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Taavi Rull
Taavi Rull
Inspiring
December 14, 2023

After Effects UI lag

  • December 14, 2023
  • 28 replies
  • 4016 views

Hello,

I've struggled with a weird problem for a while now.
After Effects user interface is lagging a lot when working aroung in there. For an example working with keyframes or moving elements around on the preview panel or moving the layers in the timeline... Pretty much everywhere. Even in a project file with only audio file added to the timeline the UI lags... and during preview the audio is having a static effect.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the software. Updated drivers for graphics card, external sound card etc. Tried different settings in Preferences > Preview, Media Cache, Audio hardware, bought a new separate SSD just for Cache files. Nothing has worked so far. Even went through the trouble and did a clean format to the PC, installed the OS, drivers and apps from scratch. Lag still there. Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere all are working fine. The problem only occurs in After Effects. And for months now. Whats going on?

I have the latest AE version.
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with Radeon Graphics
Installed RAM 64 GB
GeForce RTX 3070 8GB, latest NVidia Game Ready drivers
All of the hard drives are SSD.
Win 11
PC less than a year old.

My older computer with lower specs doesn't have this issue, which makes it really confusing.

Have googled my eyes red. This is interrupting the workflow a lot.
Please help! Thank you.

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    28 replies

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    Taavi Rull
    Taavi RullAuthor
    Inspiring
    January 28, 2024

    For the sake of compliance I removed all of the scripts again, too see if a miracle would emerge. But unfortunately it didn't have any effect, again. Any thoughts so far?

      Taavi Rull
      Taavi RullAuthor
      Inspiring
      January 25, 2024

      Thank you for your reply!
      As I've mentioned earlier, I've even done a clean install to the OS with everything uninstalled, including the ScriptUIs. Didn't work. And on my older PC with the same scripts installed, everything works without problems. 

      Here you go, screen record located here:
      https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N5f4PM25zqB2nU-iuyLvgQEqWUIxa0Wr/view?usp=sharing

      Pay attention to the cursor freezing and then jumping. Happens even without anything on the timeline, right after generating a comp. And a lot more with just one simple shape layer generated.

      P
      Community Manager
      Paul UuCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      January 22, 2024

      One thing that jumps out in the log is that it appears you have several ScriptUI extensions installed. These can sometimes cause terrible performance issues.

      I see:
      Ease and Wizz.jsx
      RepositionAnchorPoint.jsx

      Could you remove these (and potentially any other such items you have installed) and see if that affects the UI Performance?

      And if that does not improve anything, another thing that might be helpful would be a screen recording showing exactly how the lag is occurring.

        P
        Community Manager
        Paul UuCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        January 22, 2024

        Sorry, missed your reply with the log. Digging in now.

          Taavi Rull
          Taavi RullAuthor
          Inspiring
          January 22, 2024

          Anything?

            Taavi Rull
            Taavi RullAuthor
            Inspiring
            January 16, 2024

            UPDATE:
            1. Updated BIOS - no effect
            (https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/10eqv1z/new_highend_pc_after_effects_laggy_timeline_and/?onetap_auto=true)
            2. Turned off Windows Hardware GPU Scheduler - no effect
            (https://www.reddit.com/r/AfterEffects/comments/w15lgq/after_effects_fully_crashing_pc_black_screen/)

            Taavi Rull
            Taavi RullAuthor
            Inspiring
            January 13, 2024

            Thank you for your answer!
            Here you go:
            https://drive.google.com/file/d/1soAmZScuVTPoNkviXrVN6nmoWNmpyIu_/view?usp=sharing

              P
              Community Manager
              Paul UuCommunity Manager
              Community Manager
              December 14, 2023

              First off, it would be helpful for us to get a logging file from you that might perhaps give us a clue as to what's occuring on your system:

              You can enable the logging via Help > Enable Logging. Once you've completed the necessary restart, peform all the tasks that seem to be causing you the issue. Then quit and relaunch AE. Go back to Help, this time select Reveal Logging File.

              Send us the .txt files found in the "logs" folder of the After Effects preferences. They should be named "After Effects Log.txt" and "After Effects Log-last.txt".

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