Laggy Typing in After Effects is getting worse.

@JohnColombo17100380 Unfortunately the same behaviour has appeared again, where the last character gets dropped off.

It seems to be related to how much the computer/After Effects is struggling overall.

That would explain why disabling frame caching and renaming the layer at the very least solved the issue when my timeline is blank. However if there are a few animations or effects applied, the same problem resurfaces.

Hi @JohnColombo17100380 thanks for the tips.

Looks ok so far. Haven't had the issue occur yet!

I suspect it's to do with the Cache Frames setting, as for the most part I haven't been bothering changing the layer names (I forget!).

Thank you for sending the log over, @Rob217717683hsl. Looking at the log, try the following to see if it helps with the lag:

• Disable "Cache Frames When Idle" in the Composition menu under "Preview".
• Rename the Text layer in the Timeline to something different than the content, so After Effects doesn't rename the layer each time the content of the Text layer changes.

Do you also see the same lag when the Character panel is closed? If not, do you see the lag when the new Properties panel is open?

Thanks again for any further information, 

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

Hey @JohnColombo17100380 

I've taken a log file. Saw the issue immediately on 23.4. How do I DM you?

FYI, I have no third party plugins installed at all. It's an out-of-the-box installation.

@Rob217717683hsl A log file might be more helpful in seeing what is causing the lag on your systems. You can enable logging via the Help menu > Enable Logging, then relaunch After Effects when prompted. After creating a Text layer and experiencing the lag, choose "Reveal Log File" from the Help menu to show a few different folders containing logging info. We need to see "After Effects Log.txt" in the "logs" folder. Please share a link to this .txt file, ideally via DM (it will contain some file paths/names).

Some other info that would be helpful as we investigate: 

• In your original report, you were using AE 23.0. Have you continued to see this issue with the most recent updates to After Effects?
• The latest version, 23.4, has a new Safe Mode feature under Preferences > Startup & Repair. If you start in Safe Mode with third-party plug-ins disabled, does the lag still occur?
• Have you been able to try the latest Beta builds, with the recent fixes for type, and see if the lag is occurring there as well?

Keep in mind: a plug-in, panel, or typeface does not have to be used in the current project to cause lag or other issues. Simply being installed is often enough. 

Thanks again for any further information you can provide, I hope we can get to the bottom of this.

- John, After Effects Engineering Team 

@JohnColombo17100380 Do you need a hand recreating this issue? I just opened After Effects to work on titles for an EOFY Sale and it happened on the second word. Happy to share my screen and recreate it.

Hi @JohnColombo17100380 

I've captured another video. You can see that I type 'REFLECTEC', but the last C doesn't appear unless I hit another character...

Again, any font, no plugins, no effects, only animated shapes and a trakmat, behaviour seen on multiple Intel Macs.

Video link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yhk91rzFG8fz8dtpGxtQ4KiMsE1JpjrL/view?usp=share_link

@JohnColombo17100380 Unfortunately I don't think there's much in common between the Macs that I've expeirneced this on.

The iMacs were older i7 models using DDR3 ram.

The newer Macs are i9 16" Macbook Pros with DDR4.

Also running different versions of MacOS.

I experienced also a strong decrease in performance whe using fonts.
It is unusable. So sad.

Ah, thanks for the references to the other thread, @Rob217717683hsl. I'm able to reproduce the issue Sean mentioned there, but only on Macs using Apple Silicon, so it may not be the same thing you're experiencing on the Intel Macs. The work I mentioned involving the type engine might also affect that issue, so it could still be worth trying out the latest Beta builds to see if you experience the same lag as in the release build.

Since you are seeing this on multiple Intel Macs, what else could those Macs have in common? I have an (older, late 2014) Intel iMac that has no lag issues when typing, but it's a relatively clean machine as far as typefaces and third-party plug-ins go.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team