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Playback completely non-functional in AE 26.3 (timeline does not advance)

Forum|Forum|2 days ago
June 24, 2026
1 reply
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Playback completely non-functional in AE 26.3 (timeline does not advance) — works fine after rollback to 25.6

After Effects: 26.3 (2026)

OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit (build 26200)

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (20 cores)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti (16GB VRAM), driver 32.0.16.1062 (June 11, 2026)

RAM: 64GB

Premiere Pro runs and plays back normally on the same machine

Playback is completely non-functional in After Effects 26.3. Pressing spacebar, clicking the play button in the Preview panel, and using Composition > Preview > Play Current Preview all fail. The timecode does not advance at all — not even a single frame plays. No green/red render bar appears.

Manually dragging the playhead updates the composition view correctly, so frame rendering works fine — only the playback engine (time advancement) is dead. The issue reproduces even in a brand-new project with a single solid layer, so it is unrelated to project content, footage, or expressions.

Tried (all failed):

Reset preferences (Ctrl+Alt+Shift)

Full uninstall + reinstall of After Effects

Run as administrator

GPU acceleration set to Mercury Software Only

Disabled Multi-Frame Rendering

Updated GPU drivers

Purged all memory & disk cache

Reassigned spacebar to "Play Current Preview" in Keyboard Shortcuts

Verified Audio Hardware output / played with audio disabled

Confirmed composition frame rate is normal (29.97)

Key finding:

Rolling back to After Effects 25.6 (Nov 2025) resolves the issue immediately — playback works normally on the exact same machine and project.

Holy shit, I wasted hours on this goddamn thing.

Nishu Kushwaha

Community Manager

Hi omg_468414, sorry for the hours you lost to this and thanks for the detailed report.

Were you able to preview your timeline in Ae version 26.2 or 26.0? If you have the Ae 26.3 still installed (yes, you can keep both 26.3 and 25.6 at the same time), can you collect the log file from it and share? Here's how:

Start AE
Help Menu > Enable Logging
Restart AE
Replicate the issue
Help Menu > Reveal Logging Files...
Find the "After Effects Log.txt" file and copy/paste the content back to this forum thread.

I am hoping the logs will capture what's not working as it should. As confirmed, rolling back to 25.6 via Creative Cloud is a valid workaround while we get this addressed.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Nishu

omg_468414Author

Participant

Hi Nishu,

Thanks for the steps! Sorry I didn't send this sooner — had no idea there was a logging option. Log file from 26.3 with the issue reproduced is attached.

One thing I noticed: in the log, the RAM Preview jobs all seem to start and complete fine (frames render with no errors), but nothing actually shows in the viewer and the timecode stays frozen. So it looks like the rendering is working but the on-screen output isn't.

I also tested 26.0 — same issue there. Happy to test anything else if it helps.

Thanks,

After Effects Log.txt

Nishu Kushwaha

Community Manager

Thanks for getting back and sharing the log file. I’ll get it checked with the product team. However, because of the summer shutdown, it may take some time. I’ll share as soon as I have an update.

Thanks for your patience.

Best,

Nishu

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