bool, void**, int, unsigned short const*)
          EggMain(bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, unsigned short const*, bool, unsigned short const*)
          main
          start
          ??? <0>

          Ticks = 5766 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U U_Sev_FATAL After Effects can’t continue: unexpected failure during application startup
          Ticks = 5768 <25084> <ALOG> <5> ReportError StackCrawl U_ReportError(unsigned int, unsigned short, std::__1::basic_string<unsigned short, std::__1::char_traits<unsigned short>, dvacore::allocator::STLAllocator<unsigned short>> const&)
          MainMain(bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, unsigned short const*, bool, void**, int, unsigned short const*)
          EggMain(bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, bool, unsigned short const*, bool, unsigned short const*)
          main
          start
          ??? <0>

          Ticks = 7298 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U U_SetMemoryInUseAdjustment setting adjustment from 0 to 0
          Ticks = 7299 <25084> <ALOG> <5> U Death U Death
          -------------------------------------------
          Log file closed: Mon Oct 9 23:35:11 2023

           

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