Skip to main content
P
Professor Venezia
Participant
March 22, 2025

After Effects Consistently Crashes with Some MP4 Files.

  • March 22, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 561 views

I have been having issues with some MP4 files in After Effects. However, the same files work absolutely fine in Premiere Pro. I am using the latest version of After Effects, 25.1.0 on a Mac Studio Ultra M2 with 128 gigs of RAM and OS Sonoma 14.7.3.

There is a huge inconsistency. Also, After Effects still crashes after I process the culprit files through Media Encoder or directly through Premiere. It also crashes in Safe Mode as well as after I blow away preferences. I am grading my students' projects and will upload one of the files that keeps crashing After Effects. I have many other examples of files that cause crashes as well as many examples of files that don't. I have been using After Effects since 1995 and have been able to troubleshoot about every technical issue I have encountered. I may have met my match with this one. But I hope someone has a solution.

4 replies

P
Professor VeneziaAuthor
Participant
April 22, 2025

Hi John,  

I just read your response to my issue. I have still been experiencing After Effects freezing with .mov and h.264 files, and my workaround has gotten me through several projects. I never thought about downloading the beta version. I just did that and created a simple project based on one that froze almost instantly earlier today. So far there is no crashing in the beta. I'll keep testing. But I am encouraged that the problem has been solved. Thanks for your input!  

JohnColombo17100380
Community Manager
JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
Community Manager
March 27, 2025

Hi @Professor Venezia,

In testing the project and footage in the latest 25.3 After Effects (Beta) builds on Mac, I'm not seeing the crash occur. It is possible that this issue has been fixed already—would you be able to install the latest build of After Effects (Beta) from the Creative Cloud app and see if the issue appears fixed for you as well?

 

Thanks again,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

JohnColombo17100380
Community Manager
JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
Community Manager
March 27, 2025

Thanks, @nishu_kush, for the ping and thank you @Professor Venezia for reporting this issue. I can also reproduce the crash on an Apple Silicon Mac and we now have a ticket filed to investigate further. If there are any updates, we will update this forum thread.

Thanks again,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

P
Professor VeneziaAuthor
Participant
March 22, 2025

I just tried a couple more tests. I have A.E. CC23 and 24 on my computer. I was able to save the crashing project file back a version. I was then able to open it in After Effects CC24 and work flawlessly with the same footage that caused crashes in CC25. After I saved that project file I was able to bring it back into After Effects CC25 and it work perfectly. Then I saved a blank project file in A.E. CC24, opened it with CC25, then imported the very same .mp4 file that was causing the crashes and had no problems with that either. 

nishu_kush
nishu_kush
Legend
March 27, 2025

Sorry for your issue and delayed response.

 

Seems like it's the project. I imported a different footage in your project file, and the same issue occurred. However, your media file works fine in a new project in the latest version of After Effects. I'll try to get it investigated with the product team.

@JohnColombo17100380 do you mind taking a look?


Thanks,
Nishu

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices