After Effects 25.1 crashes on startup in microsoft.ai.machinelearning.dll (1.24.4) – temporarily fixed by reverting to 1.17

Hello Adobe team,

I am experiencing a startup crash with Adobe After Effects 2025 version 25.1.0.68 on Windows.

After Effects crashes during startup, and Windows Event Viewer reports that the faulting module is:

Faulting application name: AfterFX.exe
Faulting application version: 25.1.0.68

Faulting module name: microsoft.ai.machinelearning.dll
Faulting module version: 1.24.4.0

Exception code: 0xc0000409

Faulting module path:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CC\File Formats\microsoft.ai.machinelearning.dll

The corresponding onnxruntime.dll in the same Adobe folder is also version 1.24.4.

What I found

I confirmed that the problem appears to be related to the 1.24.4 AI/ML runtime.

With the original files:

microsoft.ai.machinelearning.dll  1.24.4.0
onnxruntime.dll                    1.24.4

After Effects 25.1 crashes on startup.

However, I backed up the original 1.24.4 files and replaced both DLLs with the following matching 1.17 build:

microsoft.ai.machinelearning.dll

Version: 1.17.20240223.4.8f5c79c

onnxruntime.dll

Version: 1.17.20240223.4.8f5c79c

After replacing both DLLs, After Effects 25.1 launches normally.

I have also verified that the 1.17 DLLs are digitally signed by Adobe.

Current workaround

My current folder looks like this:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CC\File Formats\

with:

microsoft.ai.machinelearning.dll → 1.17.20240223.4.8f5c79c

onnxruntime.dll → 1.17.20240223.4.8f5c79c

microsoft.ai.machinelearning.dll.bak → 1.24.4.0

onnxruntime.dll.bak → 1.24.4

With the 1.17 pair installed, After Effects starts normally.

My questions

1. Is it safe to continue using After Effects 25.1 with the 1.17 versions of these two DLLs?
2. Could using the older Microsoft.AI.MachineLearning.dll and onnxruntime.dll cause problems with After Effects, Adobe Media Encoder, rendering, or any AI/ML-related features?
3. What version of Microsoft.AI.MachineLearning.dll and onnxruntime.dll is officially compatible with After Effects 25.1.0.68?
4. Was After Effects 25.1 originally released with the 1.17.20240223.4.8f5c79c versions of these DLLs, and were they later updated through a Creative Cloud/shared Adobe component?
5. If version 1.24.4 is the intended/current version, is Adobe planning to release a fixed version that works correctly with After Effects 25.1?

I would prefer not to keep manually replacing Adobe DLLs, so I would like to know whether I should keep the 1.17 workaround or wait for an official fix/update.

Thank you.