After Effects ignores the updated default Output File Name Template preset

I tried to change the default output path that gets assigned when I add a composition to the Render Queue, so I edited the File Name and Location Template preset.

I had previously set a template named Preview as the default, so I edited it and saved it under the same name:

[projectFolder]\preview\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[projectName]_[compName].[fileextension]

I also made sure the preset was marked as the default.

However, when I added a composition to the Render Queue, the automatically assigned output path still used the old value.

I ended up digging through the preference files and found that the issue was in "Adobe After Effects 26.2 Prefs-indep-output.txt". When I changed the old template directly in "Output Module Spec Strings Section v28", the problem was finally fixed.

That section seems badly broken. It contains a lot of empty entries, and the same template appears multiple times in different slots. In this case, the template I saved as Preview was defined six times.

Here is the relevant part:

["Output Module Spec Strings Section v28"]
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 0" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 1" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 10" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 11" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 12" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 13" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 14" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 15" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 16" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 17" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 18" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 19" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 2" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 20" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 21" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 22" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 23" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 24" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 25" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 26" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 27" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 28" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 3" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 4" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 5" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 6" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 7" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 8" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings Base Path 9" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 0" = "[projectFolder]\[compName].[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 1" = "[projectFolder]\[compName]_[dateMonth][dateDay].[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 10" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 11" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 12" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 13" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 14" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 15" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 16" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 17" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 18" = "[projectFolder]\preview\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[projectName]_[compName]."\
        "[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 19" = "[projectFolder]\preview\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[projectName]_[compName]."\
        "[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 2" = "[projectFolder]\preview\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[projectName]_[compName]."\
        "[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 20" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 21" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 22" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 23" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 24" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 25" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 26" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 27" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 28" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 3" = "[projectFolder]\preview\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[projectName]_[compName]."\
        "[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 4" = "[projectFolder]\preview\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[projectName]_[compName]."\
        "[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 5" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 6" = "[projectFolder]\Proxy\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[compName].[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 7" = ""
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 8" = "preview\6 Texture.[fileExtension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings File Pattern 9" = "[projectFolder]\preview\[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay]_[projectName]_[compName]."\
        "[fileextension]"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 0" = "1/4 TIFF"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 1" = "AIFF 48kHz"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 10" = "High Quality"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 11" = "High Quality with Alpha"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 12" = "Lossless"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 13" = "Lossless with Alpha"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 14" = "Multi-Machine Sequence"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 15" = "Photoshop"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 16" = "QuickTime Lossless"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 17" = "QuickTime Lossless Proxy"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 18" = "QuickTime NotchLC"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 19" = "QuickTime NotchLC Proxy"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 2" = "Alpha Only"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 20" = "TIFF Sequence with Alpha"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 21" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 16"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 22" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 16 Premul"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 23" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 32"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 24" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 32 Premul"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 25" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 8"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 26" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 8 Premul"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 27" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 8"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 28" = "_HIDDEN X-Factor 8 Premul"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 3" = "Apple ProRes 422 HQ"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 4" = "Apple ProRes 4444"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 5" = "Apple ProRes 4444 with alpha"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 6" = "Apple ProRes 4444 with alpha Proxy"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 7" = "Create Proxy"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 8" = "H.264 - Match Render Settings -  5 Mbps"
    "Output Module Spec Strings Name 9" = "H.264 - Match Render Settings - 15 Mbps"

It really does look strange.

What made this more confusing is that the contents of "Adobe After Effects 26.2 Prefs.txt" looked correct at first glance, which cost me a lot of time:

["Output File Name Template Presets Data Section v5"]
    "Default Index v3" = "12"
    "Default Seq Index v3" = "0"

["Output File Name Template Presets Section v6"]
    "000" = "Comp Name"00"[compName].[fileExtension]"00
    "001" = "Comp Folder and Name"00"[compName]/[compName].[fileExtension]"00
    "002" = "Comp And Output Module Name"00"[compName]_[outputModuleName].[fileExtension]"00
    "003" = "Project And Comp Name"00"[projectName]_[compName].[fileExtension]"00
    "004" = "Comp Name And Dimensions"00"[compName]_[width]x[height].[fileExtension]"00
    "005" = "Comp And Frame Range"00"[compName]_[startFrame]-[endFrame].[fileExtension]"00
    "006" = "Comp Name And Date/Time"00"[compName]_[dateYear]-[dateMonth]-[dateDay]_[timeHour"\
        "]-[timeMins].[fileExtension]"00
    "007" = "Comp Name and Aspect Ratio"00"[compName]_[aspectRatio].[fileExtension]"00
    "008" = "Proxy"00"[projectFolder]\AeProxy\[compName]_[dateYear][dateMonth][dateDay].[file"\
        "extension]"00
    "009" = "CurrentPath/CompName"00"[projectFolder]\[compName].[fileextension]"00
    "010" = "Date/CompName_Date_Time"00"[projectFolder]\[dateMonth][dateDay]\[compName]_[date"\
        "Month][dateDay]_[timeHour][timeMins].[fileextension]"00
    "011" = "Fix Render"00"[projectFolder]\Render\[projectName]_[compName]_[dateYear][dateMon"\
        "th][dateDay].[fileextension]"00
    "012" = "Preview"00"[projectFolder]\preview\[projectName]_[compName]_[dateYear][dateMonth"\
        ""][dateDay].[fileextension]"00
    "013" = "CurrentPath/CompName_Data"00"[projectFolder]\[compName]_[dateMonth][dateDay].[fi"\
        "leextension]"00

Ignoring the odd line breaks and 00 separators, the structure seems understandable. In my case, the intended Preview preset is defined as entry 012, and Default Index v3 is set to 12 in the data section. So unless something else is interfering, that should mean Preview is the default output template. But clearly something was off here.

Could this be fixed in a future update?

P.S. The preference file format is also pretty difficult to work with. If it is meant to be JSON, YAML, or something similar, it should probably use the corresponding extension and a readable structure. If it is an Adobe-specific format, it would still be much easier to maintain if it were replaced with something modern like JSON or YAML. The extra line breaks and the 00 separators make it look unnecessarily odd.