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tamil_1001
Participant
October 31, 2025

After Effects crashes when either TextInputHost or ShellExperienceHost is suspended

  • October 31, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 56 views

Product: Adobe After Effects
Version: 25.5
Platform: Windows 11

 

Issue Summary:

Manually suspending the core Windows processes TextInputHost.exe or ShellExperienceHost.exe using Process Explorer immediately causes After Effects to enter a “Not Responding” state and freeze.
Once the suspended process is resumed, After Effects instantly becomes responsive again and functions normally.

 

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Launch After Effects with any project open.
  2. Open Process Explorer and locate TextInputHost.exe and ShellExperienceHost.exe.
  3. Suspend one or both of these processes.
  4. Attempt to interact with After Effects.

 

Expected Result:

After Effects should ideally handle the temporary unavailability of these background services gracefully, without freezing.

 

Actual Result

After Effects immediately freezes and becomes unresponsive until the suspended process is resumed.

 

Notes

The goal is to understand whether After Effects has a specific dependency on TextInputHost.exe or ShellExperienceHost.exe that causes such a hard freeze, or if this behavior is expected from the Windows operating system itself.

1 reply

O
OliviaHazel
Participating Frequently
October 31, 2025

When you suspend TextInputHost.exe or ShellExperienceHost.exe, you’re basically freezing some of Windows’ core UI services.

  • TextInputHost.exe handles stuff like text input boxes, IMEs, emojis, and keyboard interactions in Windows.

  • ShellExperienceHost.exe runs parts of the Windows shell (Start menu, taskbar, system UI, etc.).

After Effects depends on those to keep its interface responsive — especially anything involving text fields, menus, or panels. So when you pause those processes, AE’s UI can’t talk to Windows properly and just ends up hanging. As soon as you resume them, everything unfreezes instantly because Windows starts passing messages again.

It’s not really an AE bug — it’s just how Windows works. Most big desktop apps (like Photoshop, Premiere, etc.) will freeze if you suspend those processes since their UI message loop gets blocked. Smaller apps or games that use their own input systems usually don’t care, which is why they keep running fine.

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